Sackcloth And Ashes

Obama shows himself a rank amateur in Turkey:

The Europeans were appalled by Turkey’s neo-Taliban tantrum on-stage at last week’s NATO summit. The Turks fought to derail the appointment of a great Dane, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as the new NATO secretary general. Why? Because he didn’t stone to death the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed.

Which brings us to the even bigger problem: Obama has no idea what’s going on in Turkey. By going to Ankara on his knees, he gave his seal of approval to a pungently anti-American Islamist government bent on overturning Mustapha Kemal’s legacy of the separation of mosque and state.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, means headscarves, Korans, censorship and stacked elections. The country’s alarmed middle class opposes the effort to turn the country into an Islamic state. Obama’s gushing praise for the AKP’s bosses left them aghast.

Obama’s embrace of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (now orchestrating show trials of his opponents) was one step short of going to Tehran and smooching President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Give him time.

Remember – Obama’s the “smart one”.

46 thoughts on “Sackcloth And Ashes

  1. Yes, we need to be careful lest he get us into a war with Turkey over trumped up intelligence or something.

    THAT would be TRULY dumb.

    As would phumpering about liberties while putting people in jail without access to Counsel, their families, the courts or any possible recourse, and doing so while a philosophical battle raged with the world’s Muslim community about the conduct and sincerity of the US.

    THAT REALLY would be stupid.

    But hey, if you can run 3 companies into the ground, turn $800k into $10M in 5 years thanks to the largesse of your Daddy’s friends, and THEN get elected (kinda) President, and they you:
    1. Promise not to engage in nation building – and then start a war of choice
    2. Promise not to intrude in military planning – and then limit your JCS to 150,000 troops when they demanded 250,000
    3. Promise to ‘pay as you go’, and then run up $4.5T in debt.
    D. Talk about being a ‘business President’ all while turning the economy into a shambles by promoting free-market deregulated chaos
    7. Can’t recite more than a few sentences away from a tele-prompter without looking like an irretreivable ignorant stumble-bumb

    It would the height of conceit for someone to think that MAYBE you’re not so bright, or at a minimum, live in a bubble, and that your supporters live in the cocoon of their own echo chamber.

    Mitch, the issue you face is Bush made the bar SOO low that nearly anything Obama does will be better, and by supporting Bush virtually without meaningful criticism and unreservedly attacking Bush’s critics, you’ve made your critique look only like so much ethics of convenience.

  2. Uh, you’re here to tell me Shrub was the smart one on Turkey? Gravely alienating our closest ally in the Muslim world and pushing it into the arms of the Islamists? Doing more to aid Kurdish separatism than any president in history?

    I know from discussing this with you in the past that you follow events in Turkey with some sophistication. So I’m surprised to see you fall in line with the know-nothing “clash of cultures” nonsense that passes for far-right “foreign policy” prescriptions these days.

    So what’s your solution? You want Obama should call for the army to press the reset button and install an unpopular Kemalist general, setting back any chance of EU progress by 20 years? You far-right kooks thought we’d make over Iraq into a western-leaning democracy by about four years ago. How’s that working out?

    Dude, the first building block of a Middle Eastern policy is getting Turkey back on the reservation. If we can’t accomplish that, we are pretty well fscked. The fact that Obama said some nice words and visited a couple mosques when he was in Istanbul is a good thing. I’m surprised you’d prefer he beat up on a once close ally cause some of the ladies want to wear headscarves.

    I fear Flash’s criticism may be right. You’re increasingly more interested in the page-views that come from throwing red meat to an extremist following than putting up thoughtful posts?

    And all of a sudden you and Murdoch’s minions are concerned what “the Europeans” think of U.S. policy? Excuse me while I go to the Little Clowns’ Room. I’m about to pee my pants from the laughter.

  3. How long will peev’s frothing at the mouth BDS last?

    He is full of bitterness, hate, anger, pain, hate, anger, pain, hate, anger, pain, hate, anger, pain, hate, anger, pain, hate, anger, pain, hate, anger, pain, hate, anger, pain…

    AssClown is no better.

