State Dept fiddles as Turkey votes for more Islamist party AGAIN
GERTZ - The State Department has completely misunderstood the overwhelming victory of Turkey's pro-Islamic party in national elections.
State regards the win of the Justice and Development Party as an expression of a democratic Islam in Turkey and a model for other Muslim states. As U.S. diplomats see it, the election of an Islamist government in Turkey makes perfect sense even if the country goes jihad.
The U.S. intelligence community has rejected the Islam Ubber Alles approach. The community has warned that Turkey was quickly moving away from the Western fold.
A poll by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center shows the intelligence community to be correct. The poll reveals overwhelming anti-Americanism in Turkey, with 77 percent of Turks regarding the United States as a potential military threat to their country. Sixty four percent said the United States posed the greatest threat to their country.
The poll marked a significant increase in anti-Americanism in Turkey. In 2005, 66 percent of Turkey regarded the United States as a potential threat to Ankara.What this means is that the new Justice and Development government in Turkey will find it more difficult to work with the United States, particularly in Iraq. The U.S. intelligence community assert that Turkey fears Washington's alliance with the Kurds in northern Iraq and the U.S. failure to quell the Kurdish Workers Party, which has been attacking Turkey.
The Pew poll showed Turkish society as volatile. While the military was said to be the most popular institution, with 85 percent, only 26 percent said they were satisfied with their lives. The assessment: Turkey could confront a major crisis that will test its commitment to NATO and the West.
It means there is nothing wrong with democracy. This is all a REAL reflection of the fact that another very disparate culture and religion has very different needs and wants, and that a significant proportion if not outright and or LARGE majority find that the relationship with the people of the United States, and by extension the west, is one of enmity.
I don't understand why this is not yet clear to everyone at State, at the CIA, and in the executive and legislative branches.
Poll after poll, and vote after vote shows this to be objective fact.
6 comments:
What does it mean for democracy when Islam(ist) parties win vote after vote
It means that, once again, we have confused democracy, a means, with human liberty, an end.
In most adolescent cultures around the world, democracy still means one man, one vote, once.
Very worrying the Turkish situation. They social split is going to be huge sooner or later, between these peaceful-and-loving-and-caring Islamists and the secularists.
The role of the Army is going to be decisive now, because it has already said they are going to defend secularism, as they have done in the past.
Well put, Anonymous.
And, Vorzheva, unfortunately, when the military is the deciding vote, that is called Fascism. I'm not saying I disagree with you. I'm just telling you what the Left is going to call it.
Of course, as odd as those folks from the protest look, they are hardly dressed as your average Turks. What does all of this mean? Time for another incursion by the Turkish Army, assuming it has not become too radicalized.
Support your local Kemalists! (Or even your not-so-local ones, as in those IN Turkiye!) I have run a series of videos in three parts at my place (What Would Charles Martel Do?) by a Turkish friend who cusses just wonderfully in English and talks of The Situation in Turkey. All of the series are good, especially coming from a comedian. But he really hates theocrats in his country.
Stop by and check out Efe's views on Turkey, just one Turk's views, a young man devoted to secularism. I did mention that his use of English is very lovely and at times colorful, right?
--Pim's Ghost's Ghost
Of course the US is unpopular in Turkey. It lied, it invaded another country just because it could, it ended up causing more civilian deaths than the regime it toppled, and in Guantanamo shines a beacon of inhumanity that quite eclipses traditional views of the US. What's to like, right now?
On the other hand, when Bush goes and anyone semi-sensible comes back in his place, views of the US will surely improve.
Fortunately, "the West" has never been equivalent to "the US". While real democracies devoted to human rights, the rule of (secular) law, etc and so forth exist in Europe, we will just have to make do with EU-inspired reforms. And the US will eventually wake up; it always does. Vietnam was another globally unpopular conflict and somehow it managed to extricate itself from that. Which would leave us to clean up the mess, but that's better than making it worse.
As for the Islamist in power in Turkey... as a properly brought up Kemalist, I shudder at the thought of them in Government. Yet compare the religiosity of our fundamentalists with the US' (read the wacky wing of the Republican Party) and you will understand just why the end is nowhere nigh for secular Turkey.
Love and kisses,
Emre
this ..."It lied, it invaded another country just because it could, it ended up causing more civilian deaths than the regime it toppled, and in Guantanamo shines a beacon of inhumanity that quite eclipses traditional views of the US. What's to like, right now" would be called a litany of factual errors and is a shining example of CLASSICAL, swallowed the kool-aid dialectic is all anti americanism.
Their is NO COUNT which make the toll higher than Saddam except in Tim Robbins' mind and those who DO DESPISE america. If you have one PUBLISH IT, or slink away
In guantanamo we house, dining on halal glazed chicken and rice, those people who made war on us, who killed thousands of innocents out of literally the clear blue, and wore no uniform but the quran, which they claim is all they need.
If you think we are going to accord such people, contently, the rights of defense of american citizens as if they stole a car, OR the combat status of uniformed military who OBEY the Geneva conventions ..you are mistaking us for some whole other thing.
They are alive and cared for, and if they are abused WE PUNISH THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO DO SO AS A SOCIETY.
On the day that 'smiting the neck' is a crime for Al Qaeda, give me a call.
I predict Turkey WILL slide further and further away from being a democracy with individual rights of expression and religion. And the reason will be the incompatibility of the quran (a la Qutb) and freedom of religion and expression.
I'm just sure you would love to 'clean up the mess' in Kurdistan, but I think you will find long term american bases there instead.
When the Valley of the Wolves (a racist piece of hate, btw) is rejected by the turkish people
let me know will you? Rather such things are not only accepted and popular (jewish and american doctors removing organs from poor muslims for other jews??, american machine gunning Iraqis en masse?) but also fulfills WHAT THE TURKISH PEOPLE WISH TO BELIEVE.
Say by the way, how are all those armenians doing
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