Analysis: Turkey's democratic dilemma

CNN ^ | February 20, 2003 | Bill Schneider

[Beck_isright]

I shall dig into the archives and research the information about where we agreed to help the Turks with the Kurdish refugee problem and loss of trade dollars. It was established in 91 and will take some time to find, but I WILL GET IT FOR YOU. In the mean time, understand; Turkey will not treat us like the frogs. They have a key role in the future and they know it. It's up to us if they side with the Ruskies or us and they would much prefer the U.S. after what the Russians did to them during the Cold War.

[PsyOp]

Thanks.

[FreeCanuckistan]

The widely reported polls will have to stand. Whether it's 75% to 95% or more, is mostly inconsequential regarding hard accurracy. The valid point in all these polls regarding Turkey, is that it reveals no less than a majority of Turks in dissension of US poilicy regarding Iraq. I really don't know how you continue to deny this. Something more tangible on your part offered in this debate, would help your case. As it stands I see nothing that leads me to believe the contrary, and for the sake of the West and the USA it would be preferrable.

I will agree that the US didn't follow through on all commitments to Turkey after GW1. That won't happen this time. But the well publisized 'late stage' negotiations by the Turks should not have happened at all. It's as if they had some afterthoughts that they chose to address at that late stage, they should have ironed-out all the minutia much earlier. The responsibility of the last minute discourse is Turkey's to bear.

The strong and democratic middle-east that you suggest would benefit us greatly. The challenge in doing so is far from easy though........but lets save that discussion for another time.

[He Rides A White Horse]

It goes back to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. A national hero emerged to pick up the pieces and create the modern Turkish state -- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- ``Father of the Turks.'' Ataturk turned Turkey to the West. And banned religion from public life.

What Attaturk felt was good for Turkey in the World War I era doesn't necessarily translate to what America is in the 21st century.............and I resent the implication being made here.

[He Rides A White Horse]

I'll consider the source, which is CNN................so let's proceed from there.

This whole article is geared not towards what a good ally Turkey has been, but what a bad influence religion has been.

Read this article again, and considering that it has the CNN label (or libel) slapped on it, try to take a wild guess as to the thrust of this article, and what it wants to say.

[He Rides A White Horse]

..................Mr ' Bill Schneider' would be better off picking a better example...........Turkey isn't an example of a 'typical' Muslim nation in action; Turkey is an example of, well, one Islamic country that tries Western ideals, but is about to fall victim to the radical fundamentalism sweeping the Middle East.

....and here is a tip for the uninitiated..........that fundamentalism sweeping the area isn't Christian fundamentalism.

[a_Turk]

>> First, when France blocked a vote on giving aid to Turkey..

You're assuming that the AWACS and Partiots are aid to Turkey, where it really is about NATO protection for US troops attacking from the North. There is your mis-interpretation #1.

>> Second, when you have an agreement with someone and then they change the terms..

The basic terms were never changed. These were the military and political picture envisaged for post saddam Irak. You cannot help seeing, by no fault of your own - thanks to the press, that there is petty haggling over money which look like blackmail and extortion. In reality those more serious and finer military and political points were being negotiated, but only the money being reported by a screwed up press. BTW, the aid is only 6 billion and not 26. It's all screwed up news reporting. I cannot blame you for not being able to interpret that when you have had no access to those accounts exceptfor where I posted them here, perhaps.

[a_Turk]

>> Screw-em if they didn't get it in writing?

That's what happened to the Turks after GW1...

[He Rides A White Horse]

.........but of course so many liberals, such as this writer will write stories about the 'secular' victory in Turkey.

The liberals are falling back upon their favorite mantra...........everything is relative, and hey, 9-11, the War on Terror, etc isn't any result of liberal ideology.

Right, if we listened to them all along, we would all realize that all religion is the same, and we would all be better off under more secular types of people, like Josef Stalin or Pol Pot.

Bill Schneider senior Communist News Network analyist can analize this.................

[He Rides A White Horse]

Turkey is militantly secular. The Turkish military -- guardians of Ataturk's legacy -- suppresses any public expression of religion.

Why.............we should do that in the United States also. Don't you think?.......... You know what? I don't think so...............

...............Mr Schneider can take his little liberal ideological escape pod and crash land it for all I care.

Read this article again, and you tell me what he wants.

[a_Turk]

>> I understand that the Iraki people are your friends. But I also thought that America is supposed to be your friend too.

On one hand the Iraki people are our friend, on the other America is our friend. Note that I did not state that Irak was our friend...

>> If your nation is asking such questions, it must also be questioning its relationship with America. Can you put a more positive spin on the fact that 95% of your population is against the war on Iraq?

They have a right to question everything all the time. We are after all a democracy. And I do not need to put a spin on their general anti-war attitudes, I can clearly state that 1) they do not favor war in general, and 2) They are not convinced of US resolve in general and also not convinced of US public political will to see this thing through.


>> There are several countries in the area that will lose money from tourism. I haven't heard of them claiming potential loses

They are not The Republic of Turkey, friend and ally of the US, who has been through thick and thin with the US and is being asked to help in a most beligerant way without even having been attacked..

>> "The opposition to war in Turkey has nothing to do with religion, nor anti-Americanism".

I will repeat that. We cannot be lumped together with the Arabs and Persians. Both may have been great civilizations, but we're different. We have fought against impossible odds to secure our independence, they have not and would just assume blame the world for their misery.