    Not much new from the Useful Idiots chanting their Liberal Fascist talking points.

  4. That’s it, K-Rod, you’re shunned. You’re really just too stupid to participate in discussion, dialogue or even the trading of insults with Angryclown. You may apply to be reinstated in 90 days.

  5. See, while Yossarian is stupid – very stupid, even – he’s not *K-Rod* stupid.

  6. So, perhaps, could we have the AC and Peevish commentary on what Obama’s doing? Do you agree with his approach? Would you do anything differently? You’ve claimed other commenters on this blog were slavishly devoted to Bush’s actions and policies regardless – is there anyplace where you would counsel our President on a different approach?

  7. Night Rider, read the post above. Then feel free to shut your piehole until you think of something a little more intelligent.

  8. You far-right kooks thought we’d make over Iraq into a western-leaning democracy by about four years ago.

    And you far-left kooks thought what? Saddam’s Iraq was all happy people flying kites in parks?
    Iraq was conquered and Saddam’s fascist regime was overthrown in order to force compliance with cease-fire terms it agreed to as condition of ending the first Gulf War. That worked out quite well.
    If you guys on the left would rather have done so & left Iraq in chaos & civil war, or under the thumb of another dictatorship you should say so, work to make it happen, or quit griping.
    Attacking “neo-cons” may be fun for the BDS afflicted but it is hardly a foreign policy.

  9. We’ve been over this before, Brick a/k/a Terry a/k/a Blofeld. You kooks promised a quick, cheap and easy war to rid Iraq of WMDs and install a friendly western-leaning, secular republic in Iraq. It was a foolish idea from the start. Even Bush’s daddy knew as much. As it turns out, we invaded the one country in the region that *didn’t* have an active nuclear weapons program. In the process, you made the U.S. responsible for rebuilding and governing Iraq, which you then proceeded to botch. Oh, and all of this has been a strategic windfall for Iran, which, in contrast to, say, the United States of America, is in a much stronger position than before the war started. Any victories at this point should be filed under “limiting the damage.”

    Meanwhile, you kooks are talking about kites. Fortunately, as we saw in November, nobody takes you seriously anymore. Buh-bye!

  10. By the way, notice that Mitch is not jumping in to defend that silly New York Post opinion piece. Probably afraid his tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth. Again.

  11. AssClown just can’t stop hating Bush.
    Ha ha ha ha ha – ‘No freedom for oil’? – When it comes to a brutal dictator why are you so opposed to CHANGE? – Ha ha ha ha

    We won the war in Iraq and last year we won the peace in Iraq.

    Why does AssClown hate freedom?

    Just can’t be critical or skeptical of Obama. Typical response, but but but but Booooosh blah blah blah

    How long will AssClown’s frothing at the mouth BDS last?

  12. The vote on HJR 114 was bi-partisan. More than half of the dems in the senate voted for it, including Hillary, Kerry, Edwards, and Reid.
    If they had any doubt about the intelligence that prompted the vote on the resolution, or about hte Bush administration’s ability to carry the war to a successful conclusion they should have voted ‘nay’.
    There were two great successes in the Iraq War: the initial invasion and the surge. Obama opposed both of them.

  13. Haha! The great wingnut fallback: Democrats voted for the Iraq resolution. Kinda concedes the point that the whole enterprise actually wasn’t worthwhile, don’t it? Pick one, wingnuts: failed enterprise or glorious victory? Seems you’ve been ducking blame a whole lot more than taking credit.

  14. I wonder what AssClown will say when 0bamination claims HE won the war in Iraq.

  15. AC’s contributions to this post as of 3:17 p.m. EDT:

    8 comments
    578 words
    11 ad hominem comments
    1 shunning
    0 answers to Night Writer’s question.

