look for a military coup to occur...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at May 1, 2007 12:34 PM

That's excellent news. Now for the military to step in and prevent the Islamists from trampling human rights using democratic means.
Ataturk didn't like Islam. May his legacy prevail and Turkey prosper.

Posted by: jewdog at May 1, 2007 12:38 PM

Turkey is not a democracy and can't be if the majority is muslims. In fact a full blown democracy and guess who wins the elections! The military however has a cult thing going with Ataturk and that and only that is keeping the country from going the way of an Islamic state.

The the coup does happen guess which side the U.S. Government will side with? Who do you think G.W. will support? I have a bad feeling he might not support the military.

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at May 1, 2007 12:41 PM

My radio made an unscheduled stop on NPR, and of course the discussion was that Erdogan is a moderate Islamist (whatever that is) that the West and Israel can work with. Suddenly they were concerned about religious freedom, commenting that women had to travel to study in Germany in order to wear the hijab, which is disturbing in an entirely different way.

Posted by: Nimby at May 1, 2007 1:14 PM

Do you think that our democracy-will-save-the-world enthusiasts are paying attention here?

Posted by: joeblough at May 1, 2007 1:30 PM

"Suddenly they were concerned about religious freedom, commenting that women had to travel to study in Germany in order to wear the hijab, which is disturbing in an entirely different way.

Posted by: Nimby"

...more accurately, they had to travel to Germany to harrass the German public, and maybe because in Muslim lands, the Muslims keep killing the teachers...

Posted by: exsgtbrown at May 1, 2007 1:35 PM

If necessary, of course the army should stage a coup. And not give up power for a long time. And there should not be a peep -- not a peep -- from Infidel governments that apparently still have little idea how ruthless, and relentless, are the Rasputins of Islam, who are back, with Erbakan, and then Erdogan, and then Abdullah Gul, with a malevolent vengeance.

Sympathy is what the secularists of Turkey deserve, and a free hand to deal with the primitives among whom they live, and once the coup, if it takes place, takes place, the secularists must work to further constrain and render unappealing Islam and its demonically relentless promoters. Whatafter all did 80 years of Ataturk's systematic constraints, that series of laws he instituted beginning almost as soon as he came to power, amount to if not putting a government straitjacket on the shuddering, foaming-at-the-mouth patient, so that the other person sharing the same room (that room known as Turkey), could get some rest at night, and during the day, not to have to live in constnat fear of the possible or likely behavior of that foamer-at-the-mouth sharing the same room.

If the nurses and doctors came in, as some E.U. bureaucrats apparently wish to, and removed that straitjacket, and proceeded to tsk-tsk the sane, because secular, threatened patient, and urged him to stay calm, and not to worry, because it was the straitjacket itself that caused the other patient (the True Believers of Turkey) to behave so wildly -- well, if you were the sane patient, whom would you trust? The credulous and seemingly unaffected doctors and nurses, or your own eyes, your own mind?

Posted by: Hugh at May 1, 2007 1:38 PM

Looks like Turkey will end up melting down just like Europe.

NPR barely said Boo about the Military Overthrow of Thailand by a Muslim. While currently decrying a possible Military overthrow of a secular Turkish Democracy. One leading in a straight line to another Theocratic State.

Gee, is there a connection here somewhere?

What is it about NPR that they feel is in their vested interest to support these events?

Would NPR support a Christian ruled Government or does it run counter to their faith in Islam.

Posted by: flowerknife_us at May 1, 2007 1:51 PM

My exmuslim Turkish friend:

"Turkey is one coup away from becoming an Islamic Republic"

(first stated to me by him in 1999, when he joyfully left Islam as soon as he came to Canada. "That evil religion took up half my life so far.")

Posted by: THE ALLIES SHALL WIN at May 1, 2007 1:52 PM

I have been following jihadwatch for some time without participating. There is this misconception regarding Turkey, as if the majority of the people in Turkey actually support the AKP.

Let me remind everyone who thinks otherwise that the AKP got 34% of the vote in the general elections, not the majority vote. And the majority of the AKP vote were people who voted for the AKP because they were fed up with the governing parties, especially due to the huge economic crises of 2001 as well as the corruption.

The core AKP vote or Islamist vote has never exceeded 10%, those who actually want sharia have never exceeded around 4-5%.

We are not the most secularised people on the planet that is for sure, we still have many religious nut jobs that too is for sure, and there are very many conservative people which also is a fact.

