Posted on 10/28/2023 9:01:01 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Thanks. I will have to learn a bit more about that myself. Despite being a history buff, and knowing a little about the Battle of Gallipoli in WWI, I haven’t been enticed to read up on the Cold War era, even though I was a kid at the time. Perhaps now is the time, because of what’s going on as I write.
The Turkish Military\Army was guarantor of the Turkish Constitution and secularism in Turkey. (A Kemalist innovation!) Turkey wanted to join the EU. The effete Europeans thought how primitive and disgraceful a nation where the military performed such a role. Turkish politicians believing EU membership was necessary undercut the military’s role to gain European approval. This weakening let Islamists like Erdogan get in office. He quickly removed the military’s ability to act to preserve secularism\constitutionalism. This is how we have the Turkey we have now.
Turkey is still useful as an ally due to the Dardanelles Strait and the War in Ukraine. So I guess it's the wrong time to kick them out of NATO. But after the war, we'll probably kick them out. Our interests do not align that much anymore.
I think it was inevitable, the goal of the EU membership did not matter as much. I'm not that familiar with Turkish politics but I know that in a Muslim country, it's impossible to separate Islam from their society.
I hope I'm still alive to see it, although I would prefer the U.S. out of NATO first.
Unlikely. But it'll be interesting to see what happens if nations in Europe turn Islamist. France, UK, Sweden, Germany.
While the rest of NATO is mostly Christian? We'll have to kick them out too.
But we won't have to worry about it for a while (20 years?)
I'll be long dead by then.
Yes, they are experts at war crimes and genocide.
Until the Arab states take in all the Palestinians, they can shut the **** up.
Probably inevitable but give Ataturk kudos for trying.
I’ve read two biographies of Ataturk. Interesting individual, Turkey under him was an authoritarian state. In its early days it resembled something like Mussolini’s Italy. He was an early admirer of Mussolini. (Even FDR said nice things about Benny the Moose early on!) He died young from drink which is ironic. There is a quote attributed to him, ‘that he wished his people had been Christian for then they would easier accept education and modernization’. There is a quote attributed to him disparaging Mohamed and Islam. Regarding religion Turkish views of course he was a devout Muslim, but non-Turkish biographers give documented evidence he was either an atheist or at best a deist.
Fascinating info and great examples from multiple castes. It IS a caste system after all, isn’t it?
Class or caste system, and I'm sure there are other examples from different ethnic groups over the ages. We know about the caste system in India, and of course the upstairs, downstairs system in the estates of Lords and Ladies. Plenty of information available on that period of history. Those I cited in my comment are the ones I've come across during historic research, and reading sourced history books. It's amazing what you can find studying history.
Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch, wrote in his autobiography that he had only been able to pledge one fraternity, a Jewish frat, while in college, and known as Issur Demsky. The fraternity was made up primarily of Jews of German heritage, and they were broad minded enough to invite the apparently Polish “Demsky” to join. But between the extension of the invitation, and pledge night, they discovered his family was actually Belorussian, and cut him cold.
When I was in college, nearly 40 years ago, a Professor of mine discussed that role, and quoted a Turkish General on how the army planned to keep the Islamists down. If you cut off a snake’s head when it is little, it doesn’t get big.
The Professor was skeptical that the Turkish Army could make that policy work in the long term…
The Professor was right. That policy wouldn't work in the long term since the society is Islamic.
Thank you for that interesting bit of info.
Here's an excerpt from the book "Hitler's Jewish Soldiers."
Hans Muhlbacher was a half-Jew, serving as an Unteroffizier in the Wehrmacht. He was stationed in Poland. His diary entry dated 14/5/1941 says:
"The Jews are dressed better on Sunday and go outside the ghetto (Ropczyce, Poland). I walk through the ghetto. It's awful what horrible people I see there. With grimacing faces they lean against the doors of their homes and businesses and stare amazed at the tall officers walking by.....Truly two worlds stand opposite one another...The Jews give the impression of being the eternal Ahasverus.* The Jews make a much more decadent impression probably due to centuries of inbreeding."
*[Ahasuerus is a name applied in the Hebrew Bible to three rulers and to a Babylonian official in the Book of Tobit.]
Muhlbacher was discharged from the service a short time later because he was half-Jew. He had been an engineer before the war, and went to work at Peenemunde on the guided rocket program designed to sink enemy ships.
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