Daniel Pipes is terrific.
Some analysts have suggested that among national institutions, only the armed forces retain the public trust and respect. Since the end of single-party rule in 1950, they have intervened directly three times in the country's politics. In each instance, civilian control was restored after a transition period during which purported problems were addressed, justice meted out, new constitutions adopted, and economic growth accomplished.
1960...
1971....
1980.....
......2010?
Especially when you conduct genocide against all non-muslims...
>>Although Turkey is nearly 100 percent Muslim, he insisted on a purely secular state.<<
.
Sadam Hussein, too, imposed secularism in Iraq. Not that we should compare Saddam with Attaturk but there is a parallelism between the two.
We should ask ourselves, under whose regime were the Christians better of — Saddam’s or the present one? Do not expect Iraq to become a democracy because democracy and Islam are total opposites. Their Koran prevents them from ever becoming democratized.
Excellent apparaisal of the Turkish Islamic problem which is, of course, just a small view of the overall Islamic problem.
Turkey is going down the road all Islamic States eventually follow, a road predetremined by the Koran, Mohammad and Islamic history.
There is no doubt that Turkey’s NATO membership should be in peril. Whether it is or not, who knows...
Very good informative/educational article by Pipes. Thanks for posting.
Guess the turkey’s out of the bag.
Too bad he didn’t mention one of Kemal Atatürk’s better ideas.
He not only had to deal with Islamists, but also with communists, sponsored in large part by the Soviet Union, Turkey and Russia having long seen each other as enemies.
In any event, during his reign, the communists had become a powerful and dangerous faction in Turkey. So Atatürk felt obliged to host a peace conference with all the communist leaders aboard his luxury yacht.
Unfortunately, due to a scheduling error, he was personally late for attending the peace conference. This turned out to be a very good thing for him, as due to an unexpected and catastrophic mechanical failure of some type, the entire yacht was blown into little pieces.
Along with the entire communist leadership cadre.
This effectively ended the organized communist movement in Turkey for many, many years. Such a tragic accident.
On one final note, Atatürk died fairly young, because of cirrhosis of the liver due to heavy alcohol consumption. Yet in his time did much to modernize Turkey, and it is a shame that the Islamists have come as far as they have in their efforts to reverse this evolution.