Article

2007-10-23 Europe

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by 3dc 2007-10-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 Money:

By promoting "moderate Islam" on the Turkish model, Taspinar adds, America undermined the secular state founded by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. That is why secular Turkish nationalists hate America just as much as Turkish Islamists.

Its Bush allowing state to screw thigns up again. Grow a pair George and quit being a damned wimp.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-23 01:29|| 2007-10-23 01:29|| Front Page Top

#2 Good writeup - Turky is in a vise between islamists and its own faile Kemalists. They need ato break up Turkey and break apart the Kurds and other suppressed miorites, like to hold former SU states did.

Civil war is coming to Turkey.

And its long overdue.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-23 01:35|| 2007-10-23 01:35|| Front Page Top

#3 The State Department has been endorsing "political islam" since the Clinton administration. I recall seeing a photo montage of pictures of the wives of Egyptian leaders, before and after US dhimmitude. In the older photo, none of the wives are robes; in the current version, ALL are. The perception of anti-secularist leadership in America, is not far fetched.

Posted by McZoid 2007-10-23 02:06|| 2007-10-23 02:06|| Front Page Top

#4 The culprit, he argued convincingly, is Washington's misguided promotion of Turkey as a model of "moderate Islam". The abominable stupidity of American policy towards the region - I would use stronger words if I could find them - is in large measure responsible for the looming catastrophe.

Mind you, it's not in our being repressive or anti-Muslim, it is precisely because we have tried to reconcile with an implaccable enemy. We could not be more stupid.

Professor Taspinar, who also teaches at the National War College, is one of America's best-known experts on his native country, and I am chagrined to have overlooked his analysis until now. He places most of the blame on Washington's portrayal of Turkey as a paragon of the "moderate Islam" it wants to sell to the rest of the Muslim world.

Bush and most of America's traitor elite continue to seek out some sort of example of "moderate" Islam, when there is no such thing. They will continue to do so until, one day, untold thousands or hundreds of thousands of Americans are slaughtered in a final demonstration of just how "moderate" Islam really is.

By promoting "moderate Islam" on the Turkish model, Taspinar adds, America undermined the secular state founded by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. That is why secular Turkish nationalists hate America just as much as Turkish Islamists.

DO NOT underestimate the importance of this one single observation.

Turkey is enmeshed in a terrible battle for its national identity, in which neither the secular nor the Islamist parties have any use for "moderate Islam".

Key concept.

Partition implies the realization of Turkey's worst nightmare (and one of the nastier nightmares for Iran and Syria), namely an independent Kurdish state with its capital at Kirkuk, the "Kurdish Jerusalem", sitting on abundant oil revenues.

Boy, howdy. That just rips my heart out, ya know?

... nowhere is it written that Washington must try to avert a Turkish civil war. America's civil war was the best and bravest thing it ever accomplished; it washed away the stain of slavery with an ocean of blood. The cost was terrible, but human freedom is beyond price. If Turkey requires a civil war to choose between a Western and Islamic identity, who is to say that what was good for America is not the cure for Turkey as well?

Yowwie!! Suffice to say that Sunni and Shi'ia discord are now bearing their final bitter fruit: Namely, an independent Kurdistan. Had Islam's two major sects been able to reach some sort of accord, they might have had the moral authority to prevent Kurdish statehood. Instead, nothing could be more fitting and all that remains is to wonder whether Kirkuk's "Jerusalem" will be the center-point of an equal amount of religious strife as its spiritual namesake. No way am I betting against it.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-10-23 02:18|| 2007-10-23 02:18|| Front Page Top

#5 Zen: "Traitor elite" is exactly right. I never fail to find a grotesque amusement in leftardic rantings about this supposed warmonger president. The entire establishment sucking off the saudi oil teat have bought and paid for the maniacs out to slit our throats.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-10-23 09:12|| 2007-10-23 09:12|| Front Page Top

#6 BS. I have lived in Turkey, ran projects there, travelled it and even saw it in the service. This has a long run-up before Bush, before Clinton, before even Carter. Turkey is a moslem country, period. It is as secular as you can get being moslem, much like Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt and Lebanon. But like Indonesia, the army controls the secularization - however, the politics has creeping Islamization much like the other states except Egypt which is a true authoritarian state with a repressed by present Islamic movement. The Turkish military has allowed the Islamists to remain in power as long as they keep their Islamization limited. Once they go sharia the army will take the country back. The only thing "moderate" is that it is a democratic country if you extend that definition to the way politics and religion are practiced in Turkey. They are caught between a rock (Moderinization and moving toward Europe) and a hard place (Islamization). Turkey is its own problem - even State couldn't have screwed it up as bad as it has done to itself (with France and Europe's help more than America's).

