One Moonbat journalist diagnoses as follows :
| If there is one idea that Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, share on how to fight the war on terror, it is that we need to reach out to and win the hearts and minds of the moderate, modern, peaceable, more secularist Muslims and empower them to defeat by both persuasion and other methods the radical, violent fundamentalists in their religion. That would be a very, very good idea. But consider the Turkish experience in the past six years. The Turks are the moderate, modern, peaceable, more secularist Muslims. Moreover our countries have been close allies for a half-century. And Turkey has had extensive friendly commercial relations with Israel. They are Turks, not Arabs, and are therefore less susceptible to the emotional plight of the West Bank Arabs under Israeli occupation. And yet we have lost the Turks almost as badly as we have lost the angriest fundamentalist Arab Muslims. If we can't keep a fair share of their friendly attitude, how do we expect to win the much vaunted and awaited hearts and minds campaign? |
Señorito Blankley nicely illustrates his own faction's Levantine problems, as it seems to me, Mr. Bones. Mark how the lunar laddie goes to work: "Consider the Turkish experience," it begins, -- which might be a very, very good idea -- and then Master Tony considers . . . the Turkey experience of Master Tony! "Head stuck up its own bellybutton, as usual," diagnose I.
The closest reference to any experience by the Turks is ruinously remote, that detestable "therefore less susceptible to the emotional plight of the West Bank." Master Tony knows that scrap of knowledge about Oriental susceptibilities out of ethnography textbooks, hopefully, rather than out of toplofty contempt for lesser breeds without. But setting "hopefully" aside as merely our own emotional plight, Mr. Bones, anyone can see that Señorito Blankley is no empiricist. It takes its Turks the high a priori way, a congeries of essences "moderate, modern, peaceable, more secularist." Go read for yourself the passage where the specimen reports that it sought out a Truly Typical Turk. Naturally it had no trouble findin' itself "a superb student of Turkish culture and politics, a secularist, a friend and admirer of America and a Turkish patriot." [1]
Oh well, one sees chiefly what one is prepared to see, no doubt, all the more so when one writes as a salaried Moonbat for wombscholars and the Niedergedümmten. Along Blankleyan lines, it is clear that what's wrong with Turkey can only be that the joint is overrun with false and untypical Turks. Unfortunately no very satisfactory policy recommendation can be made on that basis. To restrict "democracy" so that only True Turks run the joint would be entirely congenial with Big Party ideology, and congruent with the rest of Big Party behavior in the Eastern Mediterranean, yet one is not actually recommending anything to the GOP geniuses by saying so without detailed advice on implementation. Peace and freedom might even break out in Peaceful Freedumbia, provided all false and untypical neo-Iraqi subjects have been detected and put out of circulation. The proposition is so true it borders on tautology, but how does one go about it, exactly, assuming one is a pious cowpoker vigilante and sincerely supports the Cause? I'm always glad to speculate how the Boy-'n'-Party stumblebums might play their cards better, but 'tis a difficult hand, the former Iraq. And Turkey is even worse to practice upon still, for in it there are not tens of thousands of Big Party military operatives to do all the detectin' and kidnappin' that would doubtless be required. [2]
But I'm getting ahead of myself, because there is more TB diagnosis to consider before talking about cures:
| And yet, we have lost the Turks almost as badly as we have lost the most angry religious, fundamentalist Arab, Muslims. If we can't keep a fair share of their friendly attitude, how do we expect to win the much-vaunted and -awaited hearts and mind campaign? While I hardly have the answers to that question, one lesson can be learned from the Turkish debacle (or near debacle): while we cozied up to their arch threat — the Iraqi Kurds — we kept telling them not to worry and trust us. We did little to allay their fears that the Iraqi Kurds were giving the PKK terrorists succor and sanctuary in Iraq. We didn't pressure our allies the Iraqi Kurds to pressure the PKK. In the future, we are going to have to earn each ounce of friendly relations based on what we actually do for the object of our desire. Good intentions and common visions of the future are not likely to be readily available. |
The señorito seems to speak from another planet at times, perhaps Luna or ChristoKorea: where is this "much-vaunted and -awaited hearts and mind campaign" of which it speaks? The noisiest vaunters in the ranks of Boy and Party are, even as I keyboard, havin' themselves a jolly "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," which is all very well in the neocomrades' lemmin'ly sort of way, no doubt, but scarcely conducive to touchin' hearts and winnin' minds and washin' brains. Little Brother, along with most of his Party base and vile, does not seem to find the D. Horowitz circus very edifyin', but certainly they are conducting no equal and opposite campaign of their own. If there is any such campaign at all, it is very sotto voce. [3]
Master Tony then abruptly switches to the Free Kurds, as if that were the whole megillah. When it comes to tellin' the wombscholars what moral to draw, the señorito could do with some pronoun assistance:
| [O]ne lesson can be learned from the Turkish debacle (or near debacle): while [the extremist GOP] cozied up to [the Turks'] arch threat — the Iraqi Kurds — we kept telling [the Turks] not to worry and trust [the GOP]. [Republicans] did little to allay [Turkish] fears that the Iraqi Kurds were giving the PKK terrorists succor and sanctuary in Iraq. We didn't pressure our allies the Iraqi Kurds to pressure the PKK. |
The prose is such a botch that I took Master Tony to be addressin' the "worry" and "fears" of Free Kurds rather than True Turks until I scrutinized sharply. After a fashion, though, the misreading is instructive, for are not both parties little foreign friends of the GOP? The Turks are formally allies of Uncle Sam, if not necessarily of Little Brother and the Big Party, by virtue of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and that is rather more than the Free Kurds can point to.
