BTW- I hope you all keep your eyes open over the next couple of months, because the new mission du jour for the wingnut Wurlitzer is to begin a full-fledged demonization of Turkey. The WSJ is at the vanguard of the movement:
Israeli special forces and their commanders were apparently shocked to find their boarding attempt on the Mavi (“Blue”) Marmara met with violence. They should not have been. I have no doubt that the Turkish “peace activists” aboard the ship regarded Israeli troops as something akin to the second coming of Hitler’s SS.
To follow Turkish discourse in recent years has been to follow a national decline into madness.
***The obvious answer to the question of “Who lost Turkey?”—the Western-oriented Turkey, that is—is the Turks did. The outstanding question is how much damage they’ll do to regional peace going forward.
Just keep your eyes on it, because it is going to happen. I suspect by this time next year your average teabagging idiot will be convinced the Turks were behind 9/11 and the Holocaust.
El Cid
The worst and most hated aggressors are always those who are on the receiving side of U.S. or allied violence. It’s more convenient the worse the actual sins of the aggressor, present or past, but even in cases when those sins are minor or made-up entirely, it’ll be enough. The worst sin in the universe, though, is to object to or even defend a nation or subgrouping from U.S. or allied violence, because we and our allies are always and forever — despite occasionally ‘bungling’ or showing ‘excessive zeal’ — on the side of God and righteousness.
Keith
Written without irony, apparently.
toujoursdan
Wow. What an article. Reminds me of the yellow press articles published before the Spanish American War.
Turkey is not an ally that the U.S. can afford to lose. That would be a “game over” move if there ever was one. If a teabagger gets into a position of real power we’re screwed.
Crashman
Who’s going to be the first wingnut amateur historian to start harping on the siege of Constantinople?
Tokyokie
The Holocaust? Seem to recall another 20th-century genocide for which they bear responsibility. (And don’t think that won’t be brought into the discussion.) And only about four years ago, Turkey was largely siding with Israel. Can’t be that Israel’s politics have gone around-the-bend crazy. Has to be the other guys. Only crazy people resist uninvited armed boarders in international waters.
YellowJournalism
One of my cousins is married to a Turkish man. Members of our family are a touch on the wingnutty side. (Okay, there’s a couple of them that probably have lifesize statues of Sarah Palin in their living rooms.) One of them would be the same person who seriously asked my husband, “Are you sure you’re not an Aye-rab?”
This should be interesting.
Michael
You expected something less than idiocy from an article written by a pollock?
Yes, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to go there.
YellowJournalism
@Crashman: The real question is: Which radio host is going to be the first one to use We Might Be Giants as a lead in?
schooner
Guaranteed that they will be compared to the Nazis for their slaughter of the Armenians within a couple of days.
Rick Taylor
Larison has been writing some excellent articles on Turkey, but this one in particular struck me. It’s about how the United States seems unable to see the world from the perspective of other countries, to appreciate they have their own legitimate interests that might not always coincide with ours. We’re always viewing them through the lens of, are they doing what we want them to? If they are, that’s good; if not they’re turning against us. The anger over their initial refusal to allow America to invade Iraq in a war that they did not wish to start and which would inevitably have painful consequences for their own country is an excellent example.
schrodinger's cat
Nick Kristoff has a good column in this morning’s NYT about this mess.
dhd
I get depressed reading predictions like this on this blog, because they usually come true.
Actually, it’s the army and the “Westernized”, secular nationalists in Turkey who have been the most stubborn deniers of the Armenian genocide, as well as the most vicious suppressors of Kurdish language and political rights (of course, the Kurds played a large part in committing the Armenian genocide, too…)
Of course that nuance will be entirely lost in the impending spin-storm.
jwb
@toujoursdan: On its own, we could probably alienate Turkey without huge consequences. It would be inconvenient and would infinitely complicate getting out of Iraq, but I don’t think it’s a game changer. But NATO itself is another question, and that depends on the Europeans. If the Europeans decide that this is where they draw the line, we could be in for a world of hurt.
matoko_chan
well…..the base problem for the West is that more democracy in MENA leads inexorably to more Islam.
because that is what the people want, and will vote for.
Like there is shariah law in the Iraqi constitution, and Hamas was democratically elected.
from the thread below.
So….”democracy promotion” aka the Bush Doctrine was an epic fail from the Bush admin perspective right out of the starting gate, if Bush was hoping to create secular governments through democracy.
The legacy of teh Stupid.
Captain Haddock
Well I hope things go better with the Irish ship headed over there now. I don’t want to starting hating on them now as well.
Linda Featheringill
Turkey has not been governed by saints and angels for a long time. A good portion of the mud likely to be thrown at them is justified.
HOWEVER, it wasn’t Turkey that attacked a flotilla of civilians in international waters.
I am usually pro-Israel, largely because her enemies tend to be crazy and I try to reserve my support for sane people. But using force to board the flotilla was nuts.
Mac
Hellenia Irredenta. It’s time to take back Constantinople!
EdTheRed
What. The. Fuck?
“Our team of heavily armed commandos was shocked – shocked! – when they boarded ships in international waters and were not greeted as liberators.”
jwb
@Rick Taylor: IIRC, Larison is pretty sympathetic to the Armenians as well, so it’s not like he’s coming at this as some sort of supporter of Turkey.
stuckinred
@Captain Haddock: rotsa ruck
toujoursdan
Got to love this. Those poor isolated Turks who are fed so much propaganda. They just can’t get at the truth…
matoko_chan
And I think a very significant thing is that (according to the CIA factbook) Turkey is nominally 98.9 percent muslim.
kid bitzer
“To follow Turkish discourse in recent years has been to follow a national decline into madness.”
odd typo-i’ve never seen “israeli” spelled “t-u-r-k-i-s-h” before.
yeah, we really, really cannot lose turkey. israel does not control the black sea.
Bret
I heard that Turkey boils babies alive and makes little hats out of their skin.
And that they don’t believe in Jesus.
Just what I heard.
matoko_chan
@toujoursdan: Today’s Zaman–your gateway to the Turkish daily news.
