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I have an interesting editorial here written by Mr. Pollack, the senior editorial page writer, of the Wall Street Journal. I find much of it to be an obvious distorn which has been created by the American religious right who has been agnry with Turkish Prime Minster Erdogan ever since the Turks didn't help with the invasion. Clearly the Christian right is also fussing about the fact that Erdogan comes from a moderate Islamist party and there for the fundies here think he's some how a jihadist (
) but still I wanted to share it. Please tell me what you folks think.
The Sick Man of Europe -- Again
By Robert L. Pollock
February 16, 2005; Page A14 (The Wall Street Journal)
ANKARA, Turkey -- Several years ago I attended an exhibition in Istanbul.
The theme was local art from the era of the country's last military coup
(1980). But the artists seemed a lot more concerned with the injustices of
global capitalism than the fate of Turkish democracy. In fact, to call the
works leftist caricatures -- many featured fat capitalists with Uncle Sam
hats and emaciated workers -- would have been an understatement. As one
astute local reviewer put it (I quote from memory): "This shows that
Turkish artists were willing to abase themselves voluntarily in ways that
Soviet artists refused even at the height of Stalin's oppression."
That exhibition came to mind amid all the recent gnashing of teeth in the
U.S. over the question of "Who lost Turkey?" Because it shows that a
50-year special relationship, between longtime NATO allies who fought
Soviet expansionism together starting in Korea, has long had to weather the
ideological hostility and intellectual decadence of much of Istanbul's
elite. And at the 2002 election, the increasingly corrupt mainstream
parties that had championed Turkish-American ties self-destructed, leaving
a vacuum that was filled by the subtle yet insidious Islamism of the
Justice and Development (AK) Party. It's this combination of old leftism
and new Islamism -- much more than any mutual pique over Turkey's refusal
to side with us in the Iraq war -- that explains the collapse in relations.
And what a collapse it has been. On a brief visit to Ankara earlier this
month with Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, I found a poisonous
atmosphere -- one in which just about every politician and media outlet
(secular and religious) preaches an extreme combination of America- and
Jew-hatred that (like the Turkish artists) voluntarily goes far further
than anything found in most of the Arab world's state-controlled press. If
I hesitate to call it Nazi-like, that's only because Goebbels would
probably have rejected much of it as too crude.
* * *
Consider the Islamist newspaper Yeni Safak, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan's favorite. A Jan. 9 story claimed that U.S. forces were tossing so
many Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates that mullahs there had issued a fatwa
prohibiting residents from eating its fish. Yeni Safak has also repeatedly
claimed that U.S. forces used chemical weapons in Fallujah. One of its
columnists has alleged that U.S. soldiers raped women and children there
and left their bodies in the streets to be eaten by dogs. Among the paper's
"scoops" have been the 1,000 Israeli soldiers deployed alongside U.S.
forces in Iraq, and that U.S. forces have been harvesting the innards of
dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. "organ market."
It's not much better in the secular press. The mainstream Hurriyet has
accused Israeli hit squads of assassinating Turkish security personnel in
Mosul, and the U.S. of starting an occupation of Indonesia under the guise
of humanitarian assistance. At Sabah, a columnist last fall accused the
U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman, of letting his "ethnic origins" --
guess what, he's Jewish -- determine his behavior. Mr. Edelman is indeed
the all-too-rare foreign-service officer who takes seriously his obligation
to defend America's image and interests abroad. The intellectual climate in
which he's operating has gone so mad that he actually felt compelled to
organize a conference call with scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey
to explain that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the recent
tsunami.
Never in an ostensibly friendly country have I had the impression of
embassy staff so besieged. Mr. Erdogan's office recently forbade Turkish
officials from attending a reception at the ambassador's residence in honor
of the "Ecumenical" Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, who resides in
Istanbul. Why? Because "ecumenical" means universal, which somehow makes it
all part of a plot to carve up Turkey.
Perhaps the most bizarre anti-American story au courant in the Turkish
capital is the "eighth planet" theory, which holds not only that the U.S.
knows of an impending asteroid strike, but that we know it's going to hit
North America. Hence our desire to colonize the Middle East.
It all sounds loony, I know. But such stories are told in all seriousness
at the most powerful dinner tables in Ankara. The common thread is that
almost everything the U.S. is doing in the world -- even tsunami relief --
has malevolent motivations, usually with the implication that we're acting
as muscle for the Jews.
In the face of such slanders Turkish politicians have been utterly silent.
In fact, Turkish parliamentarians themselves have accused the U.S. of
"genocide" in Iraq, while Mr. Erdogan (who we once hoped would set for the
Muslim world an example of democracy) was among the few world leaders to
question the legitimacy of the Iraqi elections. When confronted, Turkish
pols claim they can't risk going against "public opinion."