But 95% of the population still trust the army, the majority still want to live in a secular republic, not a sharia one, we are more aware of the dangers of sharia then anyone of you posting on this website, be sure of that, because we know what it means, we know what the alternative to a secular constitutional democracy (a democracy flawed or not) is, and most of us don't want that alternative.

so go on with what ever you are saying about islam but don't try to tell us who we (Turkish people) are or what we want!

Posted by: neoromancer at May 1, 2007 2:08 PM

Catherine, your translation engine featured an excellent Muslim-speak translation faux pas --- that is, the "optician in Brussels" -- the one who doesn't want to see the military interfering with those wonderful Muslims who are setting about bending spindling and mutilating democracy in Turkey.

Such myopic EU vision should give every European patient pause --

Posted by: jsla at May 1, 2007 2:15 PM

you know the dangers of sharia, yet sharia is practiced widely in your countryside.

Shut up, we all know outside the centre of ankara and istambul it's like being in saudi arabia

we are still waiting excuses for the armenian genocide

Posted by: somanyhavebeencensored at May 1, 2007 02:14 PM

No, sharia is not widely practiced in the countryside and if you think that even the countryside is like saudi arabia then you have either never been to the countryside or you have never been to saudi arabia.

also shut up is advice you may like to take yourself instead of telling others to do it.

Armenian Genocide? what has that got anything to do with anything I have stated?

Or are you just tying to change the subject?

Posted by: neoromancer at May 1, 2007 2:25 PM

somanyhavebeencensored: two words for you: HONOR KILLING
do you think we are stupid? do you think we buy your state propaganda?

honor killings are RARELY practiced out side the Kurdish south east or by non-kurds. Even the yazidi kurds of Iraq practice it.

somanyhavebeencensored: no, it's just a proof of how hypocritical, liar, dishonest the muslims (YES, especially the muslims in turkey) are.

You still do not make a vailid point about what the Armenian Genocide has got to do with what I stated. Something that happened nearly 100 years ago suddenly makes what I stated about today wrong? If you are talking about denial then make a valid point and maybe people will say yes, there was a genocide, all you have to go on is not in the least bit convincing enough for people to accept it without a doubt (I'm not saying it happened or it did not, but unlike the pogroms against the Greeks in 1955, you do not have an indisputable case that 1915 constituted genocide, massacre yes but genocide? maybe, maybe not, I wasn't around then and there is not enough evidence to convince me either way
i.e I'm neutral on the subject).

somanyhavebeencensored:the turks in germany behave just like any other muslim idiot from pakistan or maghreb

you're not convincing anybody that you are "superior".

how turks in germany behave is germany's problem as well as how muslims in general behave, it is not Turkey's problem, after all it wasn't muslims raised in Turkey who flew planes into the WTC.

but given that, it wasn't turks flying those planes and unlike north african muslims in france turks were not rioting in german cities.

and this is not a case of superiority or inferiority.

somanyhavebeencensored:your idol ataturk was merely a hitler preview, but we in the west are too stupid to held you responsible for your own actions.

in 1915 Ataturk was in gallipoli fighting agianst the allied forces, and you need to be realy messed up to compare ataturk and hitler.

ok, now let's see what ad hominem attacks you will come up with for the truth is your problem is not with religion but race, if the Turks were christians I'm sure that you would still find something to rant about.

Posted by: neoromancer at May 1, 2007 2:50 PM

what happened to somanyhavebeencensored's comments?

wierd, maybe I imagined it :)

anyway, sorry people of jihadwatch for the now expired argument.

(I could have sworn I was having an argument with him.)

Posted by: neoromancer at May 1, 2007 2:59 PM

Strange how everyone is looking at Islam in this and not who benefits from a Turkey in chaos.

Iran benefits, Syria benefits, Russia benefits...gee all communists or Islamocommunist using Islam as a proxy against the west.

Who does this hurt? NATO, America, Israel and a majority of Europe.

Turkey has always been the western lynch pin for security and the only reason the Soviets never made her fall is because that mountain region has the sons of Esau who from their Biblical father are just as tough as those jagged peaks.

Make Turkey weak, foment trouble in the Balkans to start an assassination war, followed by civil war in France, Germany and unrest in Britain, Spain and Denmark and in Soviet terms you have a Putin invasion route by Muslim proxy for the Bolshevik Europe.
Unless people here start getting the point of what is really occurring, this site is going to become a ghost town in a few years as the real play is going to be on new "expert" sites claiming they knew this was coming all along "when Bush liberated Iraq".