;)
Konrad
The concern that the WSJ is raising is legitimate; Turkey is the only secular democracy in the Mideast (except Israel, and you can question their status as secular or democratic), and if this results in Turkish politicians slowly undoing Ataturk’s reforms, then that would be really bad for the region.
But when they ask “who lost Turkey”, they’re not including Germany and France blackballing Turkey’s entrance to the EU or the US making a semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, instead looking at the symptom of devolving relations with Israel and deducing it must be something in the water. As Tokyokie has pointed out.
toujoursdan
And from none other than the Jerusalem Post:
Paul L.
Michael Coren Attacks Turkish Hypocrisy
Please defend the treatment of the Kurds and the Armenians by Turkey.
This could be a Video of a Balloon Juice poster/commenter defending Turkey.
“I got the facts from my mind”
matoko_chan
@Konrad:
Why?
Turkey is evolving away from 90 years of Kemalist occidentalism that was IMPOSED by a dictator…..through democracy.
power to the (muslim) people.
heh.
toujoursdan
@Paul L.:
Again, in your world, two wrongs make a right, eh?
Most of us grew out of that stage when we hit 14.
And there really is no comparison between Turkeys poor treatment of the Kurds and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Turkey has a long way to go to right historical wrongs, but they aren’t putting an embargo on people, restricting their travel, building settlements on their land, etc. Apples and oranges.
Bubblegum Tate
@Crashman:
Probably either Victorus Davidus Hansonus or noted historian Jonah Goldberg.
Also: How long before it is decided by Greater Wingnuttia that Turkey represents and “existential threat to our way of life”?
JMonkey
I swear, when I read the headline, I thought this was going to be some kind of recipe.
Mnemosyne
@schooner:
It looks like you’re psychic — you only had to wait 20 comments for Paul L to show up and prove you right.
Stroszek
Liberal Jihad: How FDR and Hillary Clinton Handed Byzantium to Islam by Jonah Goldberg
JMonkey
And I notice that, right on time, Instapundit has posted a gallery of the Armenian genocide.
Michael
@matoko_chan:
You have to build stable, secularized society first, then followon with the democracy thing, not the back assward way that the Afghan and Iraqi misadventures were handled.
Rather than using the post-WWII Japanese and German occupations as the preferred models (here is your Constitution for a plural society, you’re stuck with it and we’ll administer you until you get your shit straight), we went straight to elections. Surprise surprise – meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It was really fucking lazy, something I’ve discovered is the defining characteristic of modern Conservatism.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satsn
One of the wingnut Memes two tears ago when the House was considering a resolution on the Armenian genocide was how Unserious and Against The Troops Speaker Pelosi was because Turkey was our ally and U.S. bases in Turkey provided logistical support for C+ Augustus’ war in Iraq.
Wonder if they’ll remember the logic why Turkey was so important now.
Bill E Pilgrim
Yes, the worst thing you can do is get killed by extreme right wingers. They hate it when you do that.
cyd
@Captain Haddock:
It’s just a matter of time before Irish terrorism is introduced to the discussion.
someguy
@schooner:
+1. Not sure if that wins the thread, but it definitely medals.
@Rick Taylor:
Yeah, the real hard core right wingers seem to have a pretty solid understanding of militarized right wing theocracies, for some reason. If the Chinese government suddenly turned Southern Baptist, I suspect Larison would immediately be blessed with unfathomable levels of insight into Chinese politics. Funny how that works.
Bubblegum Tate
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Getting killed by extreme right wingers just shows your liberal bias. And that you’re a commie nazi, also, too.
Citizen_X
@Paul L.:
You’re so right; there’s been lots of defense of those actions here, but not nearly enough. So when you say “Dance!” we’ll dance, yes sir!
Rommie
Because Israel doesn’t have enough enemies…
Paul L.
@toujoursdan:
Unless defending Islam.
On The Map with Avi Lewis: Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Islamophobia
toujoursdan
@Paul L.:
…and Judaism, and Christianity, and pretty much anything America or Israel does and… pretty much any ideology.
Still citing one wrong doesn’t make another acceptable.
Mike in NC
One can only assume that right-wingers have never gotten over the fact that Turkey refused to roll over and allow the Bush Administration to send the 3rd Infantry Division through Turkish territory when they embarked on their excellent adventure into Mesopotamia. The impertinence!
skyler
When the US said they wanted a secular, peaceful democratic Muslim country with rising economy, living standards, freedom of press, and all the goodies committed to peace and stability in the Middle East, Turkey made the mistake of taking them at their word and actually trying to push for peace in the Middle East.
El Cid
@Bubblegum Tate:
In a nation that can claim a serious national security threat from Nicaragua or Grenada, it won’t take too long at all.
matoko_chan
@Michael:
but that will never happen in MENA.
More democracy will inevitably lead to more Islam (less secularity) be cause that is what the people want.
Paul L.
@Citizen_X:
I would expect you to defend Turkey because Michael Coren was Swiftboating/Smearing Turkey in the linked video.
kay
Did Israel make an offer on settlements and the blockade yet, in return for US support?
No?
I’ll check back later.
Surely Israelis understand Americans will expect some progress on US goals and interests in return for us taking the heat for them on their latest fuck up.
That’s reasonable? Right?
toujoursdan
@Mike in NC:
Cited in the article, no less!
Of course Canada also wouldn’t join the Iraq War, so I guess it descended into madness too.
rickstersherpa
I don’t know if the human rights standard the U.S. and Israel should shoot for is the North Korean or Ottoman Turkey standard. Apparently, in our current craziness, we argue that if the North Koreans can kill, torture, and imprison innocents, the Israel and the U.S. should be able to as as well.
I would note that “Israel is the only Democracy” in the Mideast mantra overlooks both Turkey and Iraq (which you would think the neocons would remember), and if one starts pointing at their imperfection, again when do they want to apply the same standard once again to Israel?
