[A-List] Turkey: military eager for war?

[Sabri Oncu <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From the A-Times article Michael forwarded:

> Willy-nilly, though, Turkey is getting sucked into
> the US war preparations, with the Turkish military
> apparently keen to join the US this time. But the
> military wants the politicians to take the final
> decision.

Michael,

Unfortunately I don't have much time in these days so rather than
dealing with the entire article, let me say beriefly that, in my
opinion, there are problems with the above statements. The second
statement appears correct but I doubt that Turkish politicians
have the power to make decisions of such sorts independently from
the military, except in appearance and it is possible that this
is what the author wanted to say. On the other hand, the Turkish
military hardly appears keen to join the US. If the US attacks
Iraq, then they most likely will join the US for reasons
mentioned in the article as well but they are hardly the "war
party" in Turkey.

The only "war party" in Turkey is TUSIAD (TIBA, Turkish
Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association) and the associated
corporate media. This also means that since almost all of the
media is owned by the members of this association, with few
exceptions, it is the media or, equivalently, it is TIBA. There
are even rumours that the US intelligence is paying some/many
corporate media columnists and anchormen to spread the US
propoganda and although I don't know whether this is true or not,
I know for sure that most of these columnists and anchormen are
playing their parts extremely well.

Maybe Mine can offer more. Also, Louis was there recently and may
know more than I do as he had the chance of making "real life"
observations. My observations are unfortunatelly "virtual".

Best,

Sabri