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How sad that you believe a nation is defined by its diplomats and politicians.

I think a nation is defined by its people, its traditions, its history, and its vision of the future.

I don't think he has a clue about the nation, the region or anything. He speaks from the NEA perspective. Especially when he makes the statement inferring that there are "experts" in the State Department; that's the funniest thing I've read so far this year.

How sad that you believe a nation is defined by its diplomats and politicians.

Look, polling numbers we fully accept (and no Turkish source questions) estimates the opposition of the Turkish voters to be running 85%-95% against letting us in to Turkey under almost any circumstances even if we get a full Security Council resolution authorizing force against Saddam. So it's the diplomats and the politicians and the military who will let us into Turkey if we pay enough and they're willing to do so completely against the wishes of the general populace, no matter how sweetly idealistic your ideas are about the character of a particular ethnic people. In short, if we were respecting the wishes of ordinary Turks, we wouldn't be going in at all. But both America and the Turkish leadership are ignoring Turkish public opinion and it just comes down to how much we pay to rent the country's borders and airbases for a few weeks and Turkey dictating the terms of any victory.

There is absolutely nothing here that indicates anything other than mercenary intent on the part of Turkey. I've yet to see a single statement from their government on the necessity of removing Saddam or even destroying his WMD, the same WMD which alarmed them enough to request NATO protection. It's just money, money, money, wait, wait, wait.

I've almost decided that the only way to explain this charitably would be to assume the newly elected parliament, 90% new legislators, have badly miscalculated.

Personally, I've had enough of it. I don't want Turkey to help us now. General Franks and Rumsfeld say we can do it without them. It's time to proceed with our other plans now. Enough of this changing the terms of arrangements and jacking the price up and Turkey's leaders pretending they received no deadline. Time to leave the bazaar.