Turkey is key to the globalists as Iraq is key to the west. The communists aren't moving out of Turkey but the ignorant are handing Iraq back over to the communists to strangle the west.

Posted by: Lame Cherry at May 1, 2007 3:38 PM

Catherine:

Yours is the most delightful, lovable, simpatica translation ever. Hope to read you more often.
Thanks.
Naso

Posted by: ovidius_naso at May 1, 2007 4:18 PM

necromancer,

If Turkey is so overwhelmingly secular as you say (95%), why does the main article state that --

"the ruling AK party, which has Islamist roots... [has] an overwhelming majority in parliament."

Isn't a parliament supposed to reflect the will of the people?

My suspicion is that certain secularized middle class Turks think their country is overwhelmingly modernized in the same way we saw another poster a few weeks ago, an Iranian woman who I suspected had a skewed perspective coming as she did from an upper middle-class urbanized elite, think that most Iranians were really modernized moderates and that the Islamic disease pertained only to a minority in her country.

The truth is that, after 600 years of massively triumphalistic and powerfully wicked Islamic rule, it is highly unlikely that the rump of the Ottoman Empire, now Turkey, could, in a mere 80-odd years, so miraculously exorcize itself, by means of a newly minted ideology created by one man (Ataturk), of the pathology of Islam that must surely have taken profound sociocultural root there after so many centuries.

Posted by: remote_control at May 1, 2007 4:40 PM

lame cherry, god bless you, you got it, hopefully others will.

also I hope that those others will be able to explain why they are anti-semitic jew haters on the one hand while they lick the asses of the plo on the other.

I hope they can explain how greece has a defence treaty with syria, and armenia with iran against the defence treaty between Turkey and Israel.

and how they have been backing the plo while Turkey was one of the first nations on earth to sign a military pact with Israel.

Posted by: neoromancer at May 1, 2007 4:41 PM

remote control, the vote they got was 34% but because the turkish election system requires political parties to pass a 10% threshold to enter parliament about 50% of the electorate was not represented in parliament.

ok 34% of the people for AKP, that leaves 66% against, care to comment on that?

Posted by: neoromancer at May 1, 2007 4:44 PM

Turkey's relations with Israel are nothing but an appeasement to the US for turning a blind eye to Turkish aggression in the Aegean and in the Kurdish east.

The no fly zone set up after Desert Storm in 1992 was turned into the Turkish fly zone where numerous attacks of Kurds took place by the Turks. The US as usual turned a blind eye and pretended its darling Turkey was going on an expedition.

The Turkish navy has been threatening the Greek Cypriot establishment because it has oil in its territory, the US turns a blind eye again. Turkey invades Greek airspace daily, and the US nor anyone else says anything about it.

The Turkish government itself admitted they planted the bomb in the 50's in Ataturk's house in Thessaloniki, a house given as a gift to the Turkish people and used as the Turkish consulate. The Turks used this event as a flash point to riot and kill many of the few remaining Greeks in Constantinople. The list of atrocities by these secular Turks is endless, but don't forget that when Kafur speak, the Turk gets upset as he sees all of us as beneath him.

Turkey has carte blanche in its domain as a result of playing along with the US when she sees fit, don't kid anybody here.

Posted by: The fanatic at May 1, 2007 5:25 PM

If these people wanted democracy why did they vote in a party with Islamist roots?

Posted by: payingattention at May 1, 2007 5:44 PM

All this is good news. No hope for Turkey to become an EU member. A coup or an Islamist Turkey and no EU membership.

Posted by: DP111 at May 1, 2007 6:45 PM

The BBC is talking as though there is a conspiracy of the left, the secular establishment and the army against democracy. Blair has said, today, that Turkey should stick to the democratic path, repeating the mantra of all the other EU leaders while both Europeans and Americans are queueing up to say what a westernised, secular guy Gul is. Still, at least the probable outcome of all this depressing disconnect with reality will be to push serious consideration of Turkish entry into the EU way into the future, which is fine by me.

Posted by: wallyUK at May 1, 2007 8:58 PM

In the end all this will end in civil war for Turkey. And you think Lebanon was a day at the beach......