The sense is a botch as well, even after one nails down who "they" are. Undoubtedly this is only an unconscious or subliminal botch, though, for one can scarcely imagine even Neocomrade A. Blankeley of America's Moonpaper reflectin' to himself with full awareness that to become an ally of militant GOP extremism means to invite "pressure" from the direction of Crawford ever after. The señorito might, by its own apparent principle, equally well have barked that the Turkish Palace people should have been pressured into not bein' troublemakers and firmly advised that they had better in future keep their paranoia about "arch threats" to themselves and not bother Harvard Victory School MBA's with such poppycock durin' business hours ever again.
Erected on this quicksand, the proposed moral seems headed for quick subsidence. "In the future, we are going to have to earn each ounce of friendly relations based on what we actually do for the object of our desire." Once again, "That would be a very, very good idea," but only if implementation falls to somebody more competent and less señorito-like than T.B. To pay in full for both Turkish ounces and Free Kurd ounces would be worthy of Honest Abe, but to be blind to one creditor and even sacrifice him to the interests of another? That's only Party-of-Grant business as usual, after all. [4]
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[1] Also of the female persuasion, though gender is presumably only a semi-essence of Turkicity at best.
[2] Some neocomrades who get closer to the nitty-gritty of aggression and occupation than Master Tony ventures have in effect suggested that the existing Turkish military might be mustered into the Big Party's Kiddie Krusade without too much trouble on Rancho Crawford's side and perhaps even with enthusiasm amongst the heirs of Atatürk. However TB probably disagrees, if he ever thought of so advanced a question at all, for is not "peaceable" one of the essences?
[3] Neocomrade K. Hughes is presumably still tryin' her best, hearts-and-mindswise, but it's not a very good best, and there is only one of her, so it's not surprising that there is little to show for her efforts, apart from havin' joined with Neocomrade C. Rice to persuade their Little Brother to cut out the "Islamic fascism" baloney in public because it seriously interfered with their handlin' of the lesser breeds without. That was only a defensive victory at best, and it may have been only temporary as well, since there have recently been signs of the pup returnin' to jihád careerist vomit.
Crawfordology is no exact science, but I'd guess most of the empowered perps don't see any need for that tiresome old hearts-and-minds shtik. Mention of it is only too likely to remind everybody of Secretary Kissinger's War as inherited from Secretary MacNamara. Beyond that, Big Party invasionites who matter suppose one of two things, either (1) that Shock-'n'-Awe can do everythin' H&M ever could, and do it better, or else (2) that there is no need to do much H&M therapy at all, because "in their hearts" the invadeds and occupieds of the world, actual and potential, already "know he is right" -- "he" being in this case either Little Brother or Uncle Sam, suit yourself.
The latter, or Barry Goldwater, school of GOP aggression seems to have more effect on the stumblebums' actual behavior, although needless to say the other crew hold a much more realistic-sounding doctrine. Counterterrorizin' might very well work, at least sometimes and to some extent, whereas pretendin' they've already arrived when they have yet to set out seriously is mere tomfoolery and has earned the wages of tomfoolery in the semiconquered provinces of the former Iraq.
One must also bear in mind that our GOP geniuses do not manage the lesser breeds without on a retail basis, they are wholesalers who work through middlemen, in the Greater Levant all those cardboard kingdoms and barracks-based republics. Turkey is not exactly a Mubárakistán, to be sure, but nevertheless the cowpokers have no more alternative to workin' through the Turkish Palace people than through the Arab Palace people. The idea of a direct contact between Rancho Crawford and Castle Cheney on the one hand, and street Arabs or statistically typical Turks on the other, is only fantastic. (And ditto for Pakistan.) Strictly speaking, the Moonbat señorito should have moaned "And yet we have lost M. Erdogan," and then have explained how much popular opinion in Turkey had do do with their loss.
[4] Except by sheer coincidence of interests, it is unlikely that Little Brother and Big Party are goin'ta start askin' their little foreign friends what "we" (Uncle Sam) can do for them instead of vice versa. When the situation is like this one, with two different LFF's already at odds, such coincidence is quite impossible.
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