    A good day’s work, I’d say. Probably time to kick back with a few bottles of Schaefer.

  16. The great wingnut fallback: Democrats voted for the Iraq resolution.
    This is not a response, it is a confirmation of what I’ve written here many, many times. Sheesh.

  17. Pick one, wingnuts: failed enterprise or glorious victory
    I’ll go with glorious victory. That’s pretty much what Obama said when he addressed the troops in Iraq the other day.

  18. Uh, you’re here to tell me Shrub was the smart one on Turkey?

    Are you here to tell me what President Bush did in Turkey?

    Because I’ll bet you don’t know.

    I do. I follow Turkey; my mom lived there for quite a while. Bush was either wrong, or neutral, depending on how you see Bush’s admnistration on US-Islamic policy overall. No big mystery on how you see things.

    But Obama cuddling up to those who’ve been working for the past ten years to undercut the only successful secular, majority-Moslem state in the world?

    Brilliant.

  19. “11 ad hominem comments
    1 shunning
    0 answers”

    What does AssClown do after you repeatedly take him to task? Watch out for a “shunning”. 😆

  20. Mitch wondered: “Are you here to tell me what President Bush did in Turkey?”

    Ooh, that’s an easy one. I can just cut and past from my post: “Gravely alienating our closest ally in the Muslim world and pushing it into the arms of the Islamists. Doing more to aid Kurdish separatism than any president in history.” (Seriously, what is the aversion to reading you guys all have?)

    Bush completely failed to get Turkey on board with his foolish war plan, unlike his pappy. The functional independence of the Kurds in northern Iraq rightly scares the crap out of the Turks, who fear an increase in Kurdish separatist terrorism in the southeast of the country.

    Turkey has two ways to go – always has. West toward modernism, tolerance and economic progress, or east, in the direction of the opposite values. Nationalist politicians in Europe (the French and German wingnuts, if you will) already engage in the kind of ignorant Turk-baiting advocated in that silly opinion piece you linked to. (Headscarves! Horrors! They used to be illegal – along with fezzes, by the way. Now they’re not illegal! It’s the Taliban all over again!) The U.S. has always supported Turkish aspirations to join the EU in the face of such silliness.

    The U.S. has always had very close relations with Turkey (even under St. Ronnie!) because it’s very much in the interest of both countries. Even Shrub couldn’t screw that up. But now you want that Obama should be lecturing them about headscarves and Armenia? Please.

    Just wondering which side you were on when Shrub opposed the Armenian genocide resolution a couple of years ago. I’m sure you stood with Nancy Pelosi and the ghosts of 1915.

    So Obama shouldn’t be reaching out to the elected leader of our No. 1 ally in the Muslim world?

    Silly. And, I suspect, tailored to the prejudices of your readers and listeners. Flash and Angryclown continue to wait, in vain, for an independent opinion.

  21. angryclown said:

    “So Obama shouldn’t be reaching out to the elected leader of our No. 1 ally in the Muslim world?”

    I’m wondering exactly what you (and BHO (is it OK to use his middle name now *snicker*)) think this “reaching out” will buy you?

    This “liberal reaches out ‘over there’ to someone he’d call a wingnut ‘over here'” seems to emulate the mechanics of an abusive relationship. Do you really want them to like you that bad?

  22. Angry Clown, Turkey’s westward orientation has a very short history and it has been imposed on a restive population at gunpoint. Ataturk’s reformations were based on national socialist principles that have since been, shall we say, discredited.
    You, and Obama, would have Europe clasp the viper to its bosom. Obama loses points for historical ignorance.

  23. Kinda like the reacharound Bush gave the Saudis, Troy, only not quite so much.

    Oh, and you totally burned me with that “*snicker*”!

    You’re such a douchebag, Troy. Republicans prefer impotent threats. Oh well. You lost. Shut up and eat your shit taco, wingnut.

  24. Ooh, that’s an easy one. I can just cut and past from my post: “Gravely alienating our closest ally in the Muslim world and pushing it into the arms of the Islamists.