On your personal note:

I was raised in Turkey. I am a Kemalist, as are 99% of all Turks. I am no different than most Turks in my basic convictions, which is a free nation: Free of the interests of colonists, monarchs, and mullahs.

I had noticed that you are a bit prejudiced against us. I cannot blame you, just as I cannot blame an Arab who is prejudiced against the US. Prejudice is based on a lack of knowledge coupled with an abundance of misinformation. And there are endless supplies of interest groups who would feed one that misinformation. It is up to each one of us to get off of our duffs and get information ourselves, instead of waiting for it to be served up to us. Who knows, maybe that's what happened to you..

[He Rides A White Horse]

.......and for you my friend, I have a suggestion. You may want to bring your family here to tend to them, because I have a feeling that the Turkey you know and love isn't going to be the same one ten years from now, after the Islamic fundamentalists bring it back to the year 536 AD.

[a_Turk]

in #27 you wrote:

I see. A person's, or a country's word counts for nothing if there is nothing in writing to back it up? Is that how you operate in your personal affairs with individuals? Screw-em if they didn't get it in writing?

meaning that Turkey should have stuck to some verbal agreement, which other than an optimistic "sure we can work together" attitude did even not exist

in #38 you wrote:

Now, please explain how it is we "stabbed" them in the back? Did we break some written and signed agreement we had with them?

meaning that if the agreement the US made with Turkey in 91 was not written, that it could be broken.

PsyOp!! What are you on?

[a_Turk]

>> I have a feeling that the Turkey you know and love isn't going to be the same one ten years from now, after the Islamic fundamentalists bring it back to the year 536 AD.

I'm going to die there due to old age.

[He Rides A White Horse]

Turkey is militantly secular. The Turkish military -- guardians of Ataturk's legacy -- suppresses any public expression of religion. As recently as 1997, the army pushed an Islamic government out of power for violating the nation's secular traditions. Imagine -- the military intervened to protect democracy!

Oooooh yeah, Mr Schneider, that's a nice branch you are sitting on............America would be a great country too, if only our military had such courage here.

Yes Mr Schneider, we want the military here to suppress any public expressions of religion. Imagine---the military intervening to protect democracy!

Here's my take Mr Schneider...........you're a little CNN Nazi whose own left wing ideals brought about the situation we find ourselves in..............and now this guy has the nerve to suggest that it is us who are the problem.

[He Rides A White Horse]

I'm going to die there due to old age.

I would hope you have more than ten years left in you.

[a_Turk]

probably thirty.. but that's max...

Your fears regarding Turkey are baseless.

[patriciaruth]

when you have an agreement with someone and then they change the terms to get more from you because they know you need them, that qualifies as extortion in my book. Is that or is that not what happened? They said they would, then they said they wouldn't unless we sweetened the deal for them. Someone does that to me and I stop calling them a friend.

We are asking extraordinary things of our friends lately.

Tony Blair promised us that he would go to Iraq with us. He has spoken forcefully, eloquently in our favor. Yet he is asking for us to "sweetened the deal" by going for a second U.N. resolution, because he is in political trouble with his electoral at home, as his electorate is not yet persuaded to the views he holds.

I wouldn't stop calling Blair or the U.K. a friend just because he is asking for a concession.

[FreeCanuckistan]

I have noted your statement of friendship with the Iraki people, certainly not Saddam & friends.

Favouring war or not, cannot be deduced by a subjective mind alone. If you believe that Saddam is who he is, and it's a given that he has WMD's, and aspires to dominate the mid-east.....then it follows that he 'ain't gonna give it up without a fight'. War is a certainty here. And because of the nature of it's elements, this war will be to the death......Saddam's. It's a simple analogy that the Turkish public should also understand, which should put to rest any anxiety of American resolve here.

I disagree with your characterization of the US being belligerent in its approach with Turkey. See it as impatience, in particular with the late-inning negotiations by Turkey.....very bad timing, and you embarrassed them with that. You also say the US has not been attacked by Irak. Let's just put everything aside for the moment, and give Irak a pass on everything......from the WMD's to their nuclear and mideast aspirations, support for terrorism and so forth.

I'd say an attempted assassination by a sovereign State, on the life of a President, past or present......is pretext enough for war, wouldn't you? The USA has all the justification in every moral sense, to declare war on Iraq.

Turkey surviving the way it has in its region. is more than commendable. And my apologies for "lumping Turkey" with the other's at times. But you yourself are concerned with the potential rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey. The lumping comes from that, not any aspects of Turkey's modernization.

You suggest I am a "bit prejudiced" against Turkey. There is a fine line between prejudice and suspicion, and it's likely somewhat akin to the level of trust or affinity you lack of the West, at times.

[Mortimer Snavely]

The American Revolution did not need to wipe out a monarchy or uproot a politically powerful religious institution: all that was overseas in Britain. Neither was there any functional conflict between science and religion during the period of our Founding; science was understood as a method of furthering the cause of moral philosophy, and so, the Finger of Providence, by distinguishing between what could possibly be true from what actually is true.

The break with the past was far less traumatic for us than it was for the Turks, or, for that matter, the French.

Ataturk did what was necessary to put Turkey on the right road. That required the complete disestablishment of religious power bases, which wielded both secular and spiritual power over men's lives. There was no equivalent in the USA, and so, such militantly nationalist disestablishment was unnecessary.

The intellectual milieu in Ottoman Turkey was fundamentally different from that in the American colonies, and the establishment of secular, democratic republics required different procedures in the two countries.