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at May 1, 2007 10:12 PM

THE ALLIES SHALL WIN,

"My exmuslim Turkish friend:

"Turkey is one coup away from becoming an Islamic Republic"

(first stated to me by him in 1999, when he joyfully left Islam as soon as he came to Canada. "That evil religion took up half my life so far.")"

I look at either a military coup or a civil war to occur in Turkey, either one would not suprise me.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at May 1, 2007 10:34 PM

So a guy who swore in front of the people that he would keep the nation secular is trying to make the country Islamic? Gul has said in numerous speeches that, although he is a religious Muslim at home, he has no mission to apply it to the state in Turkey. Isn't this exactly what Spencer and co. wants? Why are the Turkish secularists so ticked? Because their first lady might be veiled? (in those beautiful Takbir brand, original Turkish-made stuff probably that is the rage all over the Middle East, there was an article yesterday that said Christians in Egypt are buying their dresses up like crazy.)

Just doing some thinking...
(Also, why does anybody believe that this is something overly significant in terms of what you normally argue for. This would be what, coup 4 or 5? Politics in Turkey have yet to change drastically and even the Islamist parties have very tight Ataturk roots when it comes to the limits of state applications of religion [even though you guys don't talk about it])

Posted by: An American at May 1, 2007 11:49 PM

Well done the Turkish people....keep your strength and keep fighting against the creatures.

Posted by: marilyn at May 2, 2007 12:33 AM

The Turkish navy has been threatening the Greek Cypriot establishment because it has oil in its territory, the US turns a blind eye again. Turkey invades Greek airspace daily, and the US nor anyone else says anything about it.

Posted by: The fanatic

You hit the nail on the head monsieur/madame The Fanatic.

What does it make a difference whether the secularist or the islamo-fascist is in power? At the end of the day the Turks remain Muslim, and they continue with their daily agression against their neighbouring countries. The logic from some of the other posts above seem to suggest that a secular government in Turkey will be more friendly to western (i.e US interests) so we should all be cheering them on. Sorry, I don't buy into that. Whether they be Islamist or secular, they remain hostile to the west. Take a look at the Turkish populations that now live throughout western Europe. How integrated are they into mainstream Europe?

Posted by: GreekFrenchInfidel at May 2, 2007 2:28 AM

The 10% threshold in Turkish electoral law for a party to enter the parliament was a trick the nationalists invented to avoid representation of a Kurdish-controlled party called HADEP or any other Kurdish party in the parliament.
So in order to avoid a Kurdish participation in the parliament the secularists gave the government to the islamic party with only 34% of vote.

Posted by: athenian at May 2, 2007 2:48 AM

It seams that the national interests of some countries are more important to some then the interests of stopping the spread of jihad.

If you think Turkey is a bad neighbour now then you won't like what it will become if it becomes a theocracy.

so what, a couple of ships roam around, a couple of jets go into dog fights, border disputes are not unheard of anywhere on the planet, and no country on earth just accepts unilateral actions by their neighbours which threatens their own national interests.

you bash the US for not doing anything about these minor border disputes, maybe because the US is not biased like you on the subject and can see that Turkey also has legitimate claims.

And the pact with Israel is one of national interest not sucking up to the US, it has always been in Turkey's vital interests to support any non-sharia entity in the middle east because we know that if we don't we will be the next major target, and that is why the islamists here and in the middle east hate this state policy.

You people are realy starting to sound like arabs, crying whining, talking about how unfair everything is while you do not realy get the true picture.

you can cry and whine all you like, but the truth of the matter is that we see the iranian model on the horizon and are standing up to it so that it never happens in Turkey, and people who's true concern is the threat of Islamic jihad know too well that the Islamic Republic of Turkey as opposed to the secular Republic of Turkey is a nightmare scenario.

PS: Thanks to all those who support our resistance to those hiding behind democracy to further an islamic agenda, as opposed to some so called democrats in Europe and America talking about how wonderful and democratic erdogan and gul are and how undemocratic are those who oppose them.

Posted by: neoromancer at May 2, 2007 3:07 AM

The 10% threshold in Turkish electoral law for a party to enter the parliament was a trick the nationalists invented to avoid representation of a Kurdish-controlled party called HADEP or any other Kurdish party in the parliament.
So in order to avoid a Kurdish participation in the parliament the secularists gave the government to the islamic party with only 34% of vote.

Posted by: athenian at May 2, 2007 02:48 AM

Partly true, they were one of the parties intended to be kept out, the others being ultra leftists, rightists and ironicaly islamists.