Posted by Jack is Back!">Jack is Back! 2007-10-23 09:58|| 2007-10-23 09:58|| Front Page Top

#7 Why does Turkey hate America?

Cause November 22nd is just around the corner?

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-10-23 12:29|| 2007-10-23 12:29|| Front Page Top

#8 Jack, the question is: Wil the Army take the chance to occupy N Iraq as a distraction for the Turkish people, or not?

If so the Army will disappear after the US attacks and defeats it in Iraq. And its vulnerability, especially once they get rolled back, and have Turkish soliders paraded around as POWs by , will be evident.

Thats when the Kurds and others figure they might have a chance, and Turkey falls apart in a massive civil war.

Surely the Turks cannot be that stupid, can they?

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-23 12:36|| 2007-10-23 12:36|| Front Page Top

#9 No way the the US attacks the Turkish Army. A strong letter of reprimand and a 2 week vacation back home for the Turkish ambassador. It's the only secular institution in a region of islamic chauvanism. If the Kurds want to try to give the Turks a bloody nose, no one can stop them from trying. In addition, US forces are reliant on Turkish supply lines and don't need to be fighting a much larger NATO force. There are bigger beturbaned fish to fry.

Posted by ed 2007-10-23 12:52|| 2007-10-23 12:52|| Front Page Top

#10 I am all for a two pronged attack. One to take back Constantinople, the other to take that 40 mile strip of desert in S.Arabia.

Posted by Broadhead6 2007-10-23 13:01|| 2007-10-23 13:01|| Front Page Top

#11 ed if we do NOT attack the invading Turks, the Kurds will - and the Iraqi army will disintegrate as the Kurds in it flow N to defend their homeland.

We have no choice but to attack any and all Turkish units if they make any moves beyond the small mountainous areas where the PKK operate, and of they make any move at all toward attacking the cities or abusing the citizens.

Right now, Iraq is far more important than Turkey. And I suggest you re4ad the Spengler article thats linked to here. The Turks are no longer allies - they are one of the most anti-American nations in the world.

As for the Turkish Army - what good is that secularism if all it presents is warmed over fascist Kemalism, and the stomping of a valuable ally in the region, the Kurds? It will be seen as a sellout by the US, in the region. ANd that will cause even more trouble.

Again, go read that article that is linked to here. And read VDH as well.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-23 13:09|| 2007-10-23 13:09|| Front Page Top

#12 The West used to support the Ba'athists as a "secular" alternative too. See where that got us.

Posted by Excalibur 2007-10-23 13:25|| 2007-10-23 13:25|| Front Page Top

#13 Oldspook, This is only muslim rooster chest puffing. Any incursion will be shallow and short lived. We would be demanding the same if attacks cam from Canada or Mexico. We don't need to the fighting a half million man army, especially when our supply line goes through their territory.

We need to manage this situation and let the Turk military know in no uncertain terms that if they go too far they will lose access to our latest weapons, while in a few years Iraqis will be equipped with said weapons and then it may be the Iraqis who will cross the border with impunity.

Don't lose sight of the real enemy. It is Iran. We keep screwing around and delay the inevitable war and one day we will see 20 million American vaporized.

Posted by ed 2007-10-23 13:27|| 2007-10-23 13:27|| Front Page Top

#14 This has a long run-up before Bush, before Clinton, before even Carter.

Indeed, which is why I include Bush with America's traitor elite in my own list of who's to blame. Moreover, it is vital to know that Islam has, does and will always hate us no matter what we do. There is no possible conciliation with Islam.

Turkey is a moslem country, period. It is as secular as you can get being moslem, much like Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt and Lebanon.

Which, essentially, means superficially secular and rabidly Muslim. Thereby being of no use to us and in need of a smackdown. Fortunately, Turkey being the, well, turkey it always has been they will most likely find some way to descend into civil war. At that point, perhaps the military will use their force to quell the Muslim population, even if it takes more than decimation.

Don't lose sight of the real enemy. It is Iran. We keep screwing around and delay the inevitable war and one day we will see 20 million American vaporized.

Word, ed. Let Turkey fall on its own sword. Iran is Job #1.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-10-23 13:38|| 2007-10-23 13:38|| Front Page Top

#15 Which, essentially, means superficially secular and rabidly Muslim.

Actually, I think there is a genuine split in the populace. The cosmopolitan secular elite actually reject much of islamic dogma, but they are vastly outnumbered by the average/rural Turks who are observant muslims. The problem is that with the push to democratic reforms, the Turkish muslim norm has risen to the elite positions and will over time push out the seculars, military coup not withstanding. That's the read I get from my relatives who were stationed there during the cold war.

Posted by ed 2007-10-23 13:53|| 2007-10-23 13:53|| Front Page Top

#16 Thank you for the insight, ed. However:

The cosmopolitan secular elite actually reject much of islamic dogma, but they are vastly outnumbered by the average/rural Turks who are observant muslims.