All of which makes Mr. Erdogan a prize hypocrite for protesting to
Condoleezza Rice the unflattering portrayal of Turkey in an episode of the
fictional TV show "The West Wing." The episode allegedly depicts Turkey as
having been taken over by a retrograde populist government that threatens
women's rights. (Sounds about right to me.)
In the old days, Turkey would have had an opposition party strong enough to
bring such a government closer to sanity. But the only opposition now is a
moribund Republican People's Party, or CHP, once the party of Ataturk. At a
recent party congress, its leader accused his main challenger of having
been part of a CIA plot against him. That's not to say there aren't a few
comparatively pro-U.S. officials left in the current government and the
state bureaucracies. But they're afraid to say anything in public. In
private, they whine endlessly about trivial things the U.S. "could have
done differently."
Entirely forgotten is that President Bush was among the first world leaders
to recognize Prime Minister Erdogan, while Turkey's own legal system was
still weighing whether he was secular enough for the job. Forgotten have
been decades of U.S. military assistance. Forgotten have been years of
American efforts to secure a pipeline route for Caspian oil that terminates
at the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Forgotten has been the fact that U.S.
administrations continue to fight annual attempts in Congress to pass a
resolution condemning modern Turkey for the long-ago Armenian genocide.
Forgotten has been America's persistent lobbying for Turkish membership in
the European Union.
Forgotten, above all, has been America's help against the PKK. Its
now-imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was expelled from Syria in 1998
after the Turks threatened military action. He was then passed like a hot
potato between European governments, who refused to extradite him to Turkey
because -- gasp! -- he might face the death penalty. He was eventually
caught -- with the help of U.S. intelligence -- sheltered in the Greek
Embassy in Nairobi. "They gave us Ocalan. What could be bigger than that?"
says one of a handful of unapologetically pro-U.S. Turks I still know.
I know that Mr. Feith (another Jew, the Turkish press didn't hesitate to
note), and Ms. Rice after him, pressed Turkish leaders on the need to
challenge some of the more dangerous rhetoric if they value the Turkey-U.S.
relationship. There is no evidence yet that they got a satisfactory answer.
Turkish leaders should understand that the "public opinion" they cite is
still reversible. But after a few more years of riding the tiger, who
knows? Much of Ataturk's legacy risks being lost, and there won't be any of
the old Ottoman grandeur left, either. Turkey could easily become just
another second-rate country: small-minded, paranoid, marginal and -- how
could it be otherwise? -- friendless in America and unwelcome in Europe.
Mr. Pollock is a senior editorial page writer at the Journal.
(The Wall Street Journal)
) but still I wanted to share it. Please tell me what you folks think.The Sick Man of Europe -- Again
By Robert L. Pollock
February 16, 2005; Page A14 (The Wall Street Journal)
ANKARA, Turkey -- Several years ago I attended an exhibition in Istanbul.
The theme was local art from the era of the country's last military coup
(1980). But the artists seemed a lot more concerned with the injustices of
global capitalism than the fate of Turkish democracy. In fact, to call the
works leftist caricatures -- many featured fat capitalists with Uncle Sam
hats and emaciated workers -- would have been an understatement. As one
astute local reviewer put it (I quote from memory): "This shows that
Turkish artists were willing to abase themselves voluntarily in ways that
Soviet artists refused even at the height of Stalin's oppression."
That exhibition came to mind amid all the recent gnashing of teeth in the
U.S. over the question of "Who lost Turkey?" Because it shows that a
50-year special relationship, between longtime NATO allies who fought
Soviet expansionism together starting in Korea, has long had to weather the
ideological hostility and intellectual decadence of much of Istanbul's
elite. And at the 2002 election, the increasingly corrupt mainstream
parties that had championed Turkish-American ties self-destructed, leaving
a vacuum that was filled by the subtle yet insidious Islamism of the
Justice and Development (AK) Party. It's this combination of old leftism
and new Islamism -- much more than any mutual pique over Turkey's refusal
to side with us in the Iraq war -- that explains the collapse in relations.
And what a collapse it has been. On a brief visit to Ankara earlier this
month with Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith, I found a poisonous
atmosphere -- one in which just about every politician and media outlet
(secular and religious) preaches an extreme combination of America- and
Jew-hatred that (like the Turkish artists) voluntarily goes far further
than anything found in most of the Arab world's state-controlled press. If
I hesitate to call it Nazi-like, that's only because Goebbels would
probably have rejected much of it as too crude.
* * *
Consider the Islamist newspaper Yeni Safak, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan's favorite. A Jan. 9 story claimed that U.S. forces were tossing so
many Iraqi bodies into the Euphrates that mullahs there had issued a fatwa
prohibiting residents from eating its fish. Yeni Safak has also repeatedly
claimed that U.S. forces used chemical weapons in Fallujah. One of its
columnists has alleged that U.S. soldiers raped women and children there
and left their bodies in the streets to be eaten by dogs. Among the paper's
"scoops" have been the 1,000 Israeli soldiers deployed alongside U.S.
forces in Iraq, and that U.S. forces have been harvesting the innards of
dead Iraqis for sale on the U.S. "organ market."