El Cid
Turkey committed genocide in Armenia, so of course Israeli troops are justified in boarding an aid boat with Turkish civilians on board in international waters in protection of an illegal and internationally condemned blockade of civilians and shoot them dead because they fail to welcome your troops.
Likewise, anyone can shoot German citizens for any reason, because, you know, that whole WWII thing. Native Americans, of course, are free to wipe out entire U.S. cities should they procure the armament.
matoko_chan
@Paul L.: lawl.
You are citing AHA?
She’s a JAFI for hire on the wingnut welfare lecture circuit.
Consider why she sabotaged the American Academy of Pediatrics’ efforts to initiate a placebo symbolic nicking to replace infibullation and pharoic circumscision.
If symbolic nicking became a cultural practice in America, it would likely spread to other countries (like our movies and music and tv), and then Hirsi Ali would lose one of her most valuable tools to bash Islam and whip up the christofascists with.
Hirsi Ali WANTS the broken-glass grannies to cut small muslimahs, because it makes al-Islam look bad.
And that is what AEI pays her six figures a year to do.
PeakVT
Good grief, Israel is getting sloppy. Check out this hilarious screen capture. And by hilarious I mean completely unsurprising. Via the other Cole.
Citizen_X
@Paul L.:
Oh, yes sir, I’ll go there right and view that right away, yes sir!
schooner
@Paul
If you want to get into that type of nonsense then maybe you should go first in defending Israel’s relations with apartheid South Africa including offering up nuclear warheads and collaborating on nuclear weapons.
catclub
It will be interesting if the heat gets turned up high enough that the FBI translator who was legally muzzled by the Bush administration gets unmuzzled. It appeared that she translated calls by Turkish lobbyists in the US.
I cannot recall her name right now. Google to the rescue:
Sybil Edmonds
Turkey has been a) in an important place and b) an awfully good ally, for a long time. They have probably gotten lots of secret treats – like for allowing US missiles on their soil in 1963. Which was the real crux of the Cuban missile crisis.
More google results:
“Edmonds found one co-worker who had worked for an organization that was then under FBI surveillance. Edmonds was sure that that woman was changing texts that dealt with Turkish interests. She found a nest of Turkish spies operating in the US, some at the Turkish embassy and others in the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, the American Turkish Associations, and the American Turkish Council. Questionable activities included bribery, espionage, and infiltration of nuclear research labs. Some investigators assume that many of the weapons and secrets were not intended for Turkey, but were to be resold to China and others.”
me
@Paul L.:
This is ironic coming from someone who apparently believes Israel can do no wrong.
Stroszek
October 2007, Charles Krauthammer says Pelosi trying to undermine war effort by pissing off our great friends Turkey.
Dave Schuler: Making Turkey mad is isolationism! Nazis!
HotAir: Democrats acknowledging Armenian Genocide makes oil prices go up!
wobbly
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3278273.stm
and the entire nation turned out to mourn the damage done to those Jews in their midst.
Well, not exactly, but Turkey did indeed hunt down and arrest everybody connected with this outrage.
And they were linked to Al Qaida, most probably in their own minds via the Internet.
In other news, my favorite pope, John the 23rd, saved a a couple of thousand Jewish lives by forging baptismal certificates in Istanbul.
Let’s not forget either, that in the Korean War, the only troops fighting alongside us were Turks.
Demosthenes
I offer a different perspective than most of you, since I know many people who are from what is now called Turkey. I agree Israel was stupid to do what it did. I am no fan of the right wing neo-cons. However, Turkey is no democracy and is far from secular. Turkey is a sham democracy whose strings are actually pulled by the military. Indeed, this system is part of their governing constitution. In Turkey, religious and ethnic minorites have always been and continue to be treated as second class citizens. Turkey exterminated the Armenians and to this day never admits to his past horrid history. (In stark contrast, Germany openly admits its similar holocaust of the Jews). Even today, Turkey refuses to allow Orthodox Christians their own seminary to train priests, despite the 2000 year presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul. The tiny remaining Greek community is constantly harrassed and subject to petty discrimination, with periodic anti-Greek riots (most of which are quietly engineered by the government). Finally, Turkey is no true ally of the US. When push comes to shove, they don’t side with us. (WW1, WW2, to name two examples). Turkey deserves nothing, as far as I am concerned.
Dave
Well, that wasn’t predictable.
BJers rising en masse to defend Recep “Minerats are our Bayonets” Erdoğan and the Al-Queda-backing IHH.
Is there anyone you won’t defend if they’re brown-skinned and shout about killing Jews loud enough?
You’re just as racist as the Teabaggers, y’know.
But then again, as Norm says, you’re involved in a circle-jerk of outrage, a black hole of self-righteous paradoxism in attempt to justify your ever increasing hysteria involving Israel.
To paraphrase a comment here:
“Most Israelis and most Jews still have enough memory of what “hobnailed boots” have meant to them over the ages to decline to be their victim again. Forced to choose between being could-shouldered by [Balloon Juice] readers and surrendering our sovereignty to Jihadis and Jew-haters, what do you think we’ll pick?“
salacious crumb
I think much of Turkey (at least the more Islamist section of Turkey, but also perhaps the secularists) have become disillusioned at the prospect of Turkey becoming part of EU. With France and Germany putting up strong resistance to the idea of the Turks becoming Europeans, its possible that the leadership in Turkey have decided that the best thing to do is to align themselves eastward as they see no benefit in having carried the West’s water for decades (and thus losing respect in much of the Muslim world).
What worries me is that now there is a real possibility of an over throw of the current Turkish government by the secular Turkish military. The military have always taken pride in their relationship with the West and Israel, and the current government’s antipathy towards Israel has to be worrying the generals. Who knows, its even possible they could work with the Israel intelligence to overthrow this govt in order to preserve the relationship.
Paul L.
@matoko_chan:
I was citing Avi Lewis/Mr. Naomi Klein moral equivalence.
toujoursdan
@PeakVT:
And where are the weapons? I see defencive gear but nothing offensive…
Dave
An now BJers (for example matoko_chan) go completely over the edge by defending FGM. Utterly vile and utterly disgusting.
