Turkey : What do you call the US?

Turkish Daily News ^ | 09-27-03 | Ilnur Cevik

[pkpjamestown]

What do you call the US? Mr... Editor, you illustrate perfectly why Turks and Americans are no longer close friends by any measurement. Do you refer to America as "occupier" and "repressors of Iraq", when covering stories about the $8.5 billion loan guarantee being granted to Turkey, courtesy of the American Tax payer? Not to mention multiple billion dollar grants etc. adnauseam. How many articles will you print about "demands" concerning Turkish business ventures in Iraq, or conditions linked to the PKK that "must" be addressed to Turkish satisfaction. I say the Turks are no longer our (America) friend. By the sound of it, the TDN is no longer a "friend" it would seem to the United States. Like your armed forces, you will do nothing to assist your friends and neighbors just cause in Iraq. Sad and pathetic when compared to the role Turkey could and should have been playing in the region and history. I am too angry and disgusted to continue coherently. Mr. Cevik, in closing you should read some of your own editorials from this spring and summer, compare them with your words of Sept. 24, 2003. You are a hypocrite and a poor voice in and for the Turkish-American alliance and relations. I am very disappointed with you on this matter, very badly done sir and not right nor cricket.

Mr. Shane Calchera, U.S.

Our reply Dear Reader, As you see your letter has been published in full along with your strong objections and insults. I am not out to charm anyone in my editorials and my mission is only to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. This newspaper and this columnist is a friend of the United States as long as it upholds the ideals of the founding fathers of the U.S. Turks also remain loyal to their friendship with the Americans but you must only read and listen to what is being said in the U.S. about Iraq and how your people were misled to realize what a mess the Americans have created in Iraq. We are extremely saddened with this situation which is not our making.

Yes, we supported the removal of the terrible Saddam regime. The Americans did the right thing but since then the way the ordinary Iraqi has been treated is to say the least shocking. Unfortunately the Americans have never been accepted by the Iraqi people as liberators and are now simply called occupiers. Now they need Turkey to help clean up all this mess and we also support this.

You are not handing out charity to the Turks. We are not beggars. You are only extending aid to a friend who has always stood beside you from Korea to Afghanistan. This is not a donation but a loan which we will pay back in full. Do not confuse this money with the billions of dollars your tax payers are handing out to Israel every year as a grant and of course a donation which will never be paid back. Did you ever take the trouble of asking your government where your grants to Israel is going?

Has any of your ALLIES treated your officers by handcuffing them and putting bags over their heads? Well unfortunately that is exactly what the Americans did to our 11 officers in Suleymaniyeh. We all prefer to forget this incident for the sake of our friendship. So please do not preach to us on hypocricy. As we are true friends we have to tell you the truth so that you face the realities and stop living in a dream world.

Ilnur Cevik Editor in Chief

[pkpjamestown]

http://www.turkishdailynews.com/old_editions/09_24_03/birand.htm

[pkpjamestown]

http://www.turkishdailynews.com/old_editions/09_24_03/tdn.htm

[Norse]

Bad letter by Shane, bad response from the editor

[kingu]

Has any of your ALLIES treated your officers by handcuffing them and putting bags over their heads? Well unfortunately that is exactly what the Americans did to our 11 officers in Suleymaniyeh. We all prefer to forget this incident for the sake of our friendship. So please do not preach to us on hypocricy. As we are true friends we have to tell you the truth so that you face the realities and stop living in a dream world.

Allies always forget to wear their uniforms or notify the commanders when entering the battlefield area of an ally. Didn't everyone get the memo on this?

[Allan]

Bump

[Allan]

Ilnur Cevik is a flake.
Sometimes he is sensible
sometimes he is plain nuts.
He has become a strong supporter
of the Islamist Ak Partisi.

[Broadside Joe]

Yes, we supported the removal of the terrible Saddam regime. The Americans did the right thing but since then the way the ordinary Iraqi has been treated is to say the least shocking. Unfortunately the --->Americans have never been accepted by the Iraqi people as liberators and are now simply called occupiers.<--- Now they need Turkey to help clean up all this mess and we also support this.

Wow sounds like Al Jazero prapaganda to me!

"I am not out to charm anyone in my editorials and my mission is only to tell the truth and nothing but the truth." <---Then you just failed

Has any of your ALLIES treated your officers by handcuffing them and putting bags over their heads? Well unfortunately that is exactly what the Americans did to our 11 officers in Suleymaniyeh. We all prefer to forget this incident for the sake of our friendship. So please do not preach to us on hypocricy. As we are true friends we have to tell you the truth so that you face the realities and stop living in a dream world.

Ummm it's called a war zone, you're lucky they were not mistaken as Baathist dead-enders. Perhaps you would like to forget that but I wouldn't if I were you!

[Broadside Joe]

"Turkey's fight with these Kurdish terrorists cost over $135 billion and 35,000 lives. Now the US is threatening to route the $8.5 billion as aid to the Kurdish Iraqi government if Turkey enters into Iraq to establish its own security while the US herself is engaged in a military operation in Iraq to protect their own security thousands of miles away."

Maybe SOME of the Kurds are acting MORE like ALLIES!
Quite frankly, I hope you don't get one penny after the stunts you pulled before the war started! So I think 'questions' of 'dependability' should be aimed at Turkey not the other way around!

[thoughtomator]

Time for the U.S. to sell a big load of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems to Greece, is it?

[a_Turk]

Stop teasing her :))

[facedown]

Turkey : What do you call the US?

Sir.

[Mortimer Snavely]

During Gulf War One, Turkey was the first country to do anything about Hussein. The very day after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Turkey closed the Iraqi border and lost a major trading partner. The economy went into free fall, and Bush I promised to help take up the slack. Economic warfare means that when you turn on the tap, there's no water. Basic services disappear. The help promised by the White House never arrived, and economically Turkey was left gasping on the ropes. Additionally, PKK support groups spread like crabgrass throughout the US and Western Europe, with no unambiguous refutation from the USA, while Turks by the thousands were massacred by PKK cadrés hell bent on establishing a Marxist-Leninist totalitarian hell hole out of Northern Iraq and all of Southeast Anatolia.

Turkish national security has been degraded, not enhanced, by US and Allied actions. They learned that no good deed goes unpunished, and were a bit more circumspect this time around. Turkish soldiers being blindfolded, bound, gagged and imprisoned by US forces in Northern Iraq in deference to Kurdish sentiments hasn't helped things, either.

[eleni121]

Cutting and pasting from the Turkish thugs in the press again are we?