Europe is no longer the exclusive club it once was. EU is debt ridden and economically stagnant, while Turkey enjoys a boom time. Europe is aging, in contrast with youthful Turkey. And Turkey is LARGE. It certainly packs a lot more economic, political and military clout than the tiny nations of central Europe.

The new Sick Man is in denial.

Depends........it could be Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia.

Someone obviously got the Pentagon memo.

The Turks refused US troops to pass through prior to the bloody invasion of Iraq and have now denounced the prinicple US allie in the Middle East.........think that has a little more to do with it, challenge 'power' and your deleted from one list and added to another pretty quickly.

According to IBC, Iraq Body Count, April 2010 figures - since 2003 invasion the figures for civilian deaths are between 96,663 and 105, 408 That data comes from cross checked media reports, hospitals, morgues,non governmental office and official figures. IBC tell us to allow for a huge number of unreported deaths too.

Other groups have the figures far higher with some saying up to a million plus civilian Iraqi deaths

Such an erudite contributor write on, thank you.

Apologies for posting the same comment twice everyone. Writeon's figures are much more in keeping with the reality than those I listed from the IBC.

In 1876 14,700 Bulgarians were slaughtered by the Turks;

In 1877 200,000 Armenians were slaughtered by the Turks;

In 1915 1.5m Armenian were slaughtered by the Turks;

In 1922 300,000 Christians were slaughtered by the Turks;

In 2010 100 Christians were slaughtered every year by the Turks;

In 2010 100 Kurds were slaughtered every month by the Turks.

Now, fancy having a Turk, who produces like a rabbit, to be your neighbour?

Rob

You could accept people have differing views without levelling 'useful idiot' at them and without making assumptions on their political leanings or insinuating that their different view is based on prejudices regarding race, creed or culture.

What's the difference between a 'religion that bases it's whole philosophy on the eternal and unchanging rightness of a 7th century book' and a religion that bases it's whole philosophy on the eternal and unchanging rightness of a 1st and 2nd century book - the Bible?

You have a right to express your opinion as do I. People have a right, if they believe, to follow whatever path of religion they choose to. Your views on it's place in the modern world are neither here nor there in the argument. It is here, it's been here a lot longer than you and survived a lot more denigration that you can levy at it.

"Never do we stop to ask precisely what we mean by Islamism"?

Speak for yourself.

The journalistic 'we' is devoid of meaning. Journalists are not us.

ok I don't know if you know this, but the solution to the KUrdish issues that is going on in turkey does not lie in another country, it lies within turkey. All turkey has to do is recognize the Kurds as a minority and the problem with be solved. Don't make more excuses. How hard can this be? Seriuosly there is not much thinking, there is much action though

Turkey, these days would love to give up some of their vast borders, it is a serious problem to them and if anyone can't see that, then they are a yank internatinal troble maker.
No doubt Turkey would be open for any thoughts, oil(hic!) or not.

'Its the fault of western governments on the whole'

Nonsense. Deranged nitwits the world over are able to come to horrendous conclusions with no external interference.

And I think that Islasmism is a political movement like any other - a right wing god bothering faction that goes from the relative moderation to outright bastshit crazy.

The best example would seem to be the republicans in the US and their bible thumping urge to see all laws come from a holy text. They are no different to the Islamists of Turkey in their attitude.

Likewise the mental militia movement and its terrorist supporting madness represents the extreme edge of the spectrum.

Neither. Turkey is in it for herself, like the rest of the EU. But Turkey has no place in Europe. It has a far more imortant role to play in stabilising the ME. That is its natural place. It should look East not West. It is a key player and has a strategic role in securing stability in the ME, along with Iran and Iraq.
Neither should Turkey, or Israel, be allowed to compete in Eurovision. They are not European.

'it's the fault of western governments on the whole'

I concede that 'deranged nitwits are able to come to horrendous conclusions with no external interference' And that the Islamic religion has been politicised.

I do think that the misconceptions and stereotypes about islam are fuelled by western governments and the media, - extremist, terrorist and fundamental being the most common bywords used in context with the word Islam. It tells a lie. Islam is actually a very peaceful religion.

When Islam spread widely across the West back at the times of the Crusades, the Christian church and the ruling elite started promoting negative images about Islam then too.

In more recent history, negative associations have been constantly and repetitively applied to Islam. We do not refer to anyone else's religion and culture in such denigrating ways.