Secular or no, until Turkey's intelligentsia violently "reject" fundamentalist Islam, they will represent nothing more than the moderate Muslim baby who gets thrown out with the jihadist bathwater. The West cannot afford to waste its breath upon those, Muslim or otherwise, who are unwilling to take the task in hand, onerous though it may be. While unapparent, Islam's very survival is at stake, we have only yet to make that fact a much more stark feature in the MME (Muslim Middle East) landscape.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-10-23 14:15|| 2007-10-23 14:15|| Front Page Top

#17 Spook:

My point is that the only thing keeping Turkey from going full monty Islamicfascism, ala Iran, is the army. I wouldn't even call the army "a moslem army". They are about as secular as you can get. They used to vet pretty seriously and competently any Islamist trying to get in and watch the officer corps like a hawk for any Islamic tendencies. You can bow east 5 times a day but you'll never get promoted, never get the car and driver, never get the nice base housing, etc. But the army is like any other army, it is there to protect and defend its homeland regardless of the politics of the PKK vis a vis a united Kurdistan. It is not going to sit idly by while the PKK (now under somewhat US protection) excursions the border and kills and captures its assets. So the dilemma I see is not one of Turkey vs. Iraq or an emerging Islamic state in Turkey but the army who guarantees Turkey's secularism (and therefore its Nato membership) defending its homeland and itself. You know, no Nato member has ever gone toe to toe with another Nato member. Iraq is defacto a US territory at this time whether we want to admit it or not. That is why the Congress is so stupid and wantonly unpatriotic to put our Nato alliance in jeopardy.

Posted by Jack is Back!">Jack is Back! 2007-10-23 16:24|| 2007-10-23 16:24|| Front Page Top

#18 What I was concerned with is overkill - you dont put 2 Armored disions deployed in echelon up on the border of a mountainous area unless you are roarignly7 incompetent as to theri deployment into said mountainous area, or else you are planning a penetration and breaktrhough into more favoreable terrain, i.e. Kirkuk.

Thats what ahs my eye. Had they moved in a couple of Infatry untis or split the armored division upinto combined arms teasm, and reployed it alont eh border widely for a broad but shallow push, I'd not be nearly as concerned.

HAving them change the deployment and stance of those Armored Divisions woudl go a long way toward showing thier intent to be an acceptable level of over the border incustion, but not an invasion.

You simply do not line up full armored divisions in narrow assault depth on major roads if all you need is coutneroffensives into mountainopus terrain. Its a recipe for disaster for those units if they try to roll them into the mountains like that.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-23 18:20|| 2007-10-23 18:20|| Front Page Top

#19 Allow me to respectfully play Devil's Advocate:

A) 2 Divisions is a lot of troops (20,000+ ?) As OS says, running thru the mountains will get them chewed up pretty quickly. Given that stupidity and incompetence are often good explanations - are the Turks that stupid?

B) Lots of troops. Is this a demonstration - a display to put some fear into the PKK and show the US the Turks are serious?

C) Again, lots of troops. Is this the Turkish idea of what to bring to an insurgent stomping? I would expect more infantry than armor, but maybe they feel they need the support. We are kinda sorta back to the incompetence thing.

Thanks.

Posted by SteveS 2007-10-23 21:13|| 2007-10-23 21:13|| Front Page Top

#20 Steve S, its not just numbers, but deployement postures and compostion.

THats what rings the alarm bells. If we were to spread the 4th ID along our border wiht Mexico, there'd be outcry about closing the border, but not alk at all about invasion. On the other hand were we to mount up the 1st Cav and 1st AD out of Ft Hood and put them on the major roads concentrated for a deep enetration, people would be thinting we are making an oil grab into Mexico.

Force composition and posture mean a lot.

That being said, I did mention elsewhere that this might jsut be Turkish posturing to get the US to move againt the PKK. I'm hoping htats all this ends up being. THe consequences of the worst-case are terrifying.

Posted by OldSpook 2007-10-23 23:16|| 2007-10-23 23:16|| Front Page Top

23:45 Barbara Skolaut
23:38 High Brow
23:28 crosspatch
23:21 crosspatch
23:18 OldSpook
23:16 OldSpook
23:11 OldSpook
22:48 Pheagar the Imposter4243
22:47 Xenophon
22:44 Frank G
22:26 Anonymoose
22:25 Intrinsicpilot
22:24 trailing wife
22:22 Halliburton - Flaterpillar Division
22:20 BA
22:18 BA
22:17 Frank G
22:14 Frank G
22:13 Frank G
22:12 Zenster
22:11 Frank G
21:56 SteveS
21:32 Varmint Jomons4229
21:24 Jerens Lumumba6729