Turks shower U.S. soldiers with eggs, stones

alertnet.org ^ | 29 Mar 2003 12:28:16 GMT | Reuters

[Destro]

29 Mar 2003 12:28:16 GMT

Turks shower U.S. soldiers with eggs, stones

SILOPI, Turkey, March 29 (Reuters) - Turkish villagers showered U.S. soldiers with eggs and stones on Saturday when they arrived to recover pieces of a Tomahawk cruise missile which came down in eastern Turkey on Friday.

Scores of people in Urfa province set upon four jeeps carrying some 10 American soldiers, breaking windows and shouting slogans against the U.S.-led war in neighbouring Iraq, Anatolian news agency reported.

Turkish gendarmes later intervened to break up the demonstration. There were no initial reports of injuries.

Sukru Kocatepe, governor of Urfa province, told Reuters on Friday a Tomahawk cruise missile, launched from U.S. navy ships in the Mediterranean, had fallen in the sparsely populated area gouging a deep hole but without exploding.

It was believed to be the third U.S. missile to land in Turkey since the Iraq war began. Two Tomahawks misfired and landed in Turkey last Sunday, a U.S. defence official said.

Some 90 percent of Turks are against the war and the people of the impoverished east, fearing further falls in living standards, say they have much to lose from the conflict.

Turkey opened its air space to U.S. military aircraft and missiles after parliament rejected Washington's request to station up to 62,000 troops along its southern border with Iraq to open a second front against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Anatolian said the U.S. soldiers handed about $3,600 in cash to five villagers to meet the damage the missile had caused to their crops. U.S. officials were not immediately available to confirm the report.

"This amount of money does not cover the damage we have suffered but we accepted it to close the episode," local government official Mehmet Yilmaz told the agency.

Turkey's National Security Council, a powerful body of military and civilian leaders, on Friday called on the United States to end its war on Iraq quickly and to prevent further civilian casualties there.

[HiTech RedNeck]

and the people of the impoverished east, fearing further falls in living standards, say they have much to lose from the conflict.

Such as their former customers in northern Iraq, once liberated Iraq becomes prosperous?

[RightOnline]

Tuck Furkey.

[RightOnline]

With "friends" like your country..............................................

[spectre]

"Actually its no great loss, they were never allies to begin with. "

Sadly, they were our true buds for over 50 years- thru the cold war, Korean war, a bastion of anti-communism and more or less a friend of Israel even though they are over 90% Moslem.

For whatever reasons, they threw that relationship away in the last six months by shafting us when we really needed them.

In the long run they did not need to screw us.

Our armored division would have already moved South and been out of their hair, we would have showered them with aid and loans, and we would have kept Incirlik Air Base humming and pumping millions/year into the local economy.

What will happen now?

The French will STILL block Turkey's entry into the EU because they are the same assholes they always were. We will probably establish a permanent major airbase (I hope) in the new Iraq and bypass the now unreliable Incirlik. They lose their major funding and aid from their former friends of 50+ years, and their constantly fragile economy will slde further into the tank.

Their sudden slap in our face at this critical moment in our - and the world's - history both breaks my heart and pisses me off at the same time.

[First_Salute]

Paint a large bullseye in the cabbage patch; sit yourself down on the back porch; take a slug of cider and call up a U.S. Navy missile cruiser.

[blackbart.223]

"(--------------------------- WAR SOLVED HITLER! -------------------------)"

And that is the truth of all of this!

[blackbart.223]

"There's a reason these people are impoverished. They are stupid as hell."

Bingo.

[blackbart.223]

"The French will STILL block Turkey's entry into the EU because they are the same assholes they always were."

I couldn't agree more.

[greasepaint]

After the liberation of Baghdad,
the Turks' smuggling business will be...
Out of Business.

Turkey's economy will collapse.

[areafiftyone]

Alot of Turks are muslims. Most Muslims hate Americans and I am afraid that feeling will not go away even after we liberate Iraq!

[putupon]

There's a reason these people are impoverished. They are stupid as hell.

BUMP for hitting the nail on the knuckleheads.

[Destro]

The reason the Turks are poor on realestate that has prodiced the economies of Empires in the past is that by the early part of the 20th century the Turks killed off or drove off the native Christians of the land-the Greeks and Armenians. Aristotle Onassis for example was a refugee from Anatolia. The Greeks and Armenians had always run the affairs of Turkey and filled the ranks of her elite soldiers and statesmen (for example = the Janissaries). Everyone talks about the Jewish brain drain that happened to Germany because of Hitler, but few are willing to talk about the Christian brain drain that happened to post Ottoman Turkey.

[ET(end tyranny)]

Appreciate your post. When I said they weren't our allies, I meant in the present situation. That was obvious from all their waffling. Or make that their crépey attitude.

[PhotonNRG]

don't wake up the sleeping giant (russia). and turkey can go carve itself for this november, muslims will never make it in the EU. they SHOULD THINK ABOUT THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE stop denying their cold hearted mass destruction of 1.5 million armenians in 1915.