Latest Neocon insanity: kick Turkey out of NATO – Harper
IN RETALIATION FOR THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON THE GAZA AID FLOTILLA
The silly season just got positively bizarre. In the aftermath of the Israeli armed assault on a Turkish-flagged aid ship, bound for the Gaza Strip, some of the more rabid American neocons have demanded, in no uncertain terms, that Turkey must be punished by being kicked out of NATO. Yes, you heard me correctly. Israel carried out an act of international piracy, and cold-blooded murder in international waters, and Turkey must be punished. Has someone dumped a shot of LSD-25 into the water cooler at the American Enterprise Institute?
It is pretty obvious that a talking points memo went out from the Israeli embassy or some other locale, because in a matter of days, many of the usual suspects—Daniel Pipes, Stephen Schwartz, Michael Rubin, and Victor Davis Hanson, not to mention the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)—all came out with the identical, preposterous notion that Turkey is the perp and Israel the victim.
On June 8th JINSA issued Report #995*, claiming, “Turkish government support for the IHH ship in the Gaza flotilla is now well understood and the anti-Semitic ravings of both official Turks and the Turkish media have made Turkey’s intention to split from Israel clear… The Hamas-Turkey relationship has grown as the Turkey-Palestinian Authority relationship, the relationship supported by the United States and the EU, has declined. Rapproachment with Russia, Syria and Iran, and the Iran-Brazil-Turkey enriched uranium deal are more of the same.”
The JINSA screed ends with a threat and a demand: “Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran. If Turkey finds its best friends to be Iran, Hamas, Syria and Brazil (look for Venezuela in the future) the security of that information (and Western technology in weapons in Turkey’s arsenal) is suspect. The United States should seriously consider suspending military cooperation with Turkey as a prelude to removing it from the organization.”
JINSA, of course, includes such neocon icons as John Bolton, Dr. Stephen D. Bryen, Michael Ledeen, Joshua Muravchik, Richard Perle, Stephen Solarz, Kenneth Timmerman and R. James Woolsey.
The same day that JINSA issued their pronouncement, Daniel Pipes delivered his rant, proclaiming that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a more dangerous radical Islamist than Osama bin-Laden. “If once only a small band of analysts recognized Erdogan’s Islamist outlook, this fact has now become obvious for the whole world to see. Erdogan has gratuitously discarded his carefully crafted image of a pro-Western `Muslim democrat,’ making it far easier to treat him as the Tehran-Damascus ally that he is.”
And what might be Pipes’ remedy? “Turkey has returned to the center of the Middle East and the umma. But it no longer deserves full NATO membership, and its opposition parties deserve support.”
Victor Davis Hanson took an extra few days to come out both barrels blazing against Turkey’s NATO membership. He penned a June 10th National Review Online assault, “The New Wannabe Ottomans,” blaming Turkey for allowing the flotilla of aid ships, bound for Gaza, to leave from a Turkish port, thus forcing Israel to attack. But the diatribe was nothing new. He observed: “Lately, Turkey has reached out to Iran and Syria. Both habitually sponsor Mideast terrorist groups and have aided anti-American insurgents in Iraq. Turkey and Brazil recently offered to monitor Iran’s nuclear program, sidestepping American and European efforts to step up sanctions to stop Teheran’s plans for a bomb. Erdogan’s anti-Israel attacks often match those of his newfound friends, Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah’s Hasan Nasrallah… What is behind Turkey’s metamorphosis from a staunch U.S. ally, NATO member, and quasi-European state into a sponsor of Hamas, ally of theocratic Iran, and fellow traveler with terrorist-sponsoring Syria?”
Hanson’s answer: “Turkey senses a growing distance between Tel Aviv and Washington, and thus an opportunity to step into the gulf to unite Muslims against Israel and win influence in the Arab world.”
And guess what Hanson poses as the solution: “Turkey’s new ambitions and ethnic and religious chauvinism are antithetical to its NATO membership. The U.S. should not be treaty-bound to defend a de facto ally of Iran or Syria, which are both eager to obtain nuclear weapons… In response, the U.S. should make contingency plans to relocate from its huge Air Force base at Incirlik… If Erdogan is intent on a suicidal reinvention of Turkey into a pale imitation of Ottoman hegemony, we can at least take steps to ensure that it will be his mess—and none of our own.”
If I didn’t know something about the neoconservatives, and their worship of the late Leo Strauss, I would be a bit more stunned by the sheer chutzpah of their deceptions and sophistic defenses of Israel’s baffling and indefensible actions. But I am not shocked, having lived through the neocon’s golden age during Bush and Cheney. We are still paying the price for their “Clean Break” with reality. Let us just hope that between Bob Gates, Jim Jones, and Hillary Clinton, they have enough of a sense of humor, and enough of an appreciation of the Israeli disinformation machinery, that they won’t be lured into buying these tall tales and doing something foolish.
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2010/06/latest-neocon-insanity-kick-turkey-out-of-nato-harper.html
* It Is About the United States
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JINSA Report #:
995
June 8, 2010
Turkey and Honduras, in different ways, highlight the lack of effective leadership the United States currently is able to exercise in the world.
Turkey: Turkish government support for the IHH ship in the Gaza flotilla is now well understood and the anti-Semitic ravings of both official Turks and the Turkish media have made Turkey’s intention to split from Israel clear.
But it is a mistake to think this is only about Israel. Support for the flotilla was only the latest in a series of Turkish decisions designed to distance itself from the United States and move toward closer political relations with countries adversarial to us. Immediately after the bloody 2007 Hamas coup against Fatah in Gaza, the United States and the European Union reiterated that Hamas was a terrorist organization to be shunned. Instead, Turkey’s prime minister invited Hamas leadership to Ankara. The Hamas-Turkey relationship has grown as the Turkey-Palestinian Authority relationship, the relationship supported by the United States and the EU, has declined. Rapprochement with Russia, Syria and Iran, and the Iran-Brazil-Turkey enriched uranium deal are more of the same.
After his meeting with Secretary of State Clinton, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters, “Citizens of member states were attacked by a country that is not a member of NATO. I think you can make some conclusions out of this statement.” The implication was that Turkey would ask NATO for some satisfaction-or some slap at Israel.
Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Minister.
Turkey, as a member of NATO, is privy to intelligence information having to do with terrorism and with Iran. If Turkey finds its best friends to be Iran, Hamas, Syria and Brazil (look for Venezuela in the future) the security of that information (and Western technology in weapons in Turkey’s arsenal) is suspect. The United States should seriously consider suspending military cooperation with Turkey as a prelude to removing it from the organization.
Honduras: The United States tried to have it both ways. The Obama Administration quickly jumped in with Venezuela, Brazil, Cuba and Nicaragua to denounce what it called a “coup” in Honduras. The United States voted with its new best friends to oust Honduras from the Organization of American States (OAS), and cut off various forms of diplomatic and economic aid to the small Central American country. After the Congressional Research Service (CRS) concluded that the Honduran Congress, Supreme Court and military had acted in accordance with the Honduran Constitution, the Obama Administration brokered a deal that permitted the previously scheduled election with previously nominated candidates to go forward. When the new president was sworn in, the United States recognized the new government and withdrew its sanctions.
All’s well that ends well, right? Not exactly.
At the OAS meeting in Peru this week, the United States tried to have Honduras reinstated. Guess who said no; Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil and Nicaragua refused to even to put the issue on the table. Hugo, Lula, Fidel and Danny were perfectly happy to let the Obama Administration join them in ganging up on a (former) American ally. But they still think they’re leading.
Maybe they are.
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