what should we do with turkey?

http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/scomp.htm

is that the generally accepted reason for why we didnt go into Turkey? is the difference in urgency between them due to the level of specifically reported atrocities? was the kosovo situation more important because of the idea that slobodon was forcing them to leave the country, where they would then become the problem of another country (and turkey didnt)?

i think the number of hurt people should matter. theres more in turkey, 30,000 dead, 2 million displaced vs more atrocities (how many dead?) and 800,000 displaced. a shanty town on the outside of the city isnt that much better than a shanty town wherever the kosavars would have ended up. they both were forced to leave whatever life they liked with accusations of brutal military badness.

if the reason why we went into kosovo was any of the first three questions, then we can say that the purpose of the military is not to save humanities disasters, it is to enforce civil order among the big entities that currently exist. if the reason why the military exists is to ensure happiness for all of humanity, i think we would have decided that turkey ought to be more than one country (or whatever fixed kosovo) if kurds hate it there so much. and we would have sent in the military to prevent the current turkish owners from disagreeing. i dont know that that is true at all, somebody tell me im wrong.

so ok, fine, the purpose of our military is to work for our best interests, not the interests of strangers. however, why did the rulers of turkey join our side, the nato, pro-west side, instead of the pro middle east side that most people would probably want there (right?)? if it was because of the money that they, the rulers themselves, would gain, and not because it was in the best interests of the country, how is that going to make the poor people feel?

what if it was a pro-middle eastern, anti-west country with a bunch of white people in the northeast, violently protesting their somehow deplorable conditions. what would the violently anti-west, middle east dictators do about this problem? would they support their friends efforts to destroy our white friends rebellion? wouldnt that make you angry!?

what if the pro-arab rulers of turkey are rich and take advantage of the country and the whites for use in their relationship with the other arabs. rich arabs are trading the fruits of our white labor with other arabs, who are freaking terrorists who we hate. our white people are getting the bottom rung jobs, while the few white traitors and the foreigners are getting away with all the money.

the only reason why they have control of our white people in the first place is because a long time ago, they managed a military subjugation and then later decided which areas will be under the control of which puppets. is that the only reason why they are stuck there (in the real world, not the metaphor)? if thats the case in the metaphor, then we would send our awesome white military to reconquer the white people that the arabs conquered, right? or we would just use our military to never let white people get conquered in the first place.

but in the metaphor, we live in a third world white country that doesnt really have a military, or any easy way for me to leave the universe of my farm now that i think about it, which isnt often. some religious guy is telling me about the plight of our people and how that magical god force ive always instinctually felt (why wouldnt i believe that instinct?) wants me to help my friends who i know are suffering badly. the apocalypse is coming, and the unimaginably gigantic empire of the devil is upon us, and it our destiny to blah blah. he says i should pray really hard.

do the rulers of turkey have palaces? do the poor people of turkey think that if they joined the other side, they would be better off? are they right? does it matter if they are right if they think it? it seems like it should be really easy to piss them off is what im saying.

is turkey just as powerful in nato as any other country? if you were an average poor citizen in turkey, would you ask your friends if the rest of nato would treat a western country like that? would you get really angry?

(the questions are not a rhetorical device, they are the questions that im asking. they are not facts, there are no rhetorical questions as far as i know.)

Hey futureman,

Which Turkey are you talking about…? It doesn’t sound at all like the one I live in.

There are no ‘rulers’ of Turkey, the Ottoman Empire is long dead and the old ‘royal’ family dead or in exile. There’s a goverenment, priminister Tayip Erdoğan - but he doesn’t live in a palace. There are no palaces, except the ones that are museums.

The Türks are pro West, because they are secular. Atatürk’s legacy lives on. The poor are far too busy scraping a living to worry about politics. It’s hard to piss off a Türk, but if you do. Watch out.

No nukes, but one of the largest land armies on the planet.

The Türk in the street doesn’t really trust the West anymore, not after the recent occupation of Iraq. Also because of the western pro-kurd movement. They will fight to keep their country one.

And purely personally, I hope they don’t join Europe until they can join as equals.

so its not the den of hatred and training camps that we all envision pre-911 afghanistan as.

but havent 1-2 million kurds been driven from their homes to shanty towns? what do they think of the west’s involvement in turkey or lack thereof?

i just kind of assumed they were revolting because the rich people were taking advantage of them as usual, i guess not. damn. are they revolting purely based on religion? if they are, are they being led by religious leaders who would profit by the creation of a new country?

and if the poor in turkey are too busy to become terrorists, is their plight sad enough to inspire terrorists elsewhere?

FYI for FM:
Careful who you believe FM. The West lies, but do do all the other world leaders, including Turkey’s. Munch time Turkey and avacado subs sound great.

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For more information on Turkey please refer to the Library of Congress’s Country Studies website.

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Special Dispatch Series - No. 870 - Turkey, February 25, 2005
Anti-Americanism in the Turkish Media

Special Dispatch Series - No. 857 - Turkey, February 2, 2005
Columnist in Turkish Islamic Daily: ‘USA – the God-Damned Country’; ‘Murdering is Genetically Ingrained in American Culture’

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LOL. Into the abyss the Tabs go.

Turkey has always been the US’s trump card.
They want it in the EU to help out the UK in preventing a tighter union that may challenge their western hegemony.

Problem is most Turks are so poor that they want a better life for themselves by joining a European Union that doesn’t really want them but that cannot admit it openly, for various reasons.

A Kurdish minority is what keeps the Turks humble.

Hello F(r)iends,

What should we do with turkey?
Serve it with stuffing and cranberry sauce…

-Thirst4Imp-isms

lol I was actually waiting for long it would take for someone to say that.

Now that it’s come it’s better than I’ve imagined!

=D>

Hey Future,

Listen to Aspacia and Satyr, even though they don’t live anywhere near Turkey, and in one case despise Islam, they’ll give you a completely factual, unbiased, fair and balanced appraisal of modern Turkey. Or maybe not.

Don’t listen to me at all, I’ve only lived and worked here happily, and travelled extensively in Turkey for the last 10 years. What the fuck would I know about anything…?

are they revolting purely based on religion? if they are, are they being led by religious leaders who would profit by the creation of a new country?

Nope - they are a fanatically anti-fundamentalist rule country, as laid down in the statutes of Ataürk - the founder of the republic. They’re no religious leaders here. Turkey doesn’t like Iran or Iraq. Overtly religious wannabe leaders tend to get slung in jail. The military, a huge faction still, is sworn to uphold Kemalism, and ready to step in and usurp the government, should they try to impose an Islamic fundamentalist leadership.

There is a Kurdish movement, but it is tarred with association to the PKK. Yes Kurds are socially somewhat denigrated, but this is slackening, at least from what I’ve noticed on a day-to-day life on the street basis.

and if the poor in turkey are too busy to become terrorists, is their plight sad enough to inspire terrorists elsewhere?

The poor in Turkey, Türk or Kurd, are farmers, Turkey is 8 times bigger than England, but with the same population, with a derh of arrable land. They farm, support their large famillies (record 65 children to one guy in the east), and sell the rest. You say shanty towns, but to the poor, this is how they have always lived. There is no resentment… Because there is no change in lifestyle, they have never been ‘up’, to compare with the ‘down’.

There is no unemployment welfare, but there is free healthcare, under the national SKK scheme, its not great but it’s there.

Please don’t compare Turkey to the rest of the Middle-Eastern countries, it is secular, and democratic. It’s not quite on a par with Europe, but give it 20 years, and it will be an altogether different creature. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get severely turned off the USA and EU by the current mess.