(The bad news, for the Pipesovitch-Kramerides classes, is that the MESA monsters clearly intend to reenter God's Country after going up to the high-latitude places to worship the abominations of Lady Shariah. Surely Boy and Party ought to be able to give all twenty-seven hundred of ’em a stiff dose of Táriq Ramadán Visa Therapy™?)
Although it is always fun to cartoonize the pomposities of Student Government, and although the WGAS itself takes student self-governance fandangos even more seriously than most of its ilk, and although sticking a spoke in the wheels of the jihád careerists and dossiermongers can never come amiss, nevertheless what the JCIA reports not about itself -- and even not about General Buonaparte! -- is even more interesting still. Behold:
| Saturday, November 17, 2007 // Turks Favor Invasion A new poll shows that 81% of Turks favor invading northern Iraq, up from 46% in July. "The number of people saying Turkey should conduct a cross-border military operation against militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) stood at 81 percent, up sharply from 46 percent in the last poll in July." ... Despite U.S. offers of help for NATO ally Turkey in fighting the PKK, the poll showed the number of Turks with a negative view of the United States had risen to 86 percent from 49 percent in November 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Reuters adds, "The survey showed support for Turkey's European Union membership bid had fallen to 51 percent from 52 percent in July, with 40 percent now opposed to joining. A few years ago, support for EU membership was above 70 percent. Turks with higher education were most opposed to joining the bloc. " [2] In other news, the Sadrists oppose allowing Baath officials back into the government from their exile. posted by Juan Cole @ 11/17/2007 06:30:00 AM |
A pity I do not know enough Turkish to make it worthwhile to try to ascertain whether the indig pollsters put this matter to their patients exactly as the JCIA reports: "Do you favour your rulers invading Free Kurdistan, O Turk on the Street?" In the holy Homeland such frankness would be almost inconceivable, for the whole business would have to be carefully packaged and presented as involvin’ Preëmptive Retaliation. "Don't you agree that evil THEY have provoked Wunnerful US quite intolerably, ma’am?" Or whatever.
JCIA/WGAS prescinds from mentioning its own view of the legitimacy of the proposed aggression, which seems to ourselves about on a par with the Baghdad caper of militant GOP extremism. If those two instances are considered to involve a suitable casus belli, why then we need never worry again about Peace suddenly breaking out in this alien and bewildered world of ours, Mr. Bones!
As often, however, I notice that few credentialed opinionators are likely to take my own view of the case. Doubtless the vast majority with any opinion worth mentioning would evaluate the attested Big Management Party aggression into the former Iraq quite differently from a Justice and Development Party ditto. Those who approve one crime but disapprove the other will far outnumber those who approve, or disapprove, both crimes alike. A Martian might infer from that line-up that all earthlings agree with Buckley Minor's pet proverb Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi, i.e., that Kennebunkport-Crawford vigilantes are so different in kind or degree from Erdoganian invasionites that it would ludicrous to expect common rules to apply.
Eighty-six percent of the pollsters' patients take just that view evidently. Only one Turk or Turkess in seven (at most) could argue with consistency that appreciation of the wisdom and beauty of Little Brother's Machtpolitik, as conducted for Uncle Sam in the shambles of the former Iraq by GOP geniuses and Harvard Victory School MBA's, ought to increase, now that the heirs of Atatürk are resolved to emulate it. They clearly do not reflect to themselves "Why should heroic Turks not aggress also, just like paleface cowpokers do?" In the absence of such reflection, naturally the notion of redefinin’ the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to which both great Turkey and Greater Texas adhere, as a joint appliance for salutary aggression wherever aggression may be required in the world does not occur to them, and would be hooted at should it be proposed.
A familiar and customary asymmetry applies to this instance: we may be quite confident that Mr. Zogby and Mr. Rasmussen will not be asking those who endorse Rancho Crawford's invasions and occupations what they would think of their own game if M. Erdogan starts playing it also. We may also be pretty confident, I suspect, that somethin’ like eighty-six percent of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh would find it fort mauvais that M. Erdogan should behave like that -- actin’ far above his country's proper station in the Kiddie Krusade Weltordnung, that is what Turkish self-help would amount to from the perspective of the Big Party base and vile, unless I am much deceived about their sentiments. Neocomrade W. F. Buckley's fancy Latin proverb applies to their case well enough, although one might reinforce with a cruder Russian peasant saw, "Another's tears are water." The grievances of some wretched far-off Turkey do not often disturb the beauty sleep of Master Narcissus of the extremist GOP, and that fact is quite enough basis to predict how Narky will react if somebody insists on pesterin’ him with such exotic chickenshit. [3]
Despite these polarities and discrepancies, there remains a fairly clear sense in which all gland-basers are alike. I may overestimate peccatum originale a bit to estimate that the pollsters could probably detect 86% approval for pretty well any aggression that ever actually took place amongst the subject populace at the point of maximum jingoism.
However there is a faint trace of a silver lining here, also, in that the J-word forever associated with M. Disraeli of the Brit Stupid Party reminds us that on occasion one can have the jingoism but somehow lack the aggression. So maybe there is hope? [4] God knows best!
___
[0] "Juan Cole Intelligence Agency"
[1] ME does not talk about itself TOO MUCH in its own blog, O Bones! It only modestly provides cross references:
| Cole on Academic Freedom The Monreal Mirror carries an interview with me by Samer Elatrash, in honor of the holding of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) Conference in Montreal. MESA has over 2700 members among teachers and researchers at colleges and universities, mainly in North America. |
Interviewing the World's Greatest Area Student seems to have become positively pontifical of late: one does not just go ahead and perform the familiar ritual acts, one must go about them with a niyya, offering each detail, and the solemn occasion as a whole, up in honour of . . . of this or that.
[2] Dr. Matrix seems to have attempted to twistify the numbers about Turkish enthusiasm for henôsis with "Europe,", although I can't imagine why anybody at Reuters would bother. If you work it out, Mr. Bones, I believe you will find that opposition has increased from thirty percent to forty percent, which seems to me a good deal less than the efforts of M. Chirac and M. Sarkozy might have looked forwards to when they commenced.
[3] Down in the gutter of Grant where Master Narky dwells, I doubt there would be much resentment of M. Erdogan for infringement of the Big Management Party's virtual patent on aggressions and invasions. Up in the proud towers of AEIdeology and Hoovervillainy and Heritagitarianism, to be sure, that consideration would no doubt swamp any substantive discussion of Turkey's intolerable grievances. No militant extremist tank-thinker can allow any little foreign friends of the Big Party whatsoever to behave with the same unilateralism and preëmption -- and Yoo-based legitimacy -- that belong by right to Little Brother alone.
The very special status of Jewish Statism may cause this rule to be severely tested one day, perhaps one day soon, but I expect it will survive. Should it be M. Olmert who moaned about the Free Kurds as M. Erdogan now moans, that little foreign friend's account of the case would of course be far more sympathetically looked into by tank-thinkers and policy perps. Yet at the end of the day, would the Tel Aviv statelet actually be permitted to exercise a fully Crawfordite latitude of retaliatory aggression and preëmption? The thing is not absolutely impossible, and making up Tom Cruise scenarios about the evil Qommies is not difficult at the moment. Nevertheless, the prudent gambler should, as I'd recommend, bet her chips that tail will remain tail and never be able to wag the Elephant Folk altogether.
[4] Serious discussion of hopefulness would require having a much better idea of what M. Erdogan and his co-conspirators against peace have in mind to accomplish. You'll recall the speculation that the colonels and generals might be fobbed off with announcement of a RIGHT to invasionize that would not have to be actually exercised. BGKB.
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