"The term Islam as it is used today seems to mean one simple thing, but in fact is part fiction, part ideological label, part minimal designation of a religion called Islam . Today Islam is peculiarly traumatic news in the West. During the past few years the media have covered Islam: they have portrayed it, characterized it, analyzed it, given instant courses on it, and consequently they have made it known . But this coverage is misleadingly full, and a great deal in this energetic coverage is based on far from objective material. In many instances Islam has licensed not only patent inaccuracy, but also expressions of unrestrained ethnocentrism, cultural, and even racial hatred, deep yet paradoxically free-floating hostility"
"For the general public in America and Europe today, Islam is "news" of a particularly unpleasant sort. The media, the government, the geopolitical strategists, and although they are marginal to the culture at large - the academic experts on Islam are all in concert: Islam is a threat to Western civilization. ........What I am saying is that negative images of Islam are very much more prevalent than any others, and that such images correspond, not to what Islam "is"...but to what prominent sectors of a particular society take it to be: Those sectors have the power and the will to propagate that particular image of Islam, and this image therefore becomes more prevalent, more present, than all others"
Edward Said

We are heading for Big Trouble. Israel and the other Western powers have created, seemingly without realizing it, a incredibly powerful symbolic issue in the wider Arab and Muslim world. The Israeli siege of Gaza.

The significance of Turkey choosing to defy both Israel and the West on this issue cannot be overestimated. I think it's an historic tipping-point.

Iran too is now intimating that they also want to take part in breaking the slow and inhuman stragulation of an entire people in Gaza. This barbaric siege, which the West has done nothing to lift, has handed the moral highground to those states and groups that reject 'compromise' and 'surrender' towards Israel and Western interests.

Finally the Arabs and Muslims have a real cause they can all unite behind, giving aide to Gaza. It is rapidly turning into a trial of strength which could easily spin out of control leading to a new war. Perhaps that's what Israel wants?

But, if our leaders were smart, they would break the siege of Gaza now, before it's too late and this cause ignites and unites, the entire Muslim world. And of course that's what we've been trying to avoid for decades; dividing, conquering, and controlling.

When I was at school - grammar school - I remember studying the Crimean War. Turkey was described by the British Government at that time as "the sick man of Europe" Whats this about Turkey not being in Europe? In the 19th Century someone clearly though they were.

If we are going to play the grotesque game, 'whose mountain of corpses is the highest' one had better be damn sure one knows what one is talking about when one attacks another relgion, culture, people, and labels them barbaric and bloodthirsty.

If one examines the Western policy of war, siege, more war, and finally invasion and occupation, in relation to Iraq over the last couple of decades, one can't help but conclude, in one is honest and objective, that we, in the peace-loving democracies, have rained down death, desease, destruction, and slaughter on Iraq on a truly Biblical scale. A scale, that under other circumstances we wouldn't hesitate to label genocide of an entire people.

The numbers involved are so huge one can't help thinking about Nazi Germany and why the German's allowed the regime to survive for so long. Well, I suppose they had the excuse that they were living under a vile and bloody dictatorship, otherwise it would have been impossible. But what is our excuse? We, after all, are supposed to be living in democracies? How can democracies be responsible for the deaths of between three to four million people in Iraq through needless wars and barbaric siege?

We then move closer to the unpleasant conclusion, if democracies cannot commit mass murder on the scale of a totalitarian dictatorship; I mean when one's dealing in millions who is counting, the actual numbers loose significance after a while don't they? Then we have to conclude that we don't actually live in functioning, liberal democracies anymore, but rather in a new style of totalitarian, liberal, dictatorship.

The expansion of Islam around the time of the crusades? What about the invasion by the sword, forced conversion, destruction of cultures (to the point they consider themselves arabs) that happened long before the crusades? The crusades were a dark chapter in European civilisation but were essentially a defensive spasmodic fight for survival against the culture that started the whole concept of holy war. A concept that did not exist in European minds before the Islamic attacks on Arabia, the middle east, Africa and Europe. Most Muslims are, like all people, peace loving, family orientated, generous and good. However, their creed sanctions (from God, no less) the death of apostates, homosexuals, non-believers and anyone who stands in the way of Islam.

It's the oldest rhetorical trick in the book, attack the man, not the message, call him names and give him a negative label, so one can avoid dealing with what he's written.

Then one can always use stock phrases that imply that one doesn't know what one is talking about, like, 'get a grip' 'don't be silly' 'useful idiot'...

Muslims aren't any more violent than we are, one can actually argue that they are less violent. The slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by the Western powers is hardly an advertisment for how 'peace-loving' we are is it?

Then there's the issue of terrorism. Muslims are not supporters of terrorism in any special degree, can we say the same the same thing? Obama, close to a paragon of Western values, almost a saint of peace, has ordered the mass-slaughter of literally hundreds of innocent civilians in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan in drone terrorism, in order to kill a mere handful of 'bad men', doesn't that count on the scales? Or don't the killing of Muslim civilians in our acts of terror count? If not, why not? Or is it far more simple? Western terrorism 'good', eastern terrorism 'bad'?

I urge anyone reading this to check out the Cairo Declaration of Islamic Human Rights,Islam answer to UN declaration of human rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Declaration_on_Human_Rights_in_Islam