Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

TURKEY IS HOLDING AN AMERICAN PASTOR ON BOGUS CHARGES

Jazz Shaw reports:

Andrew Brunson is an American pastor and missionary from North Carolina who has been living in Turkey and preaching the Good Word for more than twenty years. His services were curtailed in October, however, when he was arrested by Erdogan’s goons and he’s currently in prison facing “terrorism” charges. Throughout this ordeal there has been little to no help from the Obama administration and now the pastor’s family has reached out to the Trump transition team. The Daily Caller has the latest details.

A Christian social activist group has been in touch with the Donald Trump transition team in hopes of freeing an American pastor who has been held in a Turkish prison for three months on bogus terrorism charges, The Daily Caller is told.

“We’ve reached out, and they’re obviously aware,” Jordan Sekulow, the executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, says of the case of Andrew Brunson, a native of North Carolina who has served as a missionary in Turkey for 23 years.

“We haven’t seen the engagement from our highest level officials. They’re on their way out, and it doesn’t seem like necessarily it’s on their priority list,” Sekulow added of the outgoing Obama administration.

“It’s going to take more action from the Trump administration.”

The American Center for Law and Justice has been following this story from the beginning. Last month they published an extensive summary of the events to date which will bring you up to speed on Brunson’s situation.

EVOLUTION UNDER SCRUTINY IN TURKEY

A young Turkish student, Enes Kayan, is bucking evolution orthodoxy by staging annual open inquiry symposiums on biological evolution and the origin of life at Turkish universities.  Granville Sewell, a mathematics professor at the University of Texas at El Paso was an invited participant at the May 7, 2014 conference held this year in Erzurum, Turkey.  He published the following report on the conference:

Unsatisfied and unconvinced by what he was being taught about evolution at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey, 21-year old student Enes Kayan knew there was another side which was never presented in his courses. So in 2012, Enes, a member of the Marmara Young Vision Student Club, decided to organize a symposium in which he and other Marmara students could hear alternative views on evolution, including intelligent design. The idea that evidence against Darwinism, and even for intelligent design, could be freely presented at a university angered some students and professors, and about 300 of them staged a protest, which Enes said actually worked to his advantage as it brought publicity to the event, which was held on May 16-17, 2012.

The event was such a success that Enes decided to organize a similar event the following year, and invite scientists from outside Marmara University, including some from outside Turkey, and the “First International Conference on Queried Evolution,” was held on May 4, 2013 at Marmara University. I was actually invited as one of the international speakers, but had to decline because the event was in the middle of the last week of classes at the University of Texas El Paso. The meeting was organized by Enes, and run entirely by students from Marmara Young Vision Student Club, who found sponsors to pay the expenses of the visiting scientists, including the Student Council of Turkey, a dependency of the Council of Higher Education of Turkey.

The following year Enes organized a second international conference with the Erzurum Young Vision Student Club, this time it was held at Ataturk University in Erzurum in eastern Turkey, and sponsors included the city government of Erzurum and the university itself. Enes again invited me, this time I decided to accept despite the fact that it was again held in the middle of the last week of my classes, May 7, 2014. And so this year I was able to participate in the event and witness the work he and his fellow students had done in organizing it.

The meeting was held in a large 550-seat auditorium at the Culture and Performance Center building and attended by over 600 students during the day. Since some of the talks were in English while others were in Turkish, simultaneous translation was provided by a student interpreter. I heard (through the interpreter) mentions of “specified complexity,” “the explanatory filter,” “irreducible complexity” and other familiar ID terms during some talks, but other speakers presented a range of different viewpoints, including at least one who defended the traditional Darwinist viewpoint. Most of the speakers discussed the origin of life and biological evolution, but one physicist centered his discussion on the fine-tuning of the constants of physics. Lecturers were invited from Celal Bayar University, Dokuz Eylul University, Yidirim Beyazit University, Ataturk University, Ankara, Edmonton, and London. My talk was entitled “The Common Sense Law of Physics,” here is the video that I created while preparing for the trip, which closely parallels my lecture.