Progressive (or liberal) my arse.
Happy now, John Cole?
You’ve turned into exactly that you sought to flee from.
Captain Goto
@PeakVT: Reminds me of the stuff that some wingnut congressman’s office posted a few years back, purporting to show his experiences in a “safe” and “peaceful” “Baghdad” neighborhood.
The blogosphere outed them in a matter of hours; turned out the neighborhood they showed was in–can you dig it?–Istanbul.
And *no one* in the Librul Media will call Israel on this horseshit.
I need a drink, and it’s not even lunchtime.
PeakVT
“Most Israelis and most Jews still have enough memory of what “hobnailed boots” have meant to them over the ages to decline to be their victim again. Forced to choose between being could-shouldered by [Balloon Juice] readers and surrendering our sovereignty to Jihadis and Jew-haters, what do you think we’ll pick?“
Now that’s some quality spoofing. Otherwise, if you’re seriously trying to defend Israel with crap like that, you really suck.
Captain Goto
Jesus. Did someone [cough D-A-V-E cough] take a shit in here?
Lupin
Personally, I doubt the state of Israel will still exist by 2050. The main architects of its demise will of course be the current leaders and their successors who will keep digging while all rational citizens will have long emigrated.
Isaac Asimov pretty much predicted that it would eventually become a failed state due to demographic, economic and socio-economic factors — a chapter of his memoir I ASIMOV deals with this. I suppose the decline of the US as the world’s sole remaining superpower might hasten the trend.
Emma
Every time there’s an internet discussion about Israel’s behavior, the “you’re-a-Nazi” trolls arrive to accuse everyone of anti-semitism and trying to stifle the discussion. Usually people who aren’t part of the general discussion, or at least, people whose name I don’t remember as everyday sort of posters.
It’s almost like a disinformation operation, isn’t it?
matoko_chan
@Dave: im not defending FGM.
can’t you read?
I’m defending the right of the American Academy of Pediatrics to set policy without the NONAMERICAN CITIZEN and profound JAFI AHA lying and demogoguing the issue to preseve her six figure salary.
matoko_chan
@Paul L.: you cited AHA.
Like i said, she is a JAFI pulling down six figures from the AEI to bash al-Islam.
She wants the US to bomb Iran just like her middleaged whiteguy neocon revanchist masters at AEI.
matoko_chan
@Emma:
yup….and the right is amazingly permeable to disinformation.
like mentioning AHA’s tedious bought-and-paid-for bash-a-thon on al-Islam gets screams of YOU SUPPORT FGM AND TERRORISM!!!!!
its an IQ thang, i suspect.
;)
Kryptik
Ah…America: Where politics and media narrative follow the age old motto of ‘In the land of one-eyed men, the blind are king’.
scav
@Emma: well, they do expect to be greeted with flowers as they rappell down in their snazzy commando duds. Too bad about their typing as they tend to repel instead — remind you of anybody else?.
Alex S.
Oh, and the USA tried for decades to let Turkey get into the European Union, as a bulwark against radical Islam. Turkey was an extremely reliable ally in the Cold War and at high risk in a potential confrontation. They were the most reliable friend of Israel in the Middle East…. all that is gone now, just because Israel was too afraid of a few hundred activists who wanted to protest the Gaza blockade and give aid to the Palesitinians inside.
dj spellchecka
just wanted to note that the wsj’s “a national decline into madness,” comment is referring to a member of nato….
i suppose they’re also thinking that turkey has been reacting in a vacuum the past 7 years, conviently ignoring the hardening of israel’s behavior during the same timeframe
ps if you skipped comment #10 from rick taylor, it’s a must read
soonergrunt
As some other wag on another board noted, we can expect that, come thanksgiving, there will be a movement to rename turkey to “freedom birds” or some such.
But I suppose I really should be worried about the loss of “people’s core belief in the state of Israel” whatever the hell that means.
matoko_chan
This is going to turn up the heat.
Some like it hot, i guess.
El Cid
Like I said, if the Turkish government has committed any crimes against innocent victims, it’s perfectly all right for Israeli forces to shoot Turkish civilians on the high seas, because if you disagree with that you’re anti-Semitic and want to see poor, tiny, defenseless, itty witty bitty Israel thrown into the sea by the giant, mostly empty map spaces which surround them.
Robert Sneddon
The problems about Turkey’s accession to the EU are not based in them being a predominantly Muslim country but on other factors such as their constitution which gives way too much power to the military (a legacy of Ataturk). There is also the EU economic convergence criteria which they have not met or are likely to in the near future. Turkey would make a strong addition to the EU with a large well-educated and Western-looking population and an economy which isn’t a basket-case like a lot of the smaller Balkan countries which have joined recently.
There are also the Greeks who hate the Turks with a passion and who do not want to see them join the EU. For one thing it would mess up the situation in Cyprus.
anonymous
@PeakVT:
Looks like the IDF isn’t aware of all internet traditions.
Svensker
@PeakVT:
The only thing about that is date-stamps on digicams aren’t proof of anything because they can be reset at various defaults, often without the owner even realizing it.
But even if it is not a 2006 photo, but is indeed a current photo taken onboard the ship, what would be wrong with having bullet proof vests? Too bad the passengers weren’t wearing them — although that wouldn’t have helped the American teenager the Israelis shot in the head 4 times, I suppose.
Assholes.
burnspbesq
@Dave:
Who’s predictable, now?
Get this through your thick head: condemning Israel for what amounts to a genocide-by-starvation campaign against the people of Gaza is not the same thing as anti-Semitism, and you don’t get to pretend that it is. Israel commits crimes against humanity all day, every day, and pointing that out is not anti-Semitism. The fact that others do it, or have done it in the past, is no justification. And pointing that out isn’t anti-Semitism, either.
Svensker
@Dave:
Sugarman, go away.
kay
@burnspbesq:
He has to do that, or we’d reach the issue he wants to avoid.
Which is what, exactly, Israelis plan to offer the US in return for our loyalty and good faith, now that the deed is done.