Posted by: neoromancer at May 2, 2007 3:09 AM

neoromancer posted
I hope they can explain how greece has a defence treaty with syria, and armenia with iran against the defence treaty between Turkey and Israel.

because Turkey occupies some syrian land and also Turkey occupies parts of Armenia and Greece and Cyprus so all these countries need to be careful of Turkey

neoromancer posted
you bash the US for not doing anything about these minor border disputes, maybe because the US is not biased like you on the subject and can see that Turkey also has legitimate claims.

America is biased towards Turkey and its a fact America invaded iraq during the gulf war because saddam invaded kuwait and tried to occupy kuwait but when Turkey invaded Cyprus the US Turned a blind eye towards it it shows america is biased and has double standards

Posted by: Greek Gurl at May 2, 2007 4:33 AM

In many elections in many countries there is the factor of hidden intimidated votes,that is votes of people who do not want any trouble with the percieved establishment of their country and vote for the regime, but the moment they sense a change is coming, they show their real preferences.
I do not know the exact situation in Turkey but I see that while Erdogan took only 34% of the vote he proposes a change in Constitution that will allow a direct election of the President by the people.
No politician would propose such a change if he did not believe that he can win the election.

Posted by: athenian at May 2, 2007 5:30 AM

"Gul has said in numerous speeches that, although he is a religious Muslim at home, he has no mission to apply it to the state in Turkey. "

Posted by: An American

"Muslims lie, the QUR'AN approves of it"....

Posted by: exsgtbrown at May 2, 2007 5:42 AM

Sounds like there are some Secular Folkies in Instanbul[Constantinople] but rest of the country-NIX.
Maybe Kemal Ataturk didn't like Islamists but Hell-what about the million or so Armenian Christians he had massacred on His Watch??
Am quite happy to see different factions slugging it out -so will the Kurds who might get a breather-provided Turkey is NEVER ADMITTED TO
E.U.This crazy idea formulated by lame duck Politicians Bush & Blair is a recipe for Infidel
Suicide.

Posted by: Morgane at May 2, 2007 6:11 AM

I found this at http://netwmd.com/blog/2007/05/02/1630. I think this is the main point:

To reframe the question: Can there be an Islamic democracy? In Islam's current state, I doubt it. We may end up seeing Turkey's secular military intervening rather undemocratically, but necessarily.

Some sophists argue that Islam has already embraced democracy:

John L. Esposito... argues that "Islamic movements have internalized the democratic discourse through the concepts of shura [consultation], ijma' [consensus], and ijtihad [independent interpretive judgment]" and concludes that democracy already exists in the Muslim world, "whether the word democracy is used or not."

Huh? David Bukay counters:

If Esposito's arguments are true, then why is democracy not readily apparent in the Middle East? ...

Only after eviscerating the meaning of democracy as the concept developed and derived from Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece through Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in eighteenth century America, can Esposito and his fellow travelers advance theories of the compatibility of Islamism and democracy.

Posted by: thedoctori at May 2, 2007 10:19 AM

neromancer,

sorry mate, but I think your are deluded. 95% of Turkey is not secular and has never been. Perhaps five to ten percent are secular, the rest you can see in action in Erdogan's parliament , and of course on occasions like when the pope comes to visit.

The question is: Is the glass half full or half empty?

Turkey is on the brink, no doubt about it. The Islamic's have been chipping away on Ataturks secular reforms, and they are winning. I was in Teheran during the times of the Shah, and Iran looked really western, no veils anywhere.

But the countryside remained in the 7th century. And the Ayatollah was biting his time in France. I also know Malaysia and Indonesia from way back in the seventies, and in those days it was hard to imagine that the people of these countries would all turn into fanatic zealots. Nobody in Indonesia wore a veil, but now it has turned into a Muhammedan S#*thole, were you can't feel safe anywhere as a westerner.

I hope for your sake that Turkey doesn't tip, but if it does it will be a wake-up call for the naive Europeans who managed to sleep right through it so far.

No, Turkey is not a European country, and it will never be.
Not unless Islam goes... How unlikely is that?

http://sheikyermami.com/2007/04/29/turkey-on-the-brink/

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at May 2, 2007 10:24 AM

Yes, Muslims do lie, along with everybody else on the planet. The Quran does not approve it. This is the interpretation of the Quran based upon either Shia doctrine (slightly wider in its interpretation) or Sunni doctrine (Ibn Katheer, who only sanctioned lying when Muslims are faced with death, at which time they are allowed to lie in order to preserve thier own lives, although he stressed in another book later on that telling the truth always even in this situation is the best in God's eyes, even if it leads to your death.)