I enjoyed seeing Istanbul on the trip in, Enes and his girlfriend showed me the main tourist attractions, and I was especially impressed by Erzurum, which I found was a winter sports capital of sorts, even boasting a couple of large ski jumps near campus. Ataturk University, founded in 1957, now has over 70,000 students, with an attractive and modern campus. For me, the most amazing thing about this conference, which I hope will be continued next year (with the English translation of the title changed from “Queried Evolution” to “Evolution under Scrutiny” at my suggestion!), is that it seemed to be as well-organized and well-run as any scientific conference I have attended, yet all of the organization and all the work was done by a group of 15-20 students. In fact, other than the invited speakers, I don’t recall seeing anyone who did not seem to be of student age. For a 23-year old student to undertake the task of organizing an international scientific meeting on any topic is quite an accomplishment, but for Enes and his fellow students to successfully organize a conference in which alternative views on evolution are presented is especially impressive.

It has been said that when an old theory is replaced, it is often not because its adherents change their minds, but because a new generation embraces the new theory. I may have seen this principle in action last week in Turkey.

Enes Kayan, organizer of the Congresses

Me:  I wonder if these conferences may well serve as a harbinger of things to come.  The evidential structure of biological evolution as currently taught is becoming increasingly weak and wobbly.   The publication this year of Stephen C. Meyer's Darwin's Doubt with its focus on the unexplained "Cambrian Explosion" is another huge problem for evolutionists.  Today I just read that a vertebrate fish has been found in the Cambrian Explosion!!   Keep reading for more on that new find.

Metaspriggina: Vertebrate Fish Found in Cambrian Explosion 

Evolution News & Views August 29, 2014 4:44 AM

DOWNWARD SPIRAL: ERDOGAN'S RADICAL MAKEOVER OF TURKEY

 

Erik Stakelbeck reports:

WASHINGTON -- From Harry Truman to Barack Obama, U.S. administrations have long viewed Turkey as a key ally and force for moderation in the Muslim world.
 
In recent years, however, Turkey has moved in a radically different direction: journalists thrown in jail, Twitter and YouTube shut down, and political opponents threatened with prosecution.
 
It's the kind of repression usually found in places like Iran and Syria -- only now it's happening in Turkey, a NATO country with aspirations of joining the European Union.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party, Turkey has made clear that it is setting a new course -- one that places its interests far from those of the West.

ANDREW C. McCARTHY - "LIBERTY AND SHARIA CANNOT SHARE THE SAME SPACE"

Andy McCarthy understands freedom, Islam,  and sharia with a particular clarity rarely exhibited in Western journalism.  His reflections on Turkey, and Islam in general, add greatly to a more mature and accurate understanding of Islam.  I have highlighted sections I think especially worth noting. 

[...] Like all Islamists, Erdogan [Prime Minister of Turkey] has contempt for Europe and the West. The objective of Muslim supremacists is to dominate and Islamize them, not emulate them. . . 

In their obsession over not being seen as Islamophobic, in their purblind insistence that aggressive supremacism is not the nature of mainstream Islam, European elites assume that they know Islam better than did such Muslim giants as Atatürk and his contemporary, Hassan al-Banna — the Muslim Brotherhood founder who notoriously wrote that “it is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated” and that Islam sought “to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

It is an unremitting fact that mainstream Middle Eastern Islam is totalitarianism packaged as “religion.” To be sure, critics of Islam can go too far with this point. It is wrong to say, as some do, that Islam is not a religion. The doctrine has a number of spiritual principles — the oneness of Allah, to take a prominent example. There are, moreover, interpretations of Islam that focus only on its spiritual and mystical elements. If such interpretations were dominant, Islam would be of no more moment to us than it would if it were true, as the fiction holds, that Islam is a “religion of peace” that has been “hijacked” by “radicals.”

But the fact is that Islamic supremacism is the preponderant Islam of the Middle East. Yes, it is a religion, but it aspires to be so much more: to control every aspect of life, to impose sharia’s political, social, and economic strictures on civil society. Therefore, the guidelines for religions that pose no threat to free societies cannot be applied to Middle Eastern Islam without putting liberty in grave jeopardy.