    Silly Clown, repeating lefty talking points and calling it “reading”.

    The Wahabbist madrass movement in Turkey, and the turn toward fundamentalism, long predates Dubya. Saying Bush “pushed” anyone presumes a degree of historical clairvoyance that would have led one to a field other than circus entertainment, if one catches my drift.

    Doing more to aid Kurdish separatism than any president in history.” (Seriously, what is the aversion to reading you guys all have?)

    If by “aiding Kurdish separatism” you mean “giving the Kurds in Iraq autonomy” – and I’m pretty sure you do – then let’s get this straight: you’re on board with supporting ethnic oppression against a minority that is largely the most pro-American, pro-democracy, pro-civilization ethnic group in the region?

    Bush completely failed to get Turkey on board with his foolish war plan, unlike his pappy.

    Er, Clown? “Gross Oversimplification” called to thank you for pushing the boundaries of their turf. Turkish internal politics – the stuff that neither Bush nor Obama have any real control over – scuppered Turkish cooperation with the war plan, not a fumble on Bush’s part. Bush relied too hard on Turkish cooperation under the circumstances – but I think you’ll see Obama doing much the same before long.

    The functional independence of the Kurds in northern Iraq rightly scares the crap out of the Turks, who fear an increase in Kurdish separatist terrorism in the southeast of the country.

    And you see that as a black and white, good and bad thing? Like the Turks are the sole wronged party in this equation? Kurds and Turks have been beating the crap out of each other since before there was a USA. The Kurds are a thorn in Turkey’s side; they are also the most stable, democratic part of Iraq.

    To take Turkey’s side in this ancient squabble shows a lack of…what’s the word? Nuance?

    Turkey has two ways to go – always has. West toward modernism, tolerance and economic progress, or east, in the direction of the opposite values.

    At long last, you’re right.

    Nationalist politicians in Europe (the French and German wingnuts, if you will) already engage in the kind of ignorant Turk-baiting advocated in that silly opinion piece you linked to. (Headscarves! Horrors! They used to be illegal – along with fezzes, by the way. Now they’re not illegal! It’s the Taliban all over again!)

    Er, yeah. It’s all about scarves and fezzes. Nothing more.

    Out in the Turkish countryside, of course, the movement at whose head Erdogan is is moving large swathes of the countryside toward sympathy with the extremists, toward sharia, and away from the west. There are some similarities with Iran in 1979 – Islamic radicalism is turning the countryside against the more western, cosmopolitan urban side of Turkish society that is the face we see here.

    Which, were it in the US, would provoke a very different reaction from you, Clown, and I think you know it.

    The U.S. has always had very close relations with Turkey (even under St. Ronnie!) because it’s very much in the interest of both countries. Even Shrub couldn’t screw that up. But now you want that Obama should be lecturing them about headscarves and Armenia? Please.

    Not sure that “lecturing” is the issue, so much as being aware of what Erdogan stands for.

    Just wondering which side you were on when Shrub opposed the Armenian genocide resolution a couple of years ago. I’m sure you stood with Nancy Pelosi and the ghosts of 1915.

    I wrote about it at the time. The resolution was a bid to rake in the not-inconsiderable Armenian votes in SoCal; it was politics, and deserved to be treated as such. I can only hope the mass of Armenians I grew up around – the Kourajians and Mooridians and Mardirosians and Tarpinians of Jamestown – weren’t fooled.

    So Obama shouldn’t be reaching out to the elected leader of our No. 1 ally in the Muslim world?

    Not sure sure that was the implication.

    But you did catch the “Show trials of his opponents” bit, right?

    You guys did get the note – Walter Duranty is right out, and show trials are a bad thing.  Right?

  25. urk’s reformations were based on national socialist principles that have since been, shall we say, discredited.

    Using “national socialist” in a generic sense, of course.

