Turkish troops heading for Iraq?

On occasion, Turks appear to be a remarkably complacent people. Their top general publicly asks for permission to cross over into Iraq; their Prime Minister publicly warns that Turkey's patience is at the breaking point; their UN representative is to present a dossier probably justifying an incursion; and a military build-up continues on the Iraqi border. Some 80,000 Turkish troops have been amassed opposite the newly-empowered peshmerga, and all that happens in the Turkish press is some short discussion on an extra few tanks being sent to the border. Turkey may be about to send troops into the most volatile area in the world, and a deafening silence reigns in the Turkish press. There is no discussion at all about the objectives, methods and time frame of such an action.

Darcy does not claim to know all about Turkey, but he has lived here long enough to pick up the language (more importantly, be able to use a modified QWERTY keyboard), delve into its political and social past, and to get that all-important feel for the country. Yet he confesses himself to be quite at sea on this particular matter. In the absence of knowledge, speculation must arise. The following is such, and is open to correction.

Hypothesis 1: The Turkish media considers such an incursion into Iraq to be "a quarrel in a far-away country" in which their readers, listeners and viewers have little interest. Darcy considers this to be unlikely.

Hypothesis 2: The Turkish government and army have no intention to send troops into Iraq. (Therefore the media does not consider the current events to be important enough to note.) The present build-up is to put pressure on all factions in Iraq to address Turkey's demands. Darcy does not quite understand what this would accomplish. Iraq is hardly a country nowadays; instead it is a mass of violently conflicting interests. A uniform reply is therefore out of the question. Given that this hypothesis is unlikely to bear fruit, Darcy does not believe it to be valid.

Hypothesis 3: Turkey is truly preparing to invade Iraq. After all, the Turks seem to be on a diplomatic offensive that would render such an incursion more palatable to the world, and diplomatic powder is limited. Indeed these diplomatic forays appears to be bearing fruit in the form of implicit approval. The statement by the US Defence Secretary that "The Turks have a genuine concern with Kurdish terrorism that takes place on Turkish soil. So one can understand their frustration and unhappiness over this." and from the German Foreign Minister that "[T]he Turkish government naturally wants to protect its own people and that there is therefore a need to take action against terrorist activity." are certainly a world away from disapproval. Indeed, the recent move by the Americans to hand over the policing of Northern Iraq to the Kurds ahead of schedule may be a pre-emptive move to prevent Turkish and US soldiers from facing each other on the field. Of course the US and the EU will still kick up a fuss, but the international groundwork seems to have been laid. And considering that the US has some 160-170,000 troops to cover most of Iraq, 80,000 (at present) Turkish soldiers make a credible force for a relatively small slice of territory in the north. Darcy finds this to be quite credible.

Where, then, is the discussion of the pros and cons of such an operation? Has it happened in the past and Darcy has missed it? Or is there such consensus on this subject that a discussion is not needed? And why are Iran and Turkey shelling northern Iraq at the same time?

Hypothesis 4: Darcy is talking arrant nonsense.


Darcy is confident that a straight military encounter between the Turkish army and the peshmerga would be lopsided. Turkey is not a great military power - it does not have the ability to project power around the world - but it certainly possesses the ability to confront the peshmerga next door. (Some parallels have been drawn with the recent Israeli incursion into Lebanon; Darcy believes the dynamics of a broad front versus a narrow render such a comparison meaningless). Yet the peshmerga are said to number 80-175,000. He doubts that 80,000 Turkish troops (even with air superiority) would be enough brusquely to brush them aside. And that is assuming that the peshmerga would indeed be happy to fight the Turks, instead of disappearing into the mountains. And what of the potential security repercussions within Turkey?

Darcy considers these to be all valid questions. But where is the public debate?

Link added: Megalommatis

An ongoing discussion in the comments section of one of Darcy's articles having referenced a certain site, Darcy could not resist taking a look. He found the site, but more importantly, found one of the world's least-PC authors, a man by the grand name of Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis. Darcy is a sucker for exotic names and he also likes to be non-PC (though not as much as this gentleman). M.S.M. blogs on a plethora of subjects, with sulphurous titles such as: "Vicious, Tenebrous Allies: Racist European ‘Professors’ and Abyssinian Tyrants", "Fareed Zakaria’s Ulcerous Hatred for Democracy, Turkey and Islam", "Islamic Extremist Propaganda by the Economist". (Darcy does not know whether M.S.M. is John Knox re-incarnated.)

Love it or loathe it, this site looks to one where the articles will always generate a strong reaction. And as Darcy subscribes to other outré blogs such as Gateway Pundit, he is quite happy to add M.S.M.'s writings to the list he will visit frequently.

Link added: TrulySecular

The list of Darcy's most-visited blogs keeps expanding. Today he added TrulySecular, a sentiment he shares. The site is blogged from India, which probably has more religions than any country other than the United States.

In praise of fundamental "laicité"

Darcy had long had an abhorrence of religion in public affairs. He finds the sight of ostentatious church-going on the part of Mr Blair to be wrong; the direct line to God that Mr Bush has installed in the Oval Office has somehow led to extreme errors of judgement; and he is not convinced that Mr Erdogan and his party are the best future for Turkey. That is not to say that he does not credit Mr Erdogan and the AKP for much better leadership than Turkey has otherwise recently enjoyed. It is just that Darcy finds the idea of a Prime Minister who faints during Ramadan both sad (for the man himself) and bad governance.

Darcy is not the most fluent of wordsmiths. Nor does he necessarily know the ins and outs of Turkish politics as well as he would like. Therefore, Darcy will today quote from two articles that have appeared in the press recently and which he believes best reflect the situation.