In a truly free society, religious liberty is a bedrock. It must be safeguarded from governmental incursions. If, say, the Chinese Communists cared about such things (they don’t), it would make perfect sense to preclude them from integration with Europe until they ceased repressing religion (among other things). And we would have no hesitation about saying so, because Chinese totalitarianism is perceived as a political ideology, not a “religion.” Yet an Islamic society is not free precisely because of its religion — or, to put a finer point on it, because of its dictatorial sharia system, which we inaccurately describe as a mere “religion” due to the spiritual components that adorn its thoroughgoing regulation of non-spiritual life.

I hasten to add that it is no insult to call sharia a “dictatorial” and “totalitarian” system. Devout Muslims believe Allah, omnipotent and omniscient, has ordained sharia as the template for virtuous human life — every detail of that life. In their view, it is profoundly offensive for His creation, to whom He has deigned to give this gift, to disobey. One need not be a believer to understand why sharia-adherent Muslims believe we must all submit. To grasp this, however, is to understand that liberty and sharia cannot share the same space.

NEO-OTTAMANISM vs. OBAMA HIBERNATION

Turkey's Erdogan is in Somalia these days.  Obama is on Martha's Vineyard.   Erdogan has a tactical and strategic plan for the Horn of Africa. It's not clear Obama has.  J.E. Dyer writes:

The US at the moment is perilously close to being used for the purposes of others, like a dying and dithering empire.  In spite of the significance of the setback for Al-Shabaab in Somalia, to everything from the piracy problem to dominance in the Middle East, the US is nowhere to be seen in the strategic aftermath of this tactical victory.  We have no idea what to do with it.  But Erdogan does.

CAROLINE GLICK: WESTERN LEADERS LIE TO THEMSELVES ABOUT TURKEY

Caroline Glick always  offers clear-eyed analyses well worth reading, including the following:

[...] Turkey ranks 138th in the international media freedom group Reporters Sans Frontieres country index on press freedom. Sixty-eight journalists are languishing in Turkish jails for the crime of doing their job. The most recent round-up of reporters occurred in early March. And it is demonstrative of Turkey's Islamist leaders' exploitation of democratic freedoms in the service of their tyrannical ends. . . .

In an interview this month with the opposition Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review, former Turkish president Suleyman Demirel warned that the AKP has established "an empire of fear" in Turkey.

TURKEY'S DESCENT into Islamist tyranny has not simply destroyed freedom in Turkey. It has transformed Turkey's strategic posture in a manner that is disastrous for the West. And yet, in this arena as well, the West refuses to notice what is happening. . . .

ANDY McCARTHY- WILL EGYPT FOLLOW TURKEY'S PATH TOWARD ISLAMISM?

Andy McCarthy makes important points in suggesting Egypt could well be in danger of following Turkey's path, that of moving from a long-established secular government to Islamist.   McCarthy writes:

The question in Egypt is not what happens at noon tomorrow but what happens, incrementally, over the next several years. While some analysts look at Iran 1979 as their guide, mine is present-day Turkey.

He goes on to say:

There, by law, the military is the guarantor of Atatürk’s secular Muslim society. Like Egypt’s armed forces, Turkey’s military is highly professional — indeed, it is still (nominally) a NATO ally and until recently had strong ties to the Israeli defense forces. Yet now, after 80 years, Turkey is back in the Islamist fold and overtly hostile to Israel.

This did not happen overnight. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), a disciplined, well-organized Islamist faction with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, managed to squeeze into power in 2002, even though it was a minority opposed by millions of pro-Western, secular Muslims. It increased its popularity by foreswearing any intention to impose sharia, avoiding the taint of financial corruption, adopting responsible economic policies, and only gradually enacting items on the Islamist punch-list — beginning with the ones that enjoyed broad support. Behind the scenes, it used its power both to infiltrate the military and to install its loyalists in important institutions (e.g., the banks, bureaucracy, judiciary, and education system).

