I lived in Turkey for a year - active duty. Ataturk’s claim to fame was that he forced a secular government and modernized the written language of Turkey.
For that, he was revered. What the current govt in Turkey is doing is a slap in the face of Ataturk.
Turks are fierce fighters.
Let me tell you two stories from my tour:
The locals would say that American men beat and abused their wives because they did not want their daughters becoming Americans. Because they couldn’t understand women working on the base, they claimed that our women soldiers were just there ‘to service the men’. This created a double standard where our women were openly leered at by the locals, but looking twice at one of their women was grounds for action.
One of our women was downtown and got groped by a drunk Turk in a tea bar. She came back on base, told the MPs, they got our liaison, and went down to the chief of police to make a report. He brought them all to the tea bar and asked her if she saw the guy. She pointed him out. Via the liaison translator, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He says something in Turkish, six guys get up and beat the guy into a bloody pulp.
“Are you satisfied justice was done?”
“Ummm, I guess.”
“Good, no sense making an international incident of it.”
Second story: this was the late 80’s. A small group of Iranians showed up in town and began harassing the Americans who came off base to eat and shop.
As a result, the base issued an order restricting Americans to base.
Lasted three days.
The Turks beat those damned Iranians and ran them out of town on a rail. Mayor came up to base and certified there would be no more harassment from Iranian riffraff: “You’re free to come spend money with us again.”
The Iranian riff-raff were impeding commerce. Meaning the American servicemen spending money in town