Turkish Army and Islamic Government Clash

[Tom Yum]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070430/wl_afp/turkeypoliticseconomy_070430155705

Turkey's army has been a seperate insitution from its government for quite some time, it seems. The army has toppled 4 governments in the past 50 years. How has the Turkish army and government managed to polarize itself?

Young Turkish men are conscripted into the military, not volunteers...does this affect the psyche of the organization?

[DickHardman]

i think a larger concern may be turkeys recent threat to intervene in iraq. the turkish army has threatened to send troops into iraq if the usa does not deal with the ppk. sadly, we need the pkk guerillas to watch our backs in iraq, they are our partners, even though they are labelled terrorists by our own government. i wonder how dubya is gonna resolve this one.

[Tom Yum]

i think a larger concern may be turkeys recent threat to intervene in iraq. the turkish army has threatened to send troops into iraq if the usa does not deal with the ppk. sadly, we need the pkk guerillas to watch our backs in iraq, they are our partners, even though they are labelled terrorists by our own government. i wonder how dubya is gonna resolve this one.

I was going to work this into the Iraq war, but you beat me to it, Hardman. Seeing that the Turkish army is secular and against radical movements, could we woo them over to ourside as a player in Iraq? Have there been any joint efforts between our armies? Before the Iraq war?

[DickHardman]

the kurds have been the biggest usa allies in iraq, and because of it they have been given control of their own territory. the kurds in turn, house many pkk members who use iraq to fight turkey and iran. if we side with turkey we lose iraq. the ironic part is that we are protecting kurdish terrorists despite being stuck in the middle of a "war on terror".

our protection and empowerment of the kurds only brought turkey and iran closer together, since they both share the pkk problem.

israel has been using the pkk as a proxy to fight iran much in the same way iran uses hezbollah as a proxy to fight israel.

the war on terror is bogus.

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=41943

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=38693