Turkey has 3 problems that will always keep it from joining the EU;
1) Denials of its own bloody history (Germans are still paying penance for WWII)
2) military solutions to political problems (see Cyprus, coups)
3) too religious (Europe is post-religion)

Turkey still can’t treat its own minorities right, why do you think Kurds are such a thorn in their side? Turkey has tried to forcibly Turkishize the Kurds, who are an apparently ancient people that pre-date the Turks in the area (http://books.google.com/books?id=DJdPqL92vFQC&pg=RA1-PA66&lpg=RA1-PA66&dq=kurds+ancestors&source=web&ots=LA8XbGXrZJ&sig=eTPMgvbKV5P9GM-VgBT-PjgVUZA )

So, from jingoistic saber-rattling…
From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21285412/

By Molly Moore and Robin Wright

Updated: 9:14 p.m. PT Oct 13, 2007
ISTANBUL, Oct. 13 - U.S. officials began an intense lobbying effort Saturday to defuse Turkish threats to launch a cross-border military attack against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and to limit access to critical air and land routes that have become a lifeline for U.S. troops in Iraq.
"The Turkish government and public are seriously weighing all of their options," Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said after meetings with Turkish officials in Ankara, the capital. "We need to focus with Turkey on our long-term mutual interests."

to denial of the past…
From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12397821/

By Josh Belzman
Writer and producer
MSNBC
Updated: 8:21 p.m. PT April 23, 2006
Public television’s attempt to illuminate a dark period of European history is demonstrating that in the world of documentaries, few topics are black and white.
“The Armenian Genocide” began airing this week on dozens of PBS stations, including nine in the nation’s top TV markets. Through tattered photos, letters and celebrity voiceovers, the documentary created by New York-based filmmaker Andrew Goldberg depicts a Turkish campaign of expulsion, rape, and murder that led to the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million ethnic Armenians between 1915 and 1920.

(Europe is post-religion)


:p:p:p

Oh, goody, goody! What we need more of in this world is wars ....big ones, deadly ones, the kind that kill off some of more and more people.

There's just plain too many fuckin' people on Earth! We need to get rid of some of 'em ...and we need to do it quickly! All these tiny little wars aren't killing enough people fast enough. Hell, the birth rate is far more than the wars kill.

Baron Max

I know the kurds would be a long shot, but I'd still bet on them. They have the Peshmurga(those willing to die).

BRING IT ON TURKEY!

I know the kurds would be a long shot, but I'd still bet on them.

The Kurds don't stand a chance in a war against Turkey ...UNLESS they resort to the hit n' run, terrorist tactics. But if they do that, they don't win anything, they just prolong the confict.

Baron Max

Yeah they get to live.

Yeah they get to live.

Dying ain't much of a way to live, is it?

Baron Max

pfft let them fight hopefully it will teach them a lesson

The Kurds don't stand a chance in a war against Turkey ...UNLESS they resort to the hit n' run, terrorist tactics. But if they do that, they don't win anything, they just prolong the confict.

Baron Max

Terrorist tactics. It wasn't only hundreds of thousands of Armenians that the Turks slaughered. The Turks have practiced terrorism against the Kurds for decades. Killed thousands of them. Terrorism is not confined to groups but also to states.

The Kurds don't stand a chance in a war against Turkey ...UNLESS they resort to the hit n' run, terrorist tactics. But if they do that, they don't win anything, they just prolong the confict.

Baron Max

you mean like the colionally miltia during the american revalution?

The Kurds don't stand a chance in a war against Turkey ...UNLESS they resort to the hit n' run, terrorist tactics. But if they do that, they don't win anything, they just prolong the confict.
Baron Max

This is not a war between the Turks and the Kurds. There are millions of Kurds living in Turkey, nearly 25 million I suppose, and do you think a majority of them support the PKK? Certainly not. And do not forget that it was Turkey who sheltered millions of Kurds, including the Talabani and Barzani themselves after the big upheaval after the 1990 gulf war which was replied by a bloody massacre campaign by the Saddam regime. I wonder if Talabani and Barzani still posses the Turkish passports given to them for their overseas journeys.
The thing that will make the PKK stand against Turkey and has actually emboldened them today is the direct military support by Israel and direct/ indirect support by the U.S. and the financial as well as sheltering support by the European gıvernments. This is not the words of an ignorant fanatic, these are what Turkish media, politican analysts in the highest ranks, Turkish army and Turkish intelligence officials as well as the majority of ordinary Turkish people accept as an established fact.

