Posted on 10/03/2005 9:38:38 AM PDT by knighthawk
Turkey can kiss my red white and blue...
The EU will open an islamist can of worms if Turkey's accepted. I couldn't imagine in my wildest dreams, Turkey being admitted to the US as the 51st state.
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By your standard Koreans, Taiwanese and Japanese are European. Your profile puts you in Israel. Turkey's current position is pro-Israel (but if Turkey's modern history has shown us anything it is that none of their positions is safe from the light breezes of political expediency - remember, turkey was Hitler's number one trading partner - until January 1945 when the writing was on the reichstag wall). I do suspect AK that this colors your opinion somewhat.
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I thought my post made it clear that I understood this.
So what's your solution? The Bush Administration and I are of one mind -- the way to deal with Islamist terror is to promote freedom and democracy across the Middle East, and one very easy way to do that is to see Turkey admitted to the European Union. If you have a counter-plan, lets hear it.
It did. I was just making sure everybody understood it as well. With some here, a person has to be exact in their meaning.
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Utterly irrelevant to your calling turkey a pluralistic european nation. turkey is 99.8% muslim and it is against the law for more than four Christians to gather outside one of the very few government recognized churches.
And, Christianity is not at war with the world, islam is, in at least 22 countries.
And, Italy's mortality rate is 15% higher than its birth rate. The only growth it is seeing is in muslim immigration. turkey will not allow non-muslims to move there.
You should be honest. Your only reason for carrying turkey's water here is because of their current attitude toward your country.
In any case:
Greece's per capita GDP: $21,221
Turkey's per capita GDP: $7,302
So, no, Greece is far more economically developed than Turkey.
Freedom House Ratings
Greece: Political Rights 1; Civil Liberties 2; Status - Free
Turkey: Political Rights 3; Civil Liberties 3; Status - Partly Free
Hmm.. Doesn't seem that Turkey is more politically developed either (by typical Western standards)
More culturally developed??
Greece: Earliest records of any European language/culture 1,260 BC, from Achaia (the Peloponessus - in Europe).
Turkey: First historical references appear in Chinese records ca. 200 BC. Earliest known writing in Turkic language dates to 730 AD, from the vicinity of Asian Lake Baikal.
Strike three. You're out, bud!
My plan is---'do unto your enemy before they do unto you.'
No, while I'm not a far-East expert, I think Turkey is closer culturally to Europe than are any of those countries. But more to the point, it's closer economically. Turkey's #1 trading partner, for both imports and exports, is the EU. Turks buy European cars, they work in factories owned by European companies producing goods sold in Europe, they are as much a part of Europe as Poland was before its entry into the European Union.
none of their positions is safe from the light breezes of political expediency - remember, turkey was Hitler's number one trading partner - until January 1945 when the writing was on the reichstag wall)
I'm not sure what that means. Turkey refused to enter the war on the side of Germany, as it had in 1914. And Turkey rescued thousands of Jews from extermination.
God bless Austria.
Great.
Giving 80 million Mohammedans unfettered access to any and every EU state.
Wonderful.
Austria should've held out, but it matters not. There is no chance whatsoever IMHO that Turkey will ever be part of the European Union. It's all a grand political show for nothing. Any EU member state that holds a referendum on Turkish accession will reject it by a supermajority, and there will be at least a couple that hold referendums.
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Allow me to explain then...turkey signed a mutual non-aggression pact with Hitler and was, throughout the war, the Nazis number one trading partner and their chief supplier of chromium. This in spite of continuous requests from the US and UK to refrain. It was only after the foundling UN set having declared war on one of the Axis powers as the bar for charter membership that turkey, in January 1945, voided the pact and declared war on Germany.
Turkey's behaviour in 1950 (Korea) and 2003 (Iraq) kept their duplicitous, self-serving, un-principalled record intact.
Their heading down that road, though. If I remember correctly, they voted in (as President or Prime Minister???) a Islamic fundamentalist. Recall also that Turkey, who had been a staunch secular ally of the US for years, refused to let us use their soil for the Iraq invasion, which screwed up the plan. This shows the change of mindset of this country since the new governmnet (Islamic led government.
As I said, it is only a matter of time. Giving any fundamentalist Moslem country a seat at the table is suicide for the west.
May Europe rest in peace...not pieces.
UK get out of that sh*thole for your own good.
Austrian politicians will give up. Turkey will be in EU despite wishes of the European societies.
Sorry my friend but that does not tally with the recent historical record of the EU. There any number of decisions that from a purely rational view seemed to be impossible and directly harmful to the various countries and even to the EU as a whole, (eg: the euro, inviting Greece into the euro, the EU constitution (the voters in France and NL said no, not the pols) the accession of the Eastern bloc countries, soon to include Bulgaria, and Romania etc) but they have all come to fruition or is about to. So, unless the EU implodes which is not totally impossible, Turkey will become a member, as will Croatia. Let me end with another prediction: We know from polls that 80% of the Austrians are against a Turkish entry. They wanted their government to stick up for them. The government failed. I predict that after the next election Jörg Haider will form the new Austrian government.
Turkish membership will require a new treaty. Several EU nations constitutionally mandate a referendum to approve all new treaties. If nothing else puts a stop to all this sound and fury, signify nothing, then the task will fall to the Irish or the Danes..
In my view, for Turkey to join, some way will have to be found so that not a single EU nation votes on approving membership, because I think the voters of every single EU nation will reject Turkey easily.
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