    Atäturk’s reforms were imposed from above, harshly, using the force of a police state. Atäturk acted much like the various Shahs of Iran, modernizing the country by force and damn anyone or anything who stood in his way.

    He created a secular (still), western-facing state, but if westerners understood how, they might be well advised to enjoy the ends and continue ignoring the means.

  26. Was your hero Obama able to completely wipe his chin, AssClown? Sure the reach around wasn’t anything to brag about, but Obama wiping the jizz off his chin was down right embarrassing when it comes to “hopey” “change”.

  27. Hey, all,

    Let’s try for a little higher level of discussion, here, if y’all don’t mind.

  28. Mitch, your remark re Ataturk & national socialism is well taken.
    But I think that it is important for the ‘Turkey is modeled on the idea of the European State’ crowd to acknowledge that the European State Ataturk looked to was not Sweden.
    It is an unfortunate fact that when Near and Middle Eastern Islamic countries adopt modernism they tend to become authoritarian. See Egypt, Syria, and of course, Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

  29. Me? Jest? Never.

    No, seriously – while the temptation is always there, I’d like everyone to stick to things they’ll be proud to claim later.

    Can we shoot for that?

  30. the European State Ataturk looked to was not Sweden.

    True, but it wasn’t Nazi Germany either. Turkey had had a close relationship (an alliance, actually) with Imperial Germany in WWI. Ataturk took power in 1920, and died in ’38. His most drastic efforts (other than his reorganization of the Turkish language, believe it or not) came before ’28 – well before Hitler.

    Turkey has long had a close relationship with Germany – it’s military (Turkey’s armed forces are as heavily German-armed today as they were in 1920), as well as economics (German tourism is huge; I speak German with the guy who runs the TUrkish restaurant down the street from my house).

  31. I’m not sure that emphasizing Turkey’s close ties to Germany is really advancing your argument, Mitch 🙂
    Since the moderator would like commenters to stay on topic I’ll resist segueing into a discussion of the whether or not the idea of the European Secular State necessarily includes a strong democratic component.

  32. Uh, you’re here to tell me Shrub was the smart one on Turkey?
    You don’t know how this works, clown. Your guy is in charge, not Bush. Now conservatives get to play the game you guys have been playing for the past eight years: our job is to criticize the Current Occupant, not explain how conservatives have done it better or could do it better.
    Glad you decided to play!

  33. Good job, Mitch. Was gonna shoot down the Ataturk was a Nazi argument, but you have done so admirably.

  34. Thanks.

    Ataturk firmly believed in radically transforming his society by fiat from above, something he shared with both some of the worst dictators of the century – Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler- as well as some that are considered fairly benign. Since he “tamed” Islam, most westerners are willing to accept the radical nature of his approach in a way they likely would not had he leaned on, say Christianity.

    Paul Johnson described him in Modern Times.

    Germanic, yes. Nazi, certainly not – indeed, far from it: Turkey is Israel’s only friend in the Moslem world today.

  35. Not a nazi, but an authoritarian. What do you call a government that rules in the name of the People, and for the national interest against the popular will? “National Socialist’ works for me.

  36. I read “Kinda like the reacharound Bush …”, but the rest was all “blah blah blah”. I think you need to move on.

    The *snicker* is a derisive laugh, and you have good reason to feel burned by it, mister “you hate all brown people”. Also, does someone as super-duper smart as you have to call people names to “win” an argument? I guess you do.

    It is rich to read you writing “shut up” after you whined and cried your way through the Bush presidency.

  37. Angryclown doesn’t have to call names to win an argument, Troy. He just enjoys doing so.

  38. Ataturk is a fascinating case – unique in history. He was an authoritarian – no doubt about that at all – in service of democratic goals. The Turkey he left behind was much more liberal, more modern and more democratic than the one he found. He was a nationalist, but it’s fairly ridiculous to call him a Nazi.

  39. Not sure I understand the distinction you’re trying to draw, Terry. National Socialist = Nazi, no?

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