I’ll expect a large concession on settlements. That’s a US goal, and well within Israel’s ability to deliver, if they’re willing to face the wrath of their own religious extremists.
We’ve been cajoling and wheedling on settlements for years, and still, Israelis persist in a policy that is directly contrary to American interests. Perhaps it’s time to call in the debt.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@matoko_chan: Man I was worried about this. However, I don’t think it will matter much, since nobody in the MSM will focus on it much.
burnspbesq
Even Leon Fucking Weiseliter gets it (at least partially).
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/75287/operation-make-the-world-hate-us
I guess that makes him a self-loathing Jew.
PeakVT
@Svensker: It’s sloppy in a number of ways. The pics are either sloppy fakes or represent sloppy documentation procedures. And, overall, it’s sloppy attempt to make the ships passengers look like vicious terrorists. And the whole escapade looks to be poorly planned from the start.
Israel should stop digging.
matoko_chan
@burnspbesq: actually…..the Gazans are being punished for participating in democracy.
Hamas was elected in a UN sanctioned and supervised election.
Bush and the Israelis didn’t like the result, so they attempted to weaken Hamas with the blockade.
Fail.
That is why the sanctioned supplies list is so random.
It’s just punishment.
The Bush Legacy of Supreme Stupid lives on….and on….and on…..
Pococurante
So the USA and Israel, as well as France and Germany, are destroying relationship the dependable Turks worked so hard to build over the years.
But those dependable Turks were the anti-democratic Kemal thugs keeping moderate Islam down. So isn’t it great those secular despots are gone and now we have moderate Muslims in charge. Because folks like Daniel “Jimmy Carter” Larison have yet to find a totalitarian regime that can’t be explained as acting in their own best interests so it’s all good.
Those peace-loving Muslims now in charge of Turkey provisioned ships and fund the IHH to run an illegal and immoral blockade causing the genocide of… well some unacceptable number of Gazans who democratically elected a group of charity-running freedom fighters who are pledged to destroy the fascist murdering Israeli government.
Because Israel is so stupid that it can be easily provoked into disproportionate reactions we give a pass on the provokers and blame Israel. Kind of like the big hulking Downs syndrome kid back in the day it was so fun to tease into a red rage.
But if the world will just admit how unfair it was that one third of Palestine got part of the Ottoman empire it would all be ok. Well also if Israel shrinks back into a tiny ball of land, and then allows everyone to come in and vote the rest of it out of existence.
Finally then the world will be perfect and the Muslims will happily sell us their oil at cheap prices, democracy will flower over the entire middle east, and religious extremists will hang up their explosive vest and concentrate on ending world hunger and universal rights for all.
The hysteria of BJ over the last few days has finally hit my limit. I’ll be back in a few weeks. No I won’t let the door hit me on the way out. I doubt many would hear it anyway with the echo chamber in full roar.
Douglas
@matoko_chan:
Israeli commandos – putting the “special” into “Special Forces”.
matoko_chan
@Dave: and condemning Hirsi Ali for sabotaging the AAP’s efforts to stop pharoic circumcision and infibullation with a symbolic pinprick is not “supporting” FGM.
Hirsi Ali is supporting the radical forms of FGM because that keeps the OUTRAGE turned up to 120db and brings home her six figure paycheck.
matoko_chan
@Pococurante: dumbass.
Turkey is democracy in action.
More democracy in MENA means more Islam, not less.
You and Bush have the collective IQ of a bag of hammers.
The stupid it burnsssssssssssss.
catclub
@kay:
Given that we have been cajoling and wheedling for decades, but still not coming down hard on them, why should they change their behavior?
Also, they have been doing things that are not in the US’s interests. But then, they are not the US, so the US needs to look out for its own interests.
ericblair
@Pococurante: Shorter Pococurante if you’re in a hurry: if Israel isn’t America’s Can-Do-No-Wrong BFF anymore, then Turkey must be America’s Can-Do-No-Wrong BFF now. But Turkey did some nasty things, so they can’t be our BFF, so we have to stay with Israel. QED.
And apparently Israel is a big hulking kid with Down syndrome, so you’re all a bunch of meany Muslim lovers.
benjoya
as a jew of turkish descent (hence my wacky sephardic name), i have to point out it was the ottomans that welcomed the jews when the spanish inquisition kicked them out. said jews had been doing okay previously, when the moors ruled spain.
Asshole
I wish someone with the relevant technical skill would create a Nazi filter to go along with the pie filter. It could replace every post by chosen commenters with statements like:
“You only think that way because you love Hitler.”
“You love Nazis so much that even Nazis are sickened by it.”
“Everyone here besides me is a Nazi.”
“You know who else agreed with you? Hitler, that’s who.”
“Godwin? Who’s that? What are you talking about?”
We could even combine the Nazi filter and the pie filter.
“I can’t stop thinking about pie. It’s completely delicious. Every person who disagrees with me is a goose-stepping Nazi moron.”
“I love apple pie best of all. You know who hated apple pie? Hitler.”
If someone feels like working on it, anyway. Just putting the idea out there.
El Cid
@Pococurante: Hey, c’mon now, get your rhetoric right. No one in Gaza has starved to death. Their children are simply drastically underweight, are growing up stunted and with illnesses related to malnutrition, and women who become so anemic that their pregnancies risk both their and their infants’ lives (before or after birth). Which is of course, all well and good, since they aren’t starving to death. Jeesh, c’mon, lighten up.
tkogrumpy
@Keith: to follow American discourse in recent years, has been to follow a national decline into madness. Fixed.
cyd
@Robert Sneddon:
Actually, if there’s an upside to this incident, it looks like it will draw Greece and Turkey closer together. Two of the ships in the attacked flotilla were Greek.
toujoursdan
@Pococurante:
I STILL haven’t read ONE justification for a military force attacking and killing civilians on an aid ship that was meant to run a blockade and deliver supplies to a group of civilians that the UN, WHO, Oxfam and Red Cross ALL AGREE are suffering from malnutrition and deprivation because of said blockade (which BTW, is mostly likely illegal under international law.)