1) Denials of its own bloody history (Germans are still paying penance for WWII)
Yeah but Germans are in the E.U, and last I remember, not all germans openly disclosed their dealings. Some of them had to be aprehended as far away as Chile. The only last hands-on dirty dealings bythe turks is probably the fabric behind the ottoman empire, which by the way is no different from the British empire, French empire, Dutch and German, e.t.c.


2) military solutions to political problems (see Cyprus, coups)
Historicaly, in that region, its almost impossible to solve anything by diplomacy, of cause it doesn't help when you have a country divided into several different ethnics, which by the way some say is a result of foreign occupation. Even the U.S with their influence can't foster diplomacy in that region, they have been there with military presence more than countable times, and in fact they are there as we speak(Iraq).


3) too religious (Europe is post-religion). Have you been to Europe? There is a cathedral on every corner of every street. The only difference is that the religious clerics have handed power to democracy.

It's hard to understand why the U.S. Congress has chosen NOW to pass a resolution defining the Turkish slaughter of ethnic Armenians as genocide. It's not like Turkey is going to start paying out reparations.

I don't see what it will accomplish except make the Armenian-Americans happy. And coming from California, where most Armenian-Americans live, I don't see that the average American likes Armenians a whole lot more than he likes Turks. Right or wrong, they've acquired a stereotype that is an amalgam of that of the Jews (aggressive businessmen) and the Chinese (taking over entire cities like Glendale and putting up signs in an alphabet that nobody can read). I wonder whether most Americans really care about either the Turks or the Armenians.

So about all this measure will accomplish is to worsen diplomatic relations between the USA and Turkey. The fallout from this will be: the U.S. losing our ability to launch airstrikes against the Middle East out of air bases in Turkey; Turkey feeling no compunctions about preemptive strikes into Iraqi Kurdistan, the only part of Iraq with both pro-American politics and a semblance of order; and perhaps Turkey breaking off diplomatic relations with our ally Israel, AFAIK the only important Muslim country that even has them.

From the standpoint of American politics (and I'm not saying that I agree with it but just pointing it out), it seems like a really stupid time to be stirring up some 90 year old history that's going to make most Americans say, "Duh?"

Americans have a very short memory when it comes to history. Nobody knows anything that happened before their grandparents were alive. Most Americans couldn't tell you what the Ottoman Empire was (it stretched from Uzbekistan to Serbia) or who lived there, and about all they could tell you about World War One was that we won. We have to be this way, or it would be difficult to justify the founding of our country by bullying somebody else out of their homeland.

So what's next? China and India--speaking for more than one third of the human race--passing a resolution calling the founding of America genocide?

Good point Fraggle.

What the hell is the point of all this historical guilt crap? I mean "reparations" are what got Hitler power/caused the Holocaust for shitsake.

It's hard to understand why the U.S. Congress has chosen NOW to pass a resolution defining the Turkish slaughter of ethnic Armenians as genocide.

Democrats trying to stir up more trouble in the Middle East.

Baron Max

It's hard to understand why the U.S. Congress has chosen NOW to pass a resolution defining the Turkish slaughter of ethnic Armenians as genocide. It's not like Turkey is going to start paying out reparations.because it fits in to the real Bush/Chaney hidden agenda, whose goal is to destabilize the whole region, start wars, make the price of oil go up to $300 per barrel, then suck Europe, Japan, China, India & the U.S. dry

Bush/Chaney will get $100,000,000 pensions each from the oil giants they serve

It's hard to understand why the U.S. Congress has chosen NOW to pass a resolution defining the Turkish slaughter of ethnic Armenians as genocide.

The fallout from this will be: the U.S. losing our ability to launch airstrikes against the Middle East out of air bases in Turkey; Turkey feeling no compunctions about preemptive strikes into Iraqi Kurdistan, the only part of Iraq with both pro-American politics and a semblance of order; and perhaps Turkey breaking off diplomatic relations with our ally Israel, AFAIK the only important Muslim country that even has them.

You answered your own question. Those Democratic traitorous bastards in congress are purposely trying to piss off Turkey to impeed the war effort. They couldn't care less about hurting US interests, starting a war, or whatever. Just so long as they can hurt Bush.

