'Metal Storm', Turkey and the U.S.

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The Feb. 15 Christian Science Monitor describes a situation that, to anyone familiar with American-Turkish relations in the post-World War II period, is almost beyond imagining: an American attack on Turkey. According to the Monitor's story,

The Bush administration, one of whose 'droids reportedly said that "we create our own reality," will take comfort in the fact that Turkey's government, like governments elsewhere, remains America's humble and obliging servant. To observers who seek rather than shun reality, that is cold comfort. In today's world, public opinion is strategically more important, not less important, than the attitudes of governments. It is one of the many ironies in the jumble of contradictions that make up this administration's policies that the democracy it promotes would quickly worsen, not better, America's diplomatic position.

It truly tells a tale that Turkey's public finds it's rivals and enemies for five centuries, Russia and Europe, as the lesser evil when compared to todays U.S.

A grand old man of the postwar American conservative movement, put it best:

"There is one sure way of making a deadly enemy, and that is to propose to anybody, 'Submit yourself to me, and I will improve your condition by relieving you from the burden of your own image and by reconstituting your substance in my image.'"

Not only will that make an enemy of anybody, it will make an enemy of everybody.

(comments (edited by me) to the article by William S. Lind, with whom I agree in principle)

[ March 02, 2005, 15:45: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

There is no way Bush said:

''You know, I'm sitting there with Schroder one day with Colin and Condi. And I'm thinking: What's Schroder thinking?! He's sitting here with two blacks and one's a woman.''

Even he would not get away with such comments!

 

Pardon?

 

The EU Turning back an American invasion of Turkey? Now that's what I call fantasy. Probably brought on by taking too much acid.

 

I got that from your link: http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_archive.htm

 

That was true throughout much of history (the masses were enslaved by the few), but that has changed greatly in the last few hundred years; and at times that may be true in the short-run in our own times; but once anyone has had a true taste of freedom, he/she will passoinately long for it, regardless of how hard tyrants try to take it away with the points of their rifles. But I'm always an optimist on the subject of liberty and its transforming powers on the human condition.

 

Poverty and nationalism have a way of winning over the "desire of freedom". Just look at Germany before both world wars. They had a fairly democratic system by world standards but in a flash it was changed to military dictatorship.

I pretty much agree with this, except perhaps the acid part. The EU has very great difficulties swallowing Turkey as an equal member and would never choose Turkey over America. Besides I don't think EU would accept that Turkey has any business within Iraqi terretory.

 

You base this on...a novel? There's a bit of a gulf between novels and policy; otherwise our "Left Behind" republicans wouldn't worry about their mortgages sending their kids to university. And as the Ottoman empire was actually considered part of Europe, it seems strange to say that they were enemies of Europe. Sure there were some wars and occupations here and there, but IIRC that's not exactly unheard of in European history. My guess is that the novel simply gives expression to Turkish discomfort at having a US occupation next door, especially one that empowers Iraqi Kurdistan.

 

Yes, but it's changed back. No country loves it's democratic institutions more than Germany does these days, at least it seems so. I considered the tyrants who have come and gone during the 20th Century, as I commented, "in the short-run" they may have gotten the upper hand. But only a few (Castro) have managed to stem the tide of democratic governments in recent years.

 

I don't know Bion...Rags may have a point. Maybe there is some basis to see history unfold in works of fiction.

Wasn't there a novel about a Japanese terrorist who crashed a jetliner into the U.S. Capitol Building?

Or what about the Islamic terrorists who detonate a crude nuclear device at the Super Bowl?

Of course the one that really makes me shiver is when we ALL get destroyed by the Vogons to make way for an inter-galactic bypass.

Yeah...could happen.

 

Chandos I admire your optimism but I do not think democracy and/or freedom has such and impact as you endow it. People are stupid and they love leaders who talk to their most base instincts and who give them an external foe to fear and hate. I think people of this day and age would still gladly give up their freedom for that. All it really takes is that 2/6 wants that, 3/6 just doesnt care and 1/6 tries to resist. I am actually seriously fearful that the age of dictators is slowly creeping back on the western world, overt and covert. In my opinion Berlusconi is a shining example of a semi-dictator. In Russia people value the strong leadership of Putin and the stability it brings a lot higher than freedom. People dont give a rats ass about freedom, first off they want stability, then they like to have someone to blame all their problems on and secondly they like to feel powerful and strong. It has worked and still works in the west because the elite wants it to work, for now they believe in democracy and freedom, when they stop doing that so will the people.

 

Bion,
well, a novel, when it 'sells like sliced bread' as we say in Germany, and is eagerly read by opinion- and decisionmakers alike, somewhat mirrors what's going on in the heads of the readers.