QUICK TAKES (May be amplified if I can find the time)

-- Turkish propaganda film against Israel - sure to inflame the Turkish population.  I find vicious propaganda such as this utterly ugly.  Without a love of truth the world becomes hell.  Click here  (HT: Drudge)  

-- Afghan convert to Christianity charged with crimes punishable by death.  Another example of Islam's intolerance of any other religion.  UGH!!  Yesterday churches around the world recognized "The International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church."  How needful!  Click here.  (HT: Atlas Shrugs)

      Update:  Mindy Belz, writing for World magazine, reports:

Sayed Mossa handed a letter to a Westerner who came to visit him several times in jail in Afghanistan. He also asked the visitor not to come back, fearing that any misstep could lead to his death.

The letter, a copy of which WORLD received in late October, begins with a plea "to the international church of the world and to the President Brother [Barack] Obama and to the heads of ISAF force in Afghanistan." It describes his imprisonment since late May "due to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, saviour of the world." It also describes daily beatings and torture: "They did sexual things with me, beat me by wood, by hands, by legs, mocked me ("he's Jesus Christ"), [spit] on me. No body let me for sleep night and day." He also has received death threats. . .

UPDATE ON TURKEY CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT VOTE

Michael Rubin reports:  [See my earlier post, "Crunch Time in Turkey"]

"Cognitive Dissonance in Europe"

The European Union is welcoming the outcome of the referendum in Turkey in which voters endorsed Prime Minister Erdogan’s proposal to rework the judiciary, a proposal which, a senior court official has warned, threatens the independence of the courts. The breakdown of the vote, according to press reports, is interesting. More European-oriented cities (Izmir, European portions of Istanbul, etc.) voted against the referendum, while the referendum was overwhelmingly popular among Turkey’s more Middle Eastern constituencies. Before they cheerlead for the false dichotomy that Islamism equals democracy and secularism equals fascism, European Union officials should take some time to consider why those Turks who most embrace European values rejected the amendments.

CRUNCH TIME IN TURKEY

I don't suppose many people who read this blog pay much attention to what is happening in Turkey, but ominous events continue to unfold in that country.  Not only is an important referendum on constitutional amendments to be held Sept. 12th (offering the increasingly Islamist government an opportunity to tighten its noose), but the U.S. is about to sell Turkey it's most advanced aircraft without anyone in Washington even raising questions.  It's extraordinarily dispiriting to witness a great nation (the U.S.), playing tiddly-winks and failing to mind the store.  Michael Rubin has the story.

In perhaps the biggest international story receiving no attention in Washington, there will be on September 12 a referendum in Turkey on new constitutional amendments that

BRITAIN'S PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON WANTS TURKEY ADMITTED INTO THE EUROPEAN UNION

Beyond dumb.  Foolish and catastrophic.  Read Pamela Geller's take.

Update 7/28/10:  Barry Rubin in Pajamas Media: In Speech to Turkey, PM David Cameron Goes full Idiot.  

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s July 27 speech in Turkey will not live on in history. But it should, as an example of the decline of Western diplomacy and of suicide by political correctness. It is a textbook example of how not to conduct international affairs. . .  (more . . .)

ANDREW C. McARTHY: ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT TURKEY

From the NRO/YouTube intro:

Andy McCarthy, author of The Grand Jihad, says Turkey has become an Islamist state. He describes how Ataturk engineered Turkey to be a secular Islamic state. And he describes how the promise of EU membership and the democratic process have allowed the Islamists to takeover Turkey. Andy also says that the US-Turkey alliance is coming to an end.

TURKEY FLEXES ITS MUSCLES IN RESPONSE TO THE "POST-AMERICAN" WORLD

- Update - I meant to note that as far as I know, YouTube is fully blocked in Turkey.  Accordingly, nobody there has seen the Israeli IDF videos,  allowing the Turkish government to continue their lies.

- I have posted a good bit about Turkey in recent days, and for solid reasons.  Now Mark Steyn offers a vivid and sad image that needs noting, painful though it be.  Steyn says Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan

looks at the American hyperpower and sees, to all intents, a late Ottoman sultan — pampered, decadent, lounging on its cushions puffing a hookah but unable to rouse itself to impose its will in the world. In that sense, Turkey’s contempt for Israel is also an expression of near total contempt for Washington.