There is no other reason to pass a bill the Armanians have been lobbying for decades to pass at this particular moment.

Turkey must be destroyed!
Hey! I like Turkey. Especially with gravy and mashed potatoes. Mmmmmmmm.

Hey! I like Turkey. Especially with gravy and mashed potatoes. Mmmmmmmm.

same here...I add bread crumbs and cranberries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7048234.stm

Turkey readies for invading Iraq.

You answered your own question. Those Democratic traitorous bastards in congress are purposely trying to piss off Turkey to impeed the war effort. They couldn't care less about hurting US interests, starting a war, or whatever. Just so long as they can hurt Bush.

There is no other reason to pass a bill the Armanians have been lobbying for decades to pass at this particular moment.

Hey madAnt

its kinda horrible how Bush can majke a song and dance about Ahmendijad and his holacaust comments while on the other hand taking a different view on the Armenian one.!!!

Obviously as you say this has been going on for ages and we cant just castigate bush for this denial.

~~~~~~
cheers
zak

You answered your own question. Those Democratic traitorous bastards in congress are purposely trying to piss off Turkey to impeed the war effort. They couldn't care less about hurting US interests, starting a war, or whatever. Just so long as they can hurt Bush.

There is no other reason to pass a bill the Armanians have been lobbying for decades to pass at this particular moment.

And, of course, that it is true about the genocide.
It certainly seems better than giving Turkey weapons so they can kill Kurds.

its kinda horrible how Bush can majke a song and dance about Ahmendijad and his holacaust comments while on the other hand taking a different view on the Armenian one.!!!

Zak,

How's it hanging?

Regarding Ahmendijihad, the salient difference is that while denying the original holocaust, he's bent on creating a new one!

Whereas the Armanian sitituation is ancient history. Choosing this moment to poke a stick in the eye of one of our key allies over something that happened a century ago is absurd and is clearly nothing but an act of sabotage. Even worse, it endangers another of our key allies, the Kurds.

What's congress going to do next? Pass a resolution condemning the Jews for killing Jesus? Or perhaps we should condemn Spain for the inquisition? No, let's wait until we're in a war and those countries are our key allies. Then we'll piss them off!

Well, if a Republican is president, anyway. Because nothing is more important than making a Republican look bad. Not the welfare of our troops, our allies, or the nation as a whole.

Zak,

How's it hanging?

Regarding Ahmendijihad, the salient difference is that while denying the original holocaust, he's bent on creating a new one!

.
HiYa MadAnt

i am good thanks, hows things wioth you??

You see there is a debate whether he actually said what everyone claims he did but lets just say he did.

why do you think he said them??

ok so it could be cos he hates israel and the jews etc etc alternatively and probably more likely is that he is using it deflect attention from his messed up dmoestic policies which are not working... So by making a song and dance act about what he said we are actually doing him a favour



Whereas the Armanian sitituation is ancient history. Choosing this moment to poke a stick in the eye of one of our key allies over something that happened a century ago is absurd and is clearly nothing but an act of sabotage. Even worse, it endangers another of our key allies, the Kurds.

What's congress going to do next? Pass a resolution condemning the Jews for killing Jesus? Or perhaps we should condemn Spain for the inquisition? No, let's wait until we're in a war and those countries are our key allies. Then we'll piss them off!

Well, if a Republican is president, anyway. Because nothing is more important than making a Republican look bad. Not the welfare of our troops, our allies, or the nation as a whole.

I undertsand your points here, the Us administration really has its work cut out sorting turkey and the kurds out..

~~~~~
cheers
zak

Now would be an excellent time to round up Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq and talk about creating a Kurdistan. The Kurds, as a general rule, have their shit together and there is little danger of a Kurdistan turning into a failed state or collapsing into civil war. The PKK are douchebags extraordinaire, but I would imagine there is a good bit of thinking that follows the line of "in the event of a massive ethnic cleansing campaign, these guys will be handy to have around" and thus the Kurds are profoundly ambivalent about getting rid of them. This is much like the Irgun/Stern Gang and the Palestinian Jews, and the current Shia/Sunni militias.

Right now, in Iraq there is already de facto independence for the Kurds. The Iranians, too, I suspect would be happy to have the Kurds calve off if the US would agree not to base any troops there.