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To: joseph20
As long as we are speaking of logical fallacies, the above is an example of a fallacious appeal to tradition. Id est, you are assuming that something must be correct because it has been that way for a long time.

This isn't a lesson in logic, it is a reality. Turkey has been a steadfast member of NATO contributing more in many ways to the organization than some other members, e.g., France. The foolish assertion that we can just boot Turkey out of the alliance because they are now adjudged not to be European is just not realistic or desireable. This is not a matter of being correct or incorrect. It is a political reality.

The U.S. has had many strategic partnerships that ended up expiring once the conflict finished. My example of China in WWII is only one. Indeed, Russia itself was our ally during WWII--the very reason for the formation of NATO in the first place.

Both examples are not analogous to the circumstances surrounding Turkey's membership in NATO. To compare the US and the allies wartime relationship with China and the Soviet Union to the NATO alliance and Turkey is pure sophistry. As long as NATO exists, and it is growing, Turkey will remain a member of its own volition. Can you cite any NATO member calling for the removal of Turkey from the alliance? Putin and Russia remain a threat to Europe, which is why countries like Georgia and the Ukraine want to join the current 26 member countries. And Albania and Croatia will be joining in the not too distant future.

NATO, of course, was a strategic alliance to counter the threat of Russia.

No, the Soviet Union and communist expansion.

But it was (and is) more than just that. It's an alliance of kindred folk, ethnically closer to each other than any other population in the world.

Hyperbole. NATO was formed as a military alliance and many European countries did not join NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Washington D.C. - 4 April 1949

In any way that you can reasonably define, Turkey is foreign to Europe.

Foreign? I suggest you read the history of the Ottoman Empire and its influence on and role in European history.

22 posted on 01/15/2009 3:11:28 PM PST by kabar
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To: kabar

Are you Turkish (in terms of citizenship or blood)?


28 posted on 01/16/2009 2:11:09 AM PST by joseph20 (...to ourselves and our Posterity...)
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