Steyn explains that demographics determines destiny: 

TURKISH AID TO GAZA SONG: "WE CON THE WORLD"

- Update 6/12/10 - YouTube took down the video.  It can still be seen here.

- (Original post) This video/song is positively brilliant.  You gotta click the YouTube video below.  You gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta...  (HT: Pamela Geller)  Update:  Caroline Glick, the creator, says: 

This week at Latma – the Hebrew-language media satire website I edit, we decided to do something new. We produced a clip in English. There we feature the Turkish-Hamas “love boat” captain, crew and passengers in a musical explanation of how they con the world.

Caroline Glick's website is worth frequent visits.  Here are the words to "We Con the World":

TURKEY: INTENT ON A 21ST CENTURY OTTOMAN EMPIRE

- Update 6/4/10 - Ralph Peters concludes further analysis of Turkey's strategies saying, "On Monday, Turkey turned its back on the West. History changed. Only the closed minds in Washington have not."

- Update 6/3/10 - Robert L. Pollock writes in the Wall Street Journal of the lies -- truly shocking lies [if the WSJ blocks access, click here for summary paragraphs]-- about Israel and the U.S. in the Turkish media.  Pollock:  "It is no exaggeration to say that such anti-Semitic fare had not been played to mass audiences in Europe since the Third Reich."

- (Original post) Ralph Peters understands Turkey and its role 1,000% better than the U.S. State department.  Turkey is no ally or friend of the West.  Read his article on the flotilla bound for Gaza.  Excerpts:

Three ships of that six-ship pro-terror convoy flew Turkish flags and were crowded with Turkish citizens. The Ankara government -- led by Islamists these days -- sponsored the "aid" operation in a move to position itself as the new champion of the Palestinians.

And Turkish decision-makers knew Israel would have to react -- and were waiting to exploit the inevitable clash. The provocation was as cynical as it was carefully orchestrated . . .

The US and the  European Union cling to the fiction that Turkey's a "westernized Muslim democracy." But Turkey's moving to the east as fast as the Islamist leaders of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) can drag it there.

Turkish leaders visit the West and sing, "Democracy, democracy, democracy!" We coo and clap. Then they go east and cry, "Islam, Islam, Islam!" And we insist they don't mean it.

Then there's Turkey's unfortunate NATO membership. Since the rise of its Islamists, Turkey has been a Trojan horse, not an ally. What happens now if Ankara provokes a military confrontation? How would we respond, given NATO's mutual-defense agreements?

The madcap agenda of Turkey's current rulers is to create a 21st-century version of the Ottoman Empire. Turks even mutter about the caliphate -- headed for centuries by the Turkish sultan. This is explosive stuff. And the Turks are playing with matches.

But we've obstinately ignored every warning sign. First, our "ally" stabbed us in the back on

BLOODY CLASH OFF GAZA COAST

- Update 6/1/10 - See also my post on Turkey's nefarious role in staging and encouraging this flotilla.  See also George Friedman in Stratfor Intelligence Report: Flotillas and the Wars of Public Opinion.  Anti-Israel activists took a page out of Israel's own playbook from the "Exodus" 1947 incident.  I wonder how many people will care that the convoy of ships was organized by a terrorist organization?  (On terrorist organization, see also here.)

- (Original Post) Ed Morrissey of HotAir has the most comprehensive coverage so far. Look for anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda to flourish, but be sure to read this post and see the video and get the true picture.   Organizers and people on these ships bound for Gaza were anything but "peace activists."

Cliff May quotes Claudia Rosett:

The basic narrative spun by the organizers of the "freedom flotilla" is to "break the siege of Gaza" and "establish a permanent sea lane between Gaza and the rest of the world." But there's some important information that the flotilla crew omits. Gaza is a terrorist enclave controlled by an Islamist terrorist group, Hamas, backed by Iran. It has a busy and violent history of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket and mortar attacks; and is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. It is Hamas-run Gaza that threatens its neighbors and is hