Turkey is a “laic” republic. Laic is not the same thing as “secular”. Turkey has no national religion. Its constitution does NOT say that “Turkey’s religion is Islam”, although 98 % of its people are Muslim. Religion and state affairs are sharply separated and religion has no place in the public realm. The Shariah part of the Koran discussing relations of people with other people, like polygamy, for example, is outlawed in Turkey and replaced by laws borrowed from European states. This is a situation that exists in no Islamic country. Therefore women are emancipated and have about equal rights with men, just like in the United States..
I have never heard in history that any state may want to change the constitution of its ally., because if it does that, it is no longer its ally. President Bush cooked a “Greater Middle East Project” (GMEP) to be applied to Turkey and to all Islamic countries. Turkey would be a model for them, but not the laic Turkey, but a mildly Islamic Turkey. The Islamic countries do not like Turkey and do not want to be like it. They do not want to get rid of the Shariah. So they did nothing.
In Turkey, after the voters fired in 2002 a coalition of incompetent and corrupt people, a religious party promised to abide by the laic constitution and was elected as the ruling party. They had some economic success. They eventually increased their votes to 46 %. Once they were entrenched, they began to Islamize the country. The Ataturk followers were alarmed.
Their prime minister Recep Tayiyp Erdogan likes the GMEP because he too would like to Islamize Turkey.. When he comes to Washington, he is all smiles, at home he does not do anything without asking Washington, so the U.S. considers him a “Puppet regime”. But at Home, he propagandize sharply against the U.S. and he is one of the reasons why pro-American vote in Turkey is still 12 %, the lowest in the World.
The Obama government must disown and abolish GMEP and reinstitute respect for the Turkish constitution. This would also pull the rug from under the feet of Mr. Erdogan.
I think right now the most important problem between U.S. and Turkey is the PKK problem. Obama would understand that it is unacceptable that an ally protects terrorists in areas it is domineering and allows them
to attack Turkish targets. This is clearly a casus-belli. These are one of President Bush’s deeds that disregards all laws of common decency, like breaking the Geneva Convention and the Westphalia Treaty and permitting torture.
The next U.S. Secretary of State, before starting her own program, will have to correct first President Bush’s misdeeds.
If the PKK problem is resolved, Turkey can be again a reliable, real ally.
R e n a i s s a n c e o f R e p u b I i c a n P a r t y
George W. Bush let his party be hijacked by Evangelical Christians, in spite of the separation of Church and State in our Constitution. He made a lot of decisions on religious grounds. Evangelicals propagated some of their ideas as Republican ideas. He broke the Geneva Convention, the Westphalia Treaty and allowed torture. When he wanted to do anything, like listening to phones, he always stepped out of the legal area.
For the political process to work properly in the United States, we have now a large and strong Democratic Party. We must also have a strong Opposition party. If the Republican party got too small and too weak, it cannot be a good opposition. Therefore, the Republicans must shake themselves up, get rid of Bush’s illegal ballast, and then make their new program.
In the past the Republican party was known to be pro business. That is al right, if it does not also mean “against the people”. Exporting a computer trouble-shooter job to India may lower the computer cost a little bit, but messes up the life of a highly specialized and knowledgeable technical man. He may not be able to find another good job for a long time, or may accept a much lower salary. The party must adopt a new nick name such as “The People’s Party” and must try to live up to it.
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