I have a story, it's true and I hope it's not wasted. Both Turkey and Greece are NATO countries. The deployment called for F-16's from Greece and Turkey to combat an enemy originating from the mid-east (;). The Turks had to deploy to a Greek island. There was much contention, the Turkish officers selected their best English speakers, surprisingly, many Turks could also speak Greek. Each Turk, officers and enlisted alike, were screened to find the best for the exercise. The Turks were worried, and had classes, about offending their Greek hosts, the history of Greek/Turkish relations, and how to properly maintain themselves as military representatives of their country.
The day of the deployment came, the Turkish aircraft specialists loaded onto C-130's, 20 jets left Turkey...... The Turks and the Greek specialists met, the 20 jets from Turkey arrived, 26 jets from Greece arrived....all rivalries disappeared. The exercise called for a 10-turn-10-turn-15 aircraft, upon arrival. That means that ten F-16's had to be combat ready, with ordnance loaded and in the air, now!!!!When the ten aircraft that had just flown the excersise touched down, ten more F-16's launched, fulled preped and loaded. Then the crap that separates men from boys, 15 F-16's, multi-cultural, off the ramp, no time for maintenance, hang the weapons and FLY. That was day one. By day five the Turks and Greeks weren't worried about Cypress, they were worried about keeping the jets in the air. Each night, when they could get the down time, the Turks poured Raki for their hosts, the Greeks had Ouzo flowing by the gallon. Every mourning the jets flew, through cooperation and team work. When the Turks arrived home, a young Turkish Sgt., who spoke 4 languages said, "We had a great time.....all this hate Greece stuff is made up by politicians........
Apparently your idealistic kumbaya world of Turkey has fooled you - especially through the imbibing of their raki.
Here are just several of the recent myriad offenses perpetrated by the Parastate called Turkey:
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch has recently spoken bitterly of the way that Turkish authorities have handled the Patriarchate's institutions and property, and the fact that the Turkish State had refused to re-open the School of Theology on Halki, which has now been closed for 34 years.
September will see the 50th anniversary of Turkey’s destruction of the last remaining 110,000 Greek Orthodox Christian community of Istanbul and the call for compensation for the victims of Turkey’s crimes will again fall on deaf ears.
Muslim Turkey continues to allow harassment of Christians by police; restrictions on free expression; discrimination in education involving teachers, books and curriculum; restrictions on religious freedom; limitations on the right to control charitable institutions; and the denial of ethnic identity.
Muslim Turkey has a long way to go spiritually, psychologically financially and morally before raki and ouzo heals the rift.
The NATO games you were involved in can never substitute for the genocide and pogroms perpetrated by Muslim Turkey against its Christian inhabitants.
One more thing: it's Cyprus not Cypress. Which reminds me
- the Muslim Turks need to say what happened to the 1587 missing Greek Cypriots.
http://www.missing-cy.org/home.html