Victor Davis Hanson Ping !
Let me know if you want in or out
Posted on 03/24/2005 8:34:24 AM PST by quidnunc
His new Middle East neighborhood cannot make Syria's dictator Bashar Assad very happy. Turkey is democratic to his north. A million Arabs vote in Israel to the south. Palestinians are near civil war to establish democratic rule — their own terrorists more a threat to the newly elected Abu Abbas than are Israeli tanks.
Iraq to the east is settling down under its new autonomy, forging through blood and fire the Arab world's first true democracy. Lebanon is now afire with anti-Syrian sentiment, equating its occupation with the last obstacle to a democratic renaissance.
Beyond Syria's borders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's announcement that he may be forced to act as if he will hold real elections is not welcome to Assad. Nor is the strange behavior of once-kindred Col. Moammar Gadhafi and all his unexpected talk of giving up forbidden weapons and letting Westerners back into Libya.
When Wahhabist Saudi Arabia promises municipal elections, or Afghan women line up at the polls for hours, then the world has been turned upside down. Syria's worst nightmare is not an American invasion, but an Arab League that is dominated by nascent democracies.
Thugocracies and kleptocracies, however, die hard. So will that of Bashar Assad. His henchmen probably blew up former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, in fears that the Westernized entrepreneur dreamed of an open Arab Singapore or Monaco on the border. Now they are planning to unleash enough 1970s-style violence to terrify the Lebanese into preferring Syrian order to their own messy freedom. Hand-in-glove with fellow pariah Iran, Syria hopes to keep sending enough cash and expatriates back into Iraq to stop the democracy contagion before it infects any more.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Try waking up on the otherside of the bed tomorrow. It's sunnier.
Another poster with no arguments and apparently no idea of what's going on and what went on in Turkey. A holocaust denier.
Scary stuff.
You may be part of Hanson's fan club but when he writes stuff like Turkey is a democracy then the guy is an intellectual midget on this topic.
You may no return to C span...and watch whatever again.
I see nothing to back up your statements.
Turkey is widely recognized as a real democratic government. Refer if you will to their deliberations in the days befroe the invasion of Iraq. The parliament, not the President or the King or the Emir or the dictator, voted over the wishes of the newly elected prime minister to prohibit invasion via their land.
turkey is a democracy,
hanson is brillient,
and yes i am no english major, capitals and punctuation escape me most times.
and P.S. i am still peaved about them shutting us out of our northern front in iraq.
"Turkey is widely recognized as a real democratic government"
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Just as widely as all those judges denying Terri Schiavo water and food.
Look, you can wish and hope all you want but Turkey remains a parastate...a corrupt and savage state propped up by billions during the cold war era and not worth discussing in terms of its relevance in the middle east. Heavily laden with a sordid genocidal past, its only relevance is being used by certain neo cons as an example fo a "secular Muslim state"---that's worth a chuckle...and apparently worth something to some here making clueless statements.
turkey is a democracy,
hanson is brillient,
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That about says it all...nothing much.
i just thought you would understand bullet point format easier.
This is a joke right? PBS? Ben Wattenberg? You must be kidding...Am I reading this rubbish on the DU by accident tonight? Or is it just the turkophiles who are having trouble digesting the truth...
Try reading #11 before you post mumbo jumbo.
Let me know if you want in or out
Thanks for the pings. Keep the Faith.
ping
Stop hijacking the thread.
What thread? A thread based on a falsehood which I simply pointed out to those interested? You are free to ignore and post what you wish.
Get a grip. If you disagree then fine. But you have no right to prohibit my commenting on any aspect of what has been posted.
No one with any knowledge of history denies that the Turks have done some brutal things - massacres of Armenians and Kurds are historical fact. Their failure to support us in the Iraq intervention is a historical fact. For these blame is very properly ascribed.
May I ask you simply to state your case here? I'm having trouble finding it among the insults.
Some here on FR really believe that Turkey is a secular Muslim democracy, not even stopping to think that you cannot be secular if 99.9% of your people are Muslim. The very nature of Islam precludes equality for any faith other than the Muslim ideology.
Turkey spends billions on propaganda around the world and some here unfortunately have swallowed the big lie. Some neo cons too, although fortunately I see a shift recently in their thinking (that is another topic).
Another hopeful sign is that the President will finally acknowledge the genocide perpetrated by Muslim Turks against Armenian Christians in the 20th century. Of course the proclamation may not mention the atrocities against the former Assyrian and Greek Christian communities that have all but disappeared, but since the Armenian men women and children bore the full fury of Islamic wrath, they rightfully should finally be acknowledged.
No, Turkey is not a democracy...and cannot be given that its institutions are controlled by a corrupt oligarchy preying on Turks' Muslim fears and practices.
According to Freedom House Turkey rates "partly free" in a 2005 report, up there with Burkina Faso.
The few remaining Christians continue to be harrassed at best and murdered at worst.
http://www.jubileecampaign.co.uk/world/tur11.htm
Turkey continues its secret alliances with Ultra fascist groups - such as the Grey Wolves - and supports chechnyan muslim terrorists.
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/grey_wolves.htm
"Turkey may be the best place for those seeking to continue the fight in Chechnya from abroad. During the first Chechen war (1994-1996), Turkish authorities played host to exiled Chechen warlords and allowed several Turkish mayors who were members of the Prosperity Party, an Islamic party, to provide medical aid and general support for the Chechen guerrillas. Within Turkish political society there even emerged a coalition between hardcore Islamists and nationalists who favored Turkish military intervention in Chechnya."
http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=409&issue_id=3234&article_id=2369276
Prof Hanson may be an excellent historian of the ancient Mediterranean region but when it comes to understanding the complexities of the world after the Muslim invasions, he is like most, an amateur.
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