Got anything other than “Other nations are bad too.”, “Stop picking on Israel.” “The Gazans deserve it for resisting their enlightened occupiers.” and “You’re a Nazi for questioning this.”?
Svensker
@Pococurante:
Did you say something in English? I missed it. Won’t miss you, tho.
El Cid
@cyd: The earthquake did that pretty well.
o kanis
Now the neocons are concerned. Lol!
From the Nation, Sept. 2, 2002.
Not only have the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP) been enthusiastic boosters in the service of assuring a constant flow of US military aid to Turkey, but JINSA/CSP advisers Perle and Feith have spent the past fifteen years–in governmental and private capacities–working quietly and deftly to keep the US arms sluice to Turkey open, as well as drawing both Turkey and Israel and their respective American lobbies closer together.
To Perle, Feith and other hawks, the importance of Turkey not just to the United States but to Israel is self-evident. As a secular Muslim state, Turkey has always been an attractive political and military ally to the Israelis; respectful of the close relationship between the US and Israel, over a decade ago the Turks began to appreciate the value for Turkish-US relations in being close with Israel, and have also grown to appreciate how useful an ally the American Jewish lobby can be against the Greek- and Armenian-American lobbies.
In fact, the idea of a strong Turkey-Israeli-US trifecta is nothing new. It was a cherished idea of Perle mentor and Committee on the Present Danger principal Albert Wohlstetter….
http://tinyurl.com/33kabct
Scum…
Bill Section 147
@JMonkey: Wasn’t just a blip ago that a vote to term “it” genocide was seen as a slap in the face to our Turkish ally?
Eastasia…All your base are belong to us!
o kanis
Only one Holocaust™ permitted.
Eric Alterman; Feb. 16, 2009; The Nation
Foxman’s moral compass has gotten so twisted, he has the ADL working to undermine Congressional resolutions condemning genocide–specifically, that committed by Turks against the Armenians. Foxman does not dispute that genocide took place; rather, he argues that it would be inconvenient for Turkish (and Israeli) Jews were Congress to take note of it. So we have reached a point where an organization founded by Jews in 1913 to “secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike” is now in the business of defaming those with whom its director disagrees and purposely turning a blind eye to genocide. In light of the desire of so many anti-Semites to treat the Holocaust in a similar fashion, Foxman’s position strikes this Jew at least as one too many ironies to be tolerated.
Scum…
tkogrumpy
@PeakVT: Actually, he really sucks wether or not he is trying to defend Isreal.
Midnight Marauder
@Pococurante:
Blame Israel? For the thing that they actually did, which is captured on videotape, not to mention supplemented by the dead and the wounded?!
This victimization routine has to be some kind of extreme joke. We are “blaming” Israel for irrefutable actions they actually committed? This is a joke, right? I mean, you cannot really be surprised why the world continues to take Israel and its defenders less seriously if this is the defense you are going with.
“Oh sure, blame Israel for the things we actually did! That never gets old!”
Un.fucking.believable.
celticdragonchick
@matoko_chan:
Bullshit. You jumped the shark on that, and the AAP can set their guidelines however they wish. It so happens that female genital cutting of any sort is repulsive to most Americans regardless of the religious or social under pinnings. Your attacks on Ms. Ali are pathetic.
Ailuridae
@burnspbesq:
The AIPAC crowd has been smearing LW as such for a decade and a half. Your point is still right and this:
Get this through your thick head: condemning Israel for what amounts to a genocide-by-starvation campaign against the people of Gaza is not the same thing as anti-Semitism, and you don’t get to pretend that it is. Israel commits crimes against humanity all day, every day, and pointing that out is not anti-Semitism. The fact that others do it, or have done it in the past, is no justification. And pointing that out isn’t anti-Semitism, either.
is an eloquent and well-written response to how th progressive anger towards Israel is not anti-Semitic.
FWIW, I have never heard a mainstream American progressive defend Turkey’s treatment of its Kurdish or Armenian citizens. Classic bullshit strawman.
Nutella
@matoko_chan:
This ought to turn up the heat but since the American citizen shot 5 times by our ‘allies’ was of Turkish descent and a resident of Turkey he will be considered expendable by the MSM and the rest of the political establishment.
When they kill a white Christian European or American then we’ll see the establishment saying they have gone too far.
It’s sad that the ongoing harm to Gazans doesn’t get the attention that the harm to the convoy does.
Dave
The only thing about that is date-stamps on digicams aren’t proof of anything because they can be reset at various defaults, often without the owner even realizing it.
They are reset on that model to 1st Jan 2006 every time the batteries are changed.
Not that little things like facts get in the way of a faux-progressive/teabagger head of rage, eh?
I’ll quote from an Israeli friend of mine:
“The days of Jews marching meekly into gas chambers to satisfy others are over”.
So tell me anyway, just how exactly are you going to destroy the Israeli Jews and dismantle their country?
I know what the Jew hating bastards of the 1940s wanted to do, so please enlighten me, exactly how are you going to destroy Israel and its Jews?
Rick Taylor
A quote from Juan Cole I couldn’t resist.
Visceral
@Rommie: Israel can never have enough enemies. They need enemies. Their entire worldview and self-image revolves around being surrounded by enemies now and forever, and the more irrational and violent the enemies, the better. Everything about Israeli society is based on that delusional premise.
If they ever succeeded in destroying not only the Palestinians, not only the entire Arab/Muslim world, but everyone who had any ability to make any Israeli think twice about something, be it because of firepower, economic power, or God forbid, that Jedi mind trick the goyim call ‘morality’ … the Israelis would not know what to do with themselves.
Maybe they’d hallucinate Haman coming down from space Cthulhu-style like in South Park.
Bhall35
Obviously, the Foreign Policy guide to Defending the Indefensible is what’s needed here:
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/02/defending_the_indefensible_a_how_to_guide
Calouste
@Nutella:
White Christian European? Most Western Europeans are atheists or only nominally religious, and most of the other are heretics in the eyes of American “Christians” because they are either papists or belong to denominations that have women and gays in the ministry.
