Frank wrote:I fully understand his point - its one of a simplistic, badly educated person. A person who sees no difference between all the people who live in America or does not know or care that there are many different political positions here: ranging from Bush to Chomsky. Perhaps he thinks so because of his Cypriotic experience and the education he received.
Dear Frank, I have studied in the states so maybe my education is limited. It is interesting though that from all the people you could choose so as to describe of what it is to be an american you have chosen Chomsky whom you probably have not read as he states so clearly his position on Cyprus and on Turkey. As an uneducated person that I am I will not try to discribe those positions but instead, present them here as Chomsky has put them.
Chomskey on Turkey
on http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20030403.htm
That reveals that the (Turkish) government lacks "democratic credentials," according to former Ambassador Morris Abramowitz, now a distinguished elder statesman. ...
... Turkey taught the US a lesson in democracy. That is regarded as criminal. ...
on http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200309--.htm
If we use the term in accord with its official definitions, then, uncontroversially, Israel (like the US, Britain, Turkey, and others) is a terrorist state by the standards we apply to official enemies. Scale and character of course varies from case to case, but none of it is attractive, to put it mildly.
on http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20021228.htm
... Turkey's failure to protect elementary rights.
on http://www.chomsky.info/articles/200006--.htm
... Turkey had largely suppressed Kurdish resistance by terror and ethnic cleansing, leaving some 2-3 million refugees, 3,500 villages destroyed (7 times Kosovo under NATO bombs), and tens of thousands killed.
on http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19990405.htm
Turkey became "the biggest single importer of American military hardware and thus the world's largest arms purchaser." When human rights groups exposed Turkey's use of U.S. jets to bomb villages
on http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/1999----.htm
Take Turkey, since you mentioned it. This is not just torture; torture is bad enough. This is some of the worst ethnic cleansing...
on http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20060508.htm
As you most probably know, the leading Human Rights Watch investigator in Turkey, who is an extremely fine person, Jonathan Sugden, was just expelled from the country because he was investigating human rights violations in the Southeastern zone.
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20020308.htm
The major sources of water in that region happen to be in eastern Turkey, which I just came back from, and which happens to be the region of some of the worst atrocities and ethnic cleansing
on http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20020416.htm
If you read the State Department reports on terror they praise Turkey for its success in showing how to counter terror. You read a front page article in the New York Times and it praises Turkey for showing how to deal with terror. Turkey was selected as the country to provide the forces for what they call the international force for Afghanistan. Actually it's for Kabul alone. It's Turkey that's being paid by the United States extensively to carry out the repression of terror, thanks to their achievements in countering terror - namely by carrying out some of the worst terror of the 1990s. Massive ethnic cleansing and atrocities with U.S. support. Now you know this is a real achievement of the intellectual culture to be able to do this. But it illustrates very well the answer to your question. Terror and counter-terror. If some enemy state did this, we'd be not just outraged, we'd be bombing them.
on http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20011018.htm
And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Ecevit announced that Turkey would join the coalition against terror, very enthusiastically, even more so than others. In fact, he said they would contribute troops which others have not willing to do. And he explained why. He said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because the United States was the only country that was willing to contribute so massively to our own, in his words “counter-terrorist� war, that is to our own massive ethnic cleansing and atrocities and terror.
Chomsky on Cyprus
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199102--02.htm
The U.N. was able to respond to Iraq's aggression because -- for once -- the U.S. happened to be opposed to criminal acts, as distinct from its own invasion of Panama in the first post-Cold War act of aggression, the Turkish invasion and virtual annexation of northern Cyprus, Israel's invasion of Lebanon and annexation of the Golan Heights (sanctions vetoed by the U.S.), the Moroccan invasion of the Sahara (justified on grounds that "one Kuwait in the Arab world is enough"; it is unjust for such vast resources to be in the hands of a tiny population); and much else. As for the unprecedented severity of the U.N. sanctions, that was a direct result of intense U.S. pressures, cajolery, and threats, and the considerations of self-interest that motivate other powers, great and small.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199102--.htm
Turkey invaded northern Cyprus, broke it up, killed two thousand people, tried to destroy relics of Greek civilization, drove out 200,000 people. That was fine. Turkey is our ally.
on http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199110--.htm
The crisis began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait a year ago. There was some fighting, leaving hundreds killed according to Human Rights groups. That hardly qualifies as war. Rather, in terms of crimes against peace and against humanity, it falls roughly into the category of the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus, Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1978, and the U.S. invasion of Panama. In these terms it falls well short of Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and cannot remotely be compared with the near-genocidal Indonesian invasion and annexation of East Timor, to mention only two cases of aggression that are still in progress, with continuing atrocities and with the crucial support of those who most passionately professed their outrage over Iraq's aggression.
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199408--.htm
... because the US and Britain did not follow their usual practice of vetoing or otherwise nullifying the international reaction to such "textbook cases of aggression" as US-South Vietnam, Turkey-Cyprus, Indonesia-East Timor, Israel-Lebanon, US-Panama, and many others...