Turkey Fires Back at Perry

For what it's worth, I myself thought this statement was ill-advised. The president can't go around making incendiary comments; he's he chief diplomatic officer of the United States, after all. And a candidate for the job shouldn't either.

As they say, be the person you want to be.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry released a scathing statement saying Perry's comments were "baseless and inappropriate" and that the U.S. has no time to waste with candidates "who do not even know their allies."

Perry, the Texas governor whose candidacy briefly soared when he entered the race in August but whose shine faded after a series of weak debate performances, said Turkey was ruled by "what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists" and questioned the country's NATO membership.

In a debate ahead of the South Carolina primaries, he said Turkey was moving "far away from the country that I lived in back in the 1970s as a pilot in the United States Air Force that was our ally, that worked with us."

Turkey, which has assisted NATO in Afghanistan and other missions said it has been at the forefront of the fight against terrorism. It said it was "strongly condemning" Perry's words.

I like the AP Stylebook recommendation on the word "Islamist:"

Turkey has been ruled by a government led by pious Muslims since 2002.

Am I to understand that AP believes that any "pious Muslim" will, if he's honoring his religion, therefore be an Islamist? If "pious Muslim" is a synonym for "Islamist," it follows that pious Muslims are expected to be Islamist. Thus AP settles the question of "Are Muslims commanded to be jihadists?" in favor of the Islamists.

But perhaps AP just doesn't write the English language very well.

Although it's ties with Israel have deteriorated...

"It's" ties? The AP needs to proofread it's copy.

There is a defense for what Perry said, in as much as it's (or its, to the AP) true that Turkey now seems more friendly to terrorists than it had been in the past.

For example:

• Prime Minister Erdoğan endorsed an Al Qaeda financier.

• Turkey also helped supply Al Qaeda in Iraq.

• Erdoğan had repeatedly embraced Hamas and acted to supply it.

Turkey has been flying its (or "it's," to the AP) flag on the Gaza blockade runner ships.

Plus, all that business of doing things that Islamists do, such as destroying free speech in favor of reading the Koran six billion times a day, and turning a blind eye to assaults on prostitutes, and by prostitutes I mean, of course, "women."

Still and all, that doesn't make them terrorists, and even if it did, one should deploy that word more carefully than Perry did.

posted by Ace at 01:29 PM

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