And in any case, if they are on an aid ship bound for Gaza, they are islamofascistcommie fellow travellers, so they had it coming. Just wait what happens when Israel stops that Irish ship on Saturday and Ireland takes the diplomatic retaliation they have said they will take.
matoko_chan
@celticdragonchick: it isn’t cutting.
the recommendation was a symbolic PINPRICK in the clitoral hood.
I find you just as repulsive as Hirsi Ali.
She deliberately misconstrued the AAP proposal as a subsaharan ritual of the same name.
Why did Ali do this?
Because she gets paid six figures annually by AEI the neocon thinktank to bash Islam.
Consider why she sabotaged the American Academy of Pediatrics’ efforts to initiate a placebo symbolic nicking to replace infibullation and pharoic circumscision.
If symbolic nicking became a cultural practice in America, it would likely spread to other countries (like our movies and music and tv), and then Hirsi Ali would lose one of her most valuable tools to bash Islam and whip up the christofascists with.
Hirsi Ali WANTS the broken-glass grannies to cut small muslimahs, because it makes al-Islam look bad.
And that is what AEI pays her six figures a year for.
/spit
someguy
Say what you will about the Turks, at least they dislike the right people.
matoko_chan
@celticdragonchick:
no, you are pathetic.
you fell for Hirsi Ali’s scam.
she’s a JAFI for hire on the wingnut welfare lecture circuit.
i bet you bought her stupid books too.
sukkah.
Ailuridae
@Dave:
I have no idea why you are allowed to post here.
liberal
@toujoursdan:
Heh. I was thinking about you making that comment on an older thread when i read the post you just responded to now.
Someone needs to start making a taxonomy of Israeli and neo-con apologia.
matoko_chan
@Dave: you retard, Israel is on selfdestruct.
i think America should just get out of the way, personally.
El Cid
@Nutella:
That’s just not true. U.S. allies have often tortured, raped, and killed U.S. citizens, white and “Christian” quite frequently, and the U.S. never does anything meaningful. I mean, outside the useless exercise of expressing regret and wishing that all would understand that the security forces of Nation X simply were in a confusing situation and all regret the situation leading to violence, etc., etc.
Bhall35
@liberal: See my link for a start. It covers lots of situations too, not just the Middle East.
Ailuridae
@El Cid:
I’m not denying the veracity of your claim but what, exactly, are you referring to?
dadanarchist
The Turkish treatment of the Kurds and the Armenians was, and often continues to be, totally despicable.
An important difference, however, is that Kurds and Armenians are citizens of Turkey and have the same rights and protections, as well as liabilities, of the rest of Turkey’s people.
Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank do not have that option. And there are forces in Israel – including at least two members of the present cabinet – trying to deny those protections to Israeli Arabs and take away their citizenship.
Emma
Ailuridae: He’s allowed to post here because unlike himself, John actually encourages differences of opinion.
liberal
@kay:
It’s not only the religious extremists in Israel who want to hang on to big chunks of the occupied territories (particularly the west bank).
Call in the debt? They’d just laugh in Obama’s/whoever’s face and get AIPAC to dial up their buddies in Congress.
eemom
all this talk about Turkey and no one has thought to mention “Midnight Express”?
dadanarchist
Probably to the death of Rachel Corrie in 2003.
Or, further back, the rape and murder of the Maryknoll nuns in El Salvador by the US-backed military dictatorship.
There are many other examples besides.
Ailuridae
@dadanarchist:
Oh, I know the examples. I am just curious what, exactly, EC was referring to.
Mentioning things in passing is a great way to, well, let them pass.
Ailuridae
@dadanarchist:
Oh, I know the examples. I am just curious what, exactly, EC was referring to.
Mentioning things in passing is a great way to, well, let them pass.
liberal
@dadanarchist:
I think you have to distinguish between nominal, legal rights as citizens, and rights in practice.
The problem with Israel itself is that AFAICT Arab citizens really are second-class citizens, even in the nominal, legal sense: it’s perfectly legal for housing areas to exclude people because they’re Arabs.
Now, in the US itself, it’s certainly true that e.g. blacks face discrimination. But at least in the eyes of the law, we’ve made a lot of progress on that front in the past few decades.
Not sure about Turkey. My point is that there’s definitely some Kurds in Turkey who are not at all well-off in practical terms. The question is what the law says.
Svensker
@Nutella:
Have you seen the Rachel Corrie pancake t-shirts?
Svensker
@Dave:
Because having a Turkish ship bringing wheelchairs and seeds to Gazans is just like marching into a gas chamber.
Why don’t you just change your name to Mr.Godwin and be done with it?
Mnemosyne
@Dave:
So, in other words, Israel was absolutely justified in attacking a supply convoy two days ago because people in another country run by a completely different government put them into gas chambers 60 years ago.
I’m sure that makes sense on some planet, but it sure doesn’t on this one.
El Cid
@Ailuridae:
Besides the aforementioned Corrie, an American woman just in the last day or two had her eye shot out with a tear gas canister.
A year ago, another peace activist, Tristan Anderson, was critically wounded when shot in the head with a tear gas canister. Severely brain damaged, he remains hospitalized. In none of these cases am I aware of any significant U.S. response.
Here’s an Al-Jazeera summary of Western activists injured or killed by Israeli forces.
El Cid
@Ailuridae: When a comment of mine gets free of moderation, I’ve got a pretty good list of the Israeli security forces injuring or killing Americans and Westerners. Other allies have included famous incidents from all of Reagan’s terrorist and death squad allies in Central America, all of which led to no consequences and U.S. defenses of the torturers, rapists, and murderers. (El Salvador — Maryknoll nuns. Nicaragua — Ben Linder. Guatemala — Dianna Ortiz.)
Barry
The criticism of Turkey reminds me of the german word ‘amoklaufer’ (one who runs amok). I encountered it in a description of a country in a newspaper.
The newspaper was German.
The date was August, 1939.
