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To: Beck_isright
This person who is using our President's name...is way, way, way, way, way, way out there.

I can guarantee you he never sat on a rickety wooden stool sipping hot tea from a graceful glass for hours, while cheerful boys unrolled dozens of brilliant silk and wool carpets one atop another at his feet, his hand warmly shaken whether he bought a rug or not. He never ate fresh mullet with rice pilaf, talking about comparative religion with a guy who made his living driving a taxi in Istanbul, always braking for stray cats. He never attended a circumcision party for the 8-year-old next door, whose father bankrupted himself buying food and entertainment for the whole village. He never gave a guy with a tractor a carton of Marlboros to pull his car out of the mud. The Dolmabace Palace and the Topkapi Sera mean nothing to him; he's never seen anything older than the Alamo. The tomb of Ataturk would not move him at all. In short, he hasn't rubbed shoulders with the Turks, and he thinks of them as if they are French, or Saudi, or some other alien, not-yet-declared enemy. He is xenophobic, incapable of wonder or trust, or of understanding that different interests can actually work together. He doesn't know who the Turks are. Governments are governments, but the Turks are not going to turn on us unless we do it first. If our media is making us think otherwise then it is our media that is not our friend.
144 posted on 02/20/2003 8:50:57 PM PST by ChemistCat (Many are hungry, but few have smoked almonds.)
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To: ChemistCat
We shall not turn on them. The nice thing about the Turks as that since the days of Ataturk, we've cultivated a nice relationship with them. They resisted jumping in on the side of the Nazis (which could have swung WWII dramatically in 1940) and held the line against the Soviets for 5 decades. They shall always be our friends unless the dimwits in our media think they can sway enough ignorant sheeple to the other side. But since most Americans think that the capital of Turkey is "Butterball" and that the Tyson Foods Corporation is it's largest manufacturer, I'm not too concerned. As long as the veggies have their reality tv, they will not care.
150 posted on 02/20/2003 8:56:35 PM PST by Beck_isright
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To: ChemistCat
As picturesque as your dreamy little vision of Turkey is, I'm glad that Pentagon and State employ only realpolitik-oriented strategists who don't determine our foreign policy or military assessments based on stories about taxidrivers and Muslim bazaars.

I notice you mentioned only the lives of ordinary Turks. That tells us nothing about the intent of the government and military since the people of Turkey are overwhelmingly opposed to any U.S. invasion launched from their country.

Your proofs for the eternal friendship of the government of Turkey toward us based on the decency and charm of Turks are just naive. And I suggest that Americans with cash and cartons of American cigarettes to hand out might be better treated than some others in Turkey or in the region.
158 posted on 02/20/2003 9:04:16 PM PST by George W. Bush
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