"Most recently, six men described as Islamic militants were arrested in the United States on charges they plotted to attack New Jersey's Fort Dix army base and “kill as many soldiers as possible.” One of the men, a Turk, said: “It doesn't matter to me whether I get locked up, arrested or get taken away… or I die, it doesn't matter. I am doing it in the name of Allah.” Could that Turk belong to the secularist group Ms Berlinski views as anti-Zionist and anti-western? Which political party would he probably vote for in Turkey? CHP? Here are a few more questions: Was it the same anti-Zionist secularists who murdered the priest Trabzon, the judge in Ankara? Was it the secularists who bombed banks, synagogues and the British Consulate in Istanbul? Was it them who tortured and killed Christian converts in Malatya last month? Was Hrant Dink's murderer a secularist? Who arson attacked and killed 33 people in Sivas in 1993? How many people ... have been attacked in Turkey for not fasting during Ramadan? How many people, if any ... have been attacked for fasting during Ramadan? How many people ... have been attacked for drinking alcohol “in Muslim neighborhoods?” How many people, if any ... have been attacked in Turkey for NOT drinking alcohol? Do secularists kill in the name of secularism? ... Is there, anywhere in the world, a concept called as “secularist terror?” Is there a concept called as Islamic terror? Assuming these questions are given honest answers, what explains the difference in the answers?Of course, Mr Erdoğan and his men disapprove of violence in the name of Islam. But there would be a very thin line between violent Islam and “Muslim democracy” when the latter becomes the dominant ideology of an unstable, unpredictable and young populace."

The second quote is from another article by the same author.

"Let's begin with the number three of the AKP, Bülent Arınç, a man of many troubles these days. Before the presidential race (or, was it a race or an appointment process?) began, Mr. Arınç said that eventually a “religious president” would best fit Turkey. Assuming what Hüseyin Çelik, education minister, publicly said after the military's demarche –that secularism meant the state being at equal distance to all religions— is true, could Mr. Arınç possibly have meant a religious Christian or Jew as Turkey's next president? Mind you, he did say a “religious person,” not a “religious Muslim.” But of course he meant a religious Muslim!

Is the presumably unbiased parliament speaker, number two in the state protocol, really at equal distance to all religions? Would he really be content if a good, tax paying, religious but non-Muslim citizen of Turkey were elected president? A pious Orthodox or a Jew? A protestant Turk, for example, like the ones murdered in Malatya?

Has Turkey not been permanently criticized by both of the European Union and the United States for limiting religious freedoms of non-Muslims during the AKP's governance since 2002? Ah, liberal reformers who merely want religious freedoms and democracy in Turkey… Which party, by the way, crafted and legislated the famous Article 301, which brought, among others, Hrant Dink, under the spotlight until a lunatic murdered him? Was it the MHP? The CHP? Or was it not a party but the autocratic military?"

Darcy has learnt one thing in Turkey. That political labels do not always carry across borders. He is therefore fully in support of Mr Berkdil and not those who, together with creationism, believe in the AKP's sudden zeal for a separation of church and state.

Links to the full articles at The Turkish Daily News. http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=72920 and http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=73287

Some politics, some religion, some history

Darcy can get easily bored, so his previous determination to continue on the subject of religion per se has been lightly put to one side. Instead, Darcy would like to write post this remarkable picture that he found on http://www.occidentalis.com/. A very interesting site, set up "pour que la France ne devienne jamais une terre d'islam". Darcy recommends a visit, and a read. There are many gems in that site. While Darcy believes passionately that Islamic fringe groups ought to have a dose of their own medicine administered to them, he is catholic in his discrimination, loathing the American religious right as much as nutcases in Judaism, Islam, Buddhism (oh, yes) and so on and so forth. To put it another way, Darcy is an equal opportunities discriminator against all extreme forms of religion.

Which is why I like England and why I like Turkey. Most writers at occidentalis would probably disagree, but Darcy long ago gave up on the possibility of having a logical argument with a man of passionate religion. Much as Darcy believes that the nature of God - if It exists - is not knowable, he finds that the points to which religious idiots refer are beyond the capabilities of human language and logic. Back to the site: Darcy was particularly amused by the comment "Ne glausons pas, [l]a Turquie de 2007, c'est la France de 2015, le rempart de l'armée en moins...". To which he can only respond with a Gallic shrug.

By the standards of the posters at occidentalis, the United Kingdom must be the most European nation. After all, while Turkey's flag boasts the crescent and star, and other European countries have at best only one cross (interesting to note that France has none), the UK boasts no less than three crosses: those of St George (England), St Andrew (Scotland) and St Patrick (Ireland). Though occidentalis presumably would prefer to gloss over the facts that St George was a soldier in Asia Minor (i.e. modern Turkey), St Andrew was the patron saint of Istanbul (and the Patriarchate) long before the Scots arrogated him and that only St Patrick has little connection with Turkey. So - the UK flag being 2/3 Anatolian - one could argue that two intruders have slithered into Europe, not one. Equally amusing is that the combination of crescent (and sometimes star) have figured in representations of Isis, Diana, the Virgin Mary, Byzantium and Islam, before being prominently placed on the Turkish flag. Darcy loves Turkish syncretism.

In the meantime, life continues as normal in Turkey today, without much reference to the EU. Except that today is national holiday - on a weekend, tant pis. Youth and Sports Day, to be exact, which sounds eerily like some Soviet festival, except that it was set up to commemorate the start of Turkish resistance to occupation in 1919. A flag day, therefore. Flags fluttering from window sills and balconies. Flags waving on the television. Turks certainly love their flags. No further public holidays in Turkey until 30th August, again tant pis.