The ‘runner amok’ was Poland.
The same methods work so well, and never go out of style.
burnspbesq
Larison strikes again.
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2010/06/03/allied-solidarity-whats-that/
Mark S.
Victor Davis Maximus Hanson, greatest military historian in historian history:
This might be confusing to some readers, but National Review loooooooooooved the Shah. I remember an article several years ago where they argued we need to reinstate the Shah’s family in Iran. They are completely oblivious to the fact that whatever Iranians think of the current government (and many of them hate it), they still fucking really hate the Shah and the fact that we put him there.
matoko_chan
@Mark S.:
Yup.
For all his lip service to the Ancients VDH is remarkably devoid of metis.
NRO has conveniently forgotten that “Students Day” is commemorated every year in Iran as the anniversary of the day the Shah’s goons murdered students and cracked skulls on the Tehran University campus to smooth out student protests in advance of Nixon’s visit.
Down the memory hole!
Bhall35
@burnspbesq: Agreed, just finished reading it.
wengler
This rightwing attitude toward Turkey has been forming ever since Turkey denied the US military from invading Iraq from southeast Turkey in 2003. In general it also works well with the rightwing fundamentalist assertion that the West is at war with Islam.
It doesn’t matter how friendly the Turkish government has been with the US in the past, in the rightwing Americans’ view they are still dirty Muslims hellbent on destroying the world. Israel is the crusading kingdom that can do no wrong because it is on the front line against the Mohammedean invasion.
matoko_chan
oopsie.
turns out there wasn’t any al-Q connection.
po’ whittle Israel forced into another public retraction of a lie.
tavella
Hell, Israel has killed American *military* and the US government still rolled over and played good doggie.
Calouste
@matoko_chan:
“Attackers of the IDF Soldiers Found Without Identification Papers”
Before or after the IDF took the papers away from them?
dadanarchist
I agree with you completely. But at least Israeli Arabs have minimal legal protections, the ability to vote, bring suit and to hold office. Palestinians in the Occupied Territories don’t even have that minimal protection.
And there are a lot of Kurds in Turkey in bad shape – not the least because the Turkish government still tries to force them to stop speaking Kurdish – but they nonetheless have recourse to the protections of citizenship.
dadanarchist
It is actually a pretty common activist technique. When I was in Seattle in 1999 I left all of my ID at home; it makes jailhouse solidarity easier because they can’t book you until they know who you are.
Wile E. Quixote
@Pococurante:
Just confirming what I’ve believed for years, namely that the government of Israel has the intelligence, self-control and foresight of a retarded child.
Wile E. Quixote
@Dave:
They sure are, now it’s the Jews who are gearing up to march other people into gas chambers. Hey Dave, can you tell me the difference between what the Jews are doing to the Palestinians in Gaza and what the Nazis did to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto?
As for me I’m waiting for the day that the United States tells Israel, a nation which murdered 34 sailors on the USS Liberty 43 years ago and never answered for it, 17 more sailors than Al Qaeda killed on the USS Cole. A nation that spied on the US and sold the intelligence to the Soviet Union, thus endangering American national security, to go piss up a rope.
I’m an American Dave, if it weren’t for the United States of America Israel wouldn’t exist, but for the life of me I can’t think of one thing that Israel has ever done for the United States. Not one single thing, so as far as I’m concerned you and your imaginary Israeli friend can go fuck yourselves.
The Raven
I like what Sean-Paul Kelly, over at the Agonist, has to say about this. It’s a thoughtful analysis, directed to an Israeli. I note this, in particular, which I suspected, but have yet to see anywhere else:
I am very much reminded of US machinations where overseas conflicts were exacerbated for domestic political gain.
Personally, I have Turkish teacher and colleague who is living in the USA. I hope she does not suffer too much from this: the combined rise of misogynistic Islamic politics in her home country and US anti-Turkish propaganda may do her a great deal of harm.
For me and mine, I see much more food for corvids.
Dave
I’m an American Dave, if it weren’t for the United States of America Israel wouldn’t exist, but for the life of me I can’t think of one thing that Israel has ever done for the United States. Not one single thing, so as far as I’m concerned you and your imaginary Israeli friend can go fuck yourselves.
Your eagerness to throw Israel over the side and stand by whilst a new holocaust led by Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah are noted.
Hell, you’ll probably be the one shovelling Jews into the ovens.
And I’ll quote from another thread:
A lot of folks have gotten angry in recent years because Israelis have made it clear that they are one group of Jew that will not go meekly into the gas chambers…Or as that great song by Kinky Friedman says:
“They don’t make Jews like Jesus anymore.”
I.E. , no turning of the other cheek!
Calouste
@The Raven:
Two of the ships were Greek, one was Swedish, two ships that were supposed to go with the convoy but suddenly at almost exactly the same time developed almost exactly the same mechanical problem were American and the one that is still underway is Irish.
Not really mentioned by Mr. Kelly that. Probably the Irish government that has threathened Israel with diplomatic sanctions if something happens to the Irish ship or its crew or passengers is Turkish too.
Wile E. Quixote
@Dave:
It’s not eagerness Dave. I just don’t give a shit about Israel. Tell me why I should? Israel does nothing for the United States, absolutely nothing. Israel takes American aid, murders American sailors and spies on the US and then sells the intelligence to other countries and endangers the United States. Israel is no more America’s ally than Saudi Arabia is.
Oh, and Dave, if you’ve got such a hard on for Israel why don’t you go there and join the IDF? You’ll love it, assuming that your worthless ass can make it through basic, the IDF will then give you a gun and let you kill all the Arabs you want.
Ben
Dave,
In point of fact, I’ll bet you hate Jews more than any single other person on this board. Yeah, you’re talking a big talk because being a hawk for Israel is fashionable nowadays, but if you lived in Germany during the 3rd Reich, you’d be a model SS officer.
maus
@Dave:
Nice to witness your slide into a complete frothed-spittle lunatic.
The Raven
@Wile E. Quixote:
You hominds just love feeding us.
Croak!