Just doing some thinking...

Posted by: An American at May 2, 2007 11:28 AM

"I also know Malaysia and Indonesia from way back in the seventies, and in those days it was hard to imagine that the people of these countries would all turn into fanatic zealots. Nobody in Indonesia wore a veil, but now it has turned into a Muhammedan S#*thole, were you can't feel safe anywhere as a westerner."

I suspect the secularism and syncretistic insouciance of Indonesia in the 60s-80s was, sociopolitico-culturally speaking, superficial, and that the potential for a revival of old-time Islam was always there beneath the surface, but kept suppressed by dictators (Sukarno, Suharto) -- just as in Iran there was the Shah, and in Turkey there was Ataturk and succeeding military coups re-imposing secularism, and in relatively less Islamic Morocco and Tunisia you have de facto dictatorships, etc. The record seems clear: the old-time wellsprings of Islamic depth have been relatively more suppressed in areas of the Dar-al-Islam where the most Western Colonialist and post-Colonialist influence has exerted itself, both in the manner of outright Colonialist interference and in the manner of propping up or encouraging dictatorial regimes that suppress Islam (both for our sake as well as for their own sake insofar as they don't want to be toppled by the surge of popularist Islamic sentiments powered by a myriad jihadist fundamentalist groups whose lushly complex tentacles grow in and among and outside of Western political models that have been superimposed through Western superiority upon the Umma over the past 300-odd years).

Posted by: remote_control at May 2, 2007 11:59 AM

Greek Gurl;

according to the UN, EU, US, and international community Turkey only occupies northern Cyprus, not the rest of the lands you speak about, and even in this situation that land has not been annexed and Turkey has shown it is willing to pull out as long as the original constitution of Cyprus (signed also by Greek Cypriots as well as Greece) is reinstalled or similar rights are given to Turkey and Turkish Cypriots that were given by that constitution.

The other lands:

Greece: settled by the treaty of lausanne 07.24.1923 (signed by the allied powers including Greece)

Armenia: settled by the treaty of kars 10.13.1921(signed by the caucasian nations including Armenia also ratified by Armenia again in 1991)

Syria: treaty between France and turkey as syria was not an independent state but a french mandate back then (settled between the republic of hatay and turkey following a plebiscite where the republic of hatay voted to join Turkey-06.23.1939)

also you blame the US with being biased towards Turkey; Turkish nationalists blame the US with being biased against Turkey, so there is no difference between their and your attitude, the US just can't win.

Though I am neither pro or anti US, I feel that you are being biased against the US. The takeover of kuwait by Iraq was a threat to the whole region thus also a threat to US interests, the US had serious concerns that forced it to intervene, Cyprus is a regional conflict and of no threat to either the region or the US, and to state that the US is biased because they didn't intervene in a regional conflict that was of no threat to it is to say that every nation on earth is biased for not intervening in every single regional conflict.

the subject at hand has been diluted and it is obvious you are looking at things from an emotional point of view not a logical one.

Posted by: neoromancer at May 2, 2007 1:30 PM

I do not know the exact situation in Turkey but I see that while Erdogan took only 34% of the vote he proposes a change in Constitution that will allow a direct election of the President by the people.
No politician would propose such a change if he did not believe that he can win the election.

Posted by: athenian at May 2, 2007 05:30 AM

The election for presidency that he will propose would not be like it is in the US or France, it will be a system where the person who gets the most votes in only one tour wether it be 20 or 30% will be directly elected as president there will be no second tour where the two candidates with the most votes will race against each other and the one getting over 50% will be voted in.

He is betting on the fact that 1) the islamists are a united front while the opposition although a greater majority is deeply divided between various political parties, 2) he will get the sympathy votes and play on the sympathies of the people who will see them (the AKP) as treated unjustly by the "elite".

Posted by: neoromancer at May 2, 2007 1:39 PM

sheik yer'mami;

I am not naive enough to state that 95% of the population is secular, if it was then I wouldn't be having any problems here. far from it ı stated that there are very many conservative people and also that we are bar far not the most secular people on earth. I stated 95% of the people trust the army and only 4-5% want sharia. Big difference.