It's not much better in the secular press. The mainstream Hurriyet has
accused Israeli hit squads of assassinating Turkish security personnel in
Mosul, and the U.S. of starting an occupation of Indonesia under the guise
of humanitarian assistance. At Sabah, a columnist last fall accused the
U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Eric Edelman, of letting his "ethnic origins" --
guess what, he's Jewish -- determine his behavior. Mr. Edelman is indeed
the all-too-rare foreign-service officer who takes seriously his obligation
to defend America's image and interests abroad. The intellectual climate in
which he's operating has gone so mad that he actually felt compelled to
organize a conference call with scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey
to explain that secret U.S. nuclear testing did not cause the recent
tsunami.
Never in an ostensibly friendly country have I had the impression of
embassy staff so besieged. Mr. Erdogan's office recently forbade Turkish
officials from attending a reception at the ambassador's residence in honor
of the "Ecumenical" Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, who resides in
Istanbul. Why? Because "ecumenical" means universal, which somehow makes it
all part of a plot to carve up Turkey.
Perhaps the most bizarre anti-American story au courant in the Turkish
capital is the "eighth planet" theory, which holds not only that the U.S.
knows of an impending asteroid strike, but that we know it's going to hit
North America. Hence our desire to colonize the Middle East.
It all sounds loony, I know. But such stories are told in all seriousness
at the most powerful dinner tables in Ankara. The common thread is that
almost everything the U.S. is doing in the world -- even tsunami relief --
has malevolent motivations, usually with the implication that we're acting
as muscle for the Jews.
In the face of such slanders Turkish politicians have been utterly silent.
In fact, Turkish parliamentarians themselves have accused the U.S. of
"genocide" in Iraq, while Mr. Erdogan (who we once hoped would set for the
Muslim world an example of democracy) was among the few world leaders to
question the legitimacy of the Iraqi elections. When confronted, Turkish
pols claim they can't risk going against "public opinion."
All of which makes Mr. Erdogan a prize hypocrite for protesting to
Condoleezza Rice the unflattering portrayal of Turkey in an episode of the
fictional TV show "The West Wing." The episode allegedly depicts Turkey as
having been taken over by a retrograde populist government that threatens
women's rights. (Sounds about right to me.)
In the old days, Turkey would have had an opposition party strong enough to
bring such a government closer to sanity. But the only opposition now is a
moribund Republican People's Party, or CHP, once the party of Ataturk. At a
recent party congress, its leader accused his main challenger of having
been part of a CIA plot against him. That's not to say there aren't a few
comparatively pro-U.S. officials left in the current government and the
state bureaucracies. But they're afraid to say anything in public. In
private, they whine endlessly about trivial things the U.S. "could have
done differently."
Entirely forgotten is that President Bush was among the first world leaders
to recognize Prime Minister Erdogan, while Turkey's own legal system was
still weighing whether he was secular enough for the job. Forgotten have
been decades of U.S. military assistance. Forgotten have been years of
American efforts to secure a pipeline route for Caspian oil that terminates
at the Turkish port of Ceyhan. Forgotten has been the fact that U.S.
administrations continue to fight annual attempts in Congress to pass a
resolution condemning modern Turkey for the long-ago Armenian genocide.
Forgotten has been America's persistent lobbying for Turkish membership in
the European Union.
Forgotten, above all, has been America's help against the PKK. Its
now-imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was expelled from Syria in 1998
after the Turks threatened military action. He was then passed like a hot
potato between European governments, who refused to extradite him to Turkey
because -- gasp! -- he might face the death penalty. He was eventually
caught -- with the help of U.S. intelligence -- sheltered in the Greek
Embassy in Nairobi. "They gave us Ocalan. What could be bigger than that?"
says one of a handful of unapologetically pro-U.S. Turks I still know.
I know that Mr. Feith (another Jew, the Turkish press didn't hesitate to
note), and Ms. Rice after him, pressed Turkish leaders on the need to
challenge some of the more dangerous rhetoric if they value the Turkey-U.S.
relationship. There is no evidence yet that they got a satisfactory answer.
Turkish leaders should understand that the "public opinion" they cite is
still reversible. But after a few more years of riding the tiger, who
knows? Much of Ataturk's legacy risks being lost, and there won't be any of
the old Ottoman grandeur left, either. Turkey could easily become just
another second-rate country: small-minded, paranoid, marginal and -- how
could it be otherwise? -- friendless in America and unwelcome in Europe.
Mr. Pollock is a senior editorial page writer at the Journal.
(The Wall Street Journal)
Well I have to agree with the following remark:
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