Posted on 02/01/2009 8:30:18 PM PST by Lorianne
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who heads an Islamist party, recently ripped into Shimon Peres, President of Israel at the Davos forum, telling Peres "when it comes to killing, you know well how to kill.” Peres gave it right back to Erdogan, accusing Erdogan of ignoring the long history of Arab violence against Israel, causing Erdogan to storm off the stage. The video is here (Peres' response starts at 39:25). Erdogan was given a hero's welcome when he returned to Turkey. (h/t Little Green Footballs and IsraellyCool)
Perhaps it's time to talk a little Turkey. First, let's talk Kurds. The Turks have killed an estimated 20,000 Kurds, attempted to destroy Kurdish language and culture, launched invasions of Kurdish northern Iraq, and denied to the millions of Kurds within and without Turkey's borders the right to an independent state. In fact, the Kurds outnumber the Palestinians several times over, yet because the Kurds have not spent the last 50 years demanding the destruction of Israel, the cause of Kurdish independence has not caught the fancy of the Western media and political elites. Now that Prime Minister Erdogan has expressed such profound sympathies for suppressed national movements, perhaps it is time that Erdogan put his actions where his mouth is, and free the Kurds.
Next, let's talk Armenians. Since Erdogan wants to right historical wrongs, why doesn't Erdogan apologize for the genocide the Ottoman Empire committed against the Armenians. Since the first step in recovery is acknowledgement of a problem, at least stop the denials that it happened, even if you won't apologize.
Many people in Turkey and elsewhere feared what would happen if an Islamist party took over the helm of a secular state. You are beginning to see the results as Erdogan whips up popular support at home by joining the anti-Israel cause.
My prediction: Turkey is the next Iran, unless Obama stops blaming the U.S. for Islamist aggression and gives support to Turkey's secular institutions, including the Turkish army. Jimmy Carter tried the blame America first tactic; it didn't win us any friends and led to 30 years of tyranny and human rights abuses in Iran. Don't repeat the same mistake in Turkey.
They didn’t belong in the EU because they wanted to kill the EU. As far as Cyprus goes, give it to the people that don’t want to kill everybody else.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JG25Ak03.html
Article on the Saudi-funded Wahhabization of Turkey. Saudi Arabia funded the Pakistani mujahidin and madrasas, and essentially turned Pakistani Deobandi Muslims into Wahhabis. Now they want to do the same to the Turks (their age-old rivalry due to Ottoman control of the Arabian peninsula). That way the Saudis will have 2 Wahhabi-ized states on either side of Iran to counter their Shi’a nemesis.
Israel needs to knock out Iran QUICK.
If you look at who he's planning to see (e.g., Chevez), I don't hold out much hope for us.
We will never have peace with muslims. They seem to be incapable of rational thought.
It’s always the same old story with them...they start it, Israel retaliates, then the ineveitable whining and crying for international and UN help........
..........zzzzzzzzzzzz .........boring
Limited to the border area and with our knowledge and approval. Turkey was after the PKK Marxist terrorist -- our own State Department and European countries identify the PKK as terrorists. The PKK had entered Turkey, killed several civilian and military, and escaped back to Iraq. The PKK has no relation to the Kurdish regional government in Iraq.
My prediction: Turkey is the next Iran, unless Obama stops blaming the U.S. for Islamist aggression and gives support to Turkey's secular institutions, including the Turkish army.
Yes and in fact hundreds of thousands of Turks have taken to the street protesting the Islamist tendencies of the AKP. The Army has warned the AKP.
Last I heard Obama at the Armenian diaspora urgings here in the U.S. now demands Turkey use that word, genocide.
It's not enough to acknowledge the horror of hundreds of thousands of deaths -- on both sides -- during W.W.I and the final days of the Ottoman Empire with them fighting Russia and their Armenia allies. The war does not IMO excuse the deaths and expulsion of Armenian residents of the Ottoman Empire.
That word, genocide, is needed to bolster Armenia and Her diaspora living here chances in legal action against Turkey. The Armenians want reparations and Turkish territory -- the same territory the Marxist PKK claims I believe, eastern Turkey.
Harut Sassounian is a prominent public figure, author, publisher of The California Courier newspaper, President of the United Armenian Fund, Lincy Foundation Vice President.
It looks like the best selling book in Turkey in 2005 was “Mein Kampf”.
More frightening is that the best selling book in 2007 was “Metal Storm”, a fictional anti-US book about an American attack on Turkey.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0215/p01s04-woeu.html
Well said Loraine. No, the world leaders will not countinance an independent Kurdistan. But they demand that tiny little Israel, whose country is so small it can fit in my home state in America at least four times, further give up its own land to appease the Islamists.
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