So you may ask why the concern then? because 4-5% hardcore islamists in a country where there are many religious, even if not hard-core but conservative, people is enough for an Iranian style take over. especially if they are able to use some "good old taqqiya" and fool the liberals, leftists and soft hearted democrats into believing that they are fighting for equality, social justice, rights of the poorer masses, fighting against corruption, elitism and unjust welfare distribution. That is what happened in Iran wasn't it?

thank you for your support though, and I agree with you about not being European without getting rid of islam, islam has proven too adamant and easy to manipulate to be trusted to be even practiced as a tradition.

Posted by: neoromancer at May 2, 2007 1:54 PM

neoromancer

according to the UN, EU, US, and international community Turkey only occupies northern Cyprus, not the rest of the lands you speak about, and even in this situation that land has not been annexed and Turkey has shown it is willing to pull out as long as the original constitution of Cyprus (signed also by Greek Cypriots as well as Greece) is reinstalled or similar rights are given to Turkey and Turkish Cypriots that were given by that constitution

according to the EU and UN Turkey illegally occupies the northern part of Cyprus and Turkey has no rights over Cyprus and the land it occupies belongs to Greek Cypriots.

neoromancer
Greece: settled by the treaty of lausanne 07.24.1923 (signed by the allied powers including Greece)

the allied powers where biased and anti Greek istanbul is constantinople and agia sophia belongs to greek Orthodox

neoromancer
Though I am neither pro or anti US, I feel that you are being biased against the US. The takeover of kuwait by Iraq was a threat to the whole region thus also a threat to US interests, the US had serious concerns that forced it to intervene, Cyprus is a regional conflict and of no threat to either the region or the US, and to state that the US is biased because they didn't intervene in a regional conflict that was of no threat to it is to say that every nation on earth is biased for not intervening in every single regional conflict.

Iraq invaded kuwait and the only reason the US came to help kuwait out was becasue it benefited them in Oil.

Turkey invading Cyprus is a threat to other regions as well Turkey is not only threatening Cyprus if it drills for oil in its own sea but its also threatening to invade northern Iraq as for usa policy it is biased and anti hellenic and Pro turkish because Turkey has military bases and it recognises isreal

Posted by: Greek Gurl at May 2, 2007 3:09 PM

Greek Gurl;

I think that we are not on the same frequency for some reason or another. Didn't I just say:

"Turkey only occupies northern Cyprus,"

to which you replied: "according to the EU and UN Turkey illegally occupies the northern part of Cyprus" in a statement to dispute something I stated which is more or less the same thing as you have just mentioned.

sorry for sounding confused but what did you understand from what I posted for you to give such a reply, I am truely interested.

nevermind, back to the US, neither we or you asked their oppinion about what they would think if we suddenly decided to call our shots against eachother, and as our caling our shots does not pose a real threat to them they have the utmost right to tell us both to go screw ourselves.

Posted by: neoromancer at May 2, 2007 3:33 PM

neromancer,

thank you for your comment above. You are quite right about Iran. The Islamization of so many countries in the last 30 to 40 years and the fanaticism we witness is mostly financed from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, but the ideological drive comes from the mosques and the clerics who saw the Islamic 'revolution' succeed in Iran and see themselves as the future masters of some imaginary caliphate.

I think it all went wrong at the grassroots, with the failed education system in Islamic countries that were at one stage 'moderate'- but are now becoming radicalized by the incessant propaganda.

Similarily I see our naive, superficial and willfully stupid, indulgent western societies pay a very high price for not teaching our kids, for not informing ourselves, for diddling on far to long with political correctness and religious vilification laws instead of asserting ourselves and our values against the invasion of our countries by millions of Muhammedans who believe they're coming to conquer....

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at May 2, 2007 7:11 PM

neoromancer

Greek Gurl;

I think that we are not on the same frequency for some reason or another. Didn't I just say:"Turkey only occupies northern Cyprus,"

yes you did but you forgot to mention it was a illegal occupation.

neoromancer
nevermind, back to the US, neither we or you asked their oppinion about what they would think if we suddenly decided to call our shots against eachother, and as our caling our shots does not pose a real threat to them they have the utmost right to tell us both to go screw ourselves.

i dont know its true that the us only acts in situations for its own interest but i guess it would take Turkeys side over Greece since its in the US best interest as Turkey has US bases and is strageticaly important for wars in the middle east.

Posted by: Greek Gurl at May 3, 2007 1:50 PM