I mean, huh, the Turks aren't stupid. They hear the lofty rhetoric about freedom and liberty - and have not forgotten that when Turkey's elected gvt refused to allow the U.S. to invade Iraq from Turkish territory, one Mr. Wolfowitz was shocked and awed that the turkish generals, err, didn't overrule them. That much for claim and reality.

They see the U.S., despite all their clear warnings and deep concerns, and to their frustration and anger, supporting what might become a separate Kurdish country in Iraq's north - perhaps a future safehaven for another Kurdish insurgency into Turkey. To prevent that is for Turkey a vital national and strategic interest.

It is not that far off that U.S. troops protecting the Kurds might clash with Turkish troops fighting them. Some Turkish tropps have iirc been arrested by U.S. troops already for very much the same reason.

That is to say, the potential for conflict is there - if it becomes as bad as it ends in the book is quite another issue, and I agree, it's relatively unrealistic.

So I find the popular appeal of the point of view that reckless U.S. policies are directly threatening vital Turkish interests the really interesting part.

 

I doubt any US leadership would be stupid enough to even think about creating a Kurdish state in northern Iraq. I think Bush has even overruled the possibility in some of his speaches.

 

What if the Kurds spare the U.S. being stupid by doing it themselves, under U.S. cover? The U.S. caused and encouraged it anyway by giving the Kurds a de-facto independence under the reign of Saddam. If you hear to Kurdish politicians they talk about that quite often.

Things like that can develop a dynamic of their own pretty quick and it could well be that the U.S. aren't even in the driver seat of the develoments they started. Turkey has warned against something like that all along - unintended consequences of U.S. foreign policy toward Itaq and the Kurds.

What would the U.S. do if the Kurds declare indepenedence and a Kurdish state? Something like 'No f*cking way, you're not THAT free?!' and try to subdue them?

Interesting links on Turkey's relucant support for the U.S. during the war in Iraq and their position to Kurdistan:
http://pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_printable&report_id=31&language_id=1
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/en/doc/2004-01/07/content_296528.htm
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FA14Ak01.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FA08Ak02.html
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EG23Ak02.html

 

I'm not so sure that Kurds are all that determined to split themselves from Iraq. They voted with a high percentage meaning that they are active in forming an Iraqi government. I'm pretty convinced that if Iraq starts to get stable the Kurds will be satisfied with their position and perhaps they even manage to get some sort of autonomy. Turkey might protest but they would never declare war on Iraq because of it especially when it would completely botch their chances of getting in to EU.

If hell brakes loose in Iraq the US will propably withdraw from there when the Kurds are quite simply screwed between Turkey and the warlords of Iraq. If US troops would stay and fight in the civil war (which I doubt) they would propably more than enough power to convince the Kurds to stay calm and support the US.

Neither the US nor Turkey are interested in fighting against each other. I would sooner look in the direction of Taiwan in the search of conflict.

 

They are certainly not interested in fighting each other - and there I agree with you - in that that book must be highly unrealistic.

However, the point is that there are substantial differences between Turkey and the U.S. that seemingly make Turkish politicians and Turkish public alike ask themselves wether the U.S. as an ally is really worth the trouble.

Till now the answere is clearly: "Yes, they're worth the trouble". Still, that is.

 

I don't really buy that. Could it be that the novel sells well because it's interesting? Well written?

Stephen King's books sell pretty well, but I don't think that's an indication that the average Merkan is worried about demons eating their children (or whatever).

I dunno, trying to gauge the mood and outlook of a nation by one best-selling novel seems pointless to me.

 

It could just as well be an expression of the Zeitgeist. Today scepticism, if not aversion, towards the U.S. is pretty prevalent, and the book picks up there and goes on.

The U.S. no longer have the benefit of doubt. More and more their policies are seen as outright irrational, paranoid and bluntly ideological.

The interesting part is that the authors idea that the U.S. administration could be so crazy, to even attack an ally, is probably just the logical continuation of this Zeitgeist.

 

Well, as Chandos demonstrates, Germany doesn't seem to resent the US much for it, even though it was rather at the point of a sword:

Also, I haven't seen much hostility between the US and Japan since, well, 1945 or so. That nation was totally reconstructed after the US by Douglas MacArthur, who had near-dictatorial powers there. (Sorry for being off topic, I just caught this topic rather late.)

 

Slith,
Point is that Germany and Japan still do have their problems with what the US did to them - they are just quiet about it because the US were likely the best occupation power that could happen to us - the alternative to the Marshall Plan was either, to put it blunt, Morgenthau or a russian occupation.

But then Germany and Japan had committed murderous wars and had their zero hours, there was guilt and, as you might say, retribution.

That cannot simply be projected on today's most prominent example, Iraq, as the situation is vastly different:

What did Iraq do to the US? Nevermind, and the Iraqis don't have an answer too. If Iraq was guilty of anything, then disobedience, a minor crime compared to what Germany and Japan did.

The big problem with the unchallenged military superiority is that the US can only win through exercise of military force. With such a military potential at hand, diplomacy and compromising quickly becomes the least attractive alternative to military action in times of crises.

In a way the neocons today are as silly as the hawks in Europes general staffs and parliaments in 1914 who saw war as the most advantageous solution to their political problems.

So, in a way, 911 as an excuse for military action, is pretty comparable to the assassination in Sarajevo.

The morons claiming that 911 changed everything and that geneva can't apply in todays vastly different world have conventiently forgotten (if they knew it at all) that the anarchists were the big scrouge of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
When Geneva was written, terrorism was very much an issue in Europe: Gavilo Princip was only the last and most prominent of a long line of assassins that just had killed a few prime ministers all over Europe during the last few decades.

The US ultimatum to Saddam is in language and content so strikingly similar to Hungaro-Austrias ultimatum to Serbia - "Give yourself up or we're at war!"
Just that Iraq and Saddam had nothing to do with 911, unlike Serbia - and there the parallel ends - which had everything to do with Sarajevo and unfortunately Russia behind their backs allowing them to be so cocky.
If I were American I would be embarassed about the invasion of Iraq. Oops, wrong number, but nevermind, it was still a suffiently sinister place

For years the deterrent to start splendid little wars to enforce political or interests was the predictable intervention of the commies to prop up the opposing side. And there could be painful and embarassing losses.

That isn't so anymore, and Gulf War I has demonstrated the overall US military power to inflict horrendous losses at almost zero cost in US lives. I read that during Gulf War I more Americans were killed in D.C. than in Iraq. Gulf War I suggested to the tech happy transformation folks that a politically cheap no-loss war would be possible.

The military potential of the US, especially the effectiveness and destructiveness of the Air-Force, has grown since then. Where 37 F-117 dropped 37 laser-guided bombs on targets, today two B-2 drop some 48 bombs and attack 48 separate targets. There would probably be no human cost in the US for such an attack.

I think the only thing deterring the US administration from attacking Iran or Syria atm is that their forces are stretched thin and bound in Iraq, and face risk of being overrun when a general uprising in the region occurs - and not any concern for allies or their international standing.
Probably, they didn't push for all this investment in arms and military spending for decades only not to use it.

In face of their overall military dominance preemption is only too tempting for the leaders in the Bush administration. That is, the only thing that can stop the US is self-restraint, and IMO that's what they lack.

Iraq merely showed that they couldn't resist attacking it, they did Iraq because they deemed it doable and hoped be able to exercise influence in a post-war and post-Saddam Iraq toward their elusive "democratic revolution of the Greater Middle East" and wanted to gain political advantage and nothing less but to change the entire region.

To get back to your point, as Germany and Japan both had a capitalist economic culture, and both had parliamentary pasts - that is to say, the US were a correcting influence if you want to say so. The cultures, as far as politics and economy were concerned, were not all that alien.

In the Arab world the wholesale implementation of western values would simply tare their social fabric apart, and be in utter contradiction with Islamic traditions like "zakat".
You can't sell a neoliberal that you employ your incompetent moron half-brother only because it's your duty as a muslim and because you feel obliged to support your family members and extended family. He'll tell you something about shareholder value and efficiency and glare at you in bewilderment.

The islamic critics of the west, and that's something much more mainstream than Bin Laden's rantings, see the very western image as nothing less but a threat to their societies. As I see it the Islamic world is undergoing a sort of reformation back to the roots of Islam.

The collapse of the Eastern Block had also discredited the socialist regimes in the Middle East, something other than free market economy and western liberalism have to fill the vacuum left. You're likely to find islamist thinkers among the opponents of globalisation, too.

In a way, Bush's christian right and the Islamists share a lot, including the time of their emergence in the mid 1970s and their critique on western liberalism and the lack of values. Ironically, they cooperate regularly on social issues at UN meetings to promote conservative points of view.

That is the sort of "remaking in the own image" I was referring to. One of the first things the CPA imposed on the Iraqis was a thorough neoliberal reform of Iraq's economy, or what's been left of it after the utter devastation US bombs brought over it. That alone could well be as devastating as the wars before.

[ March 15, 2005, 19:27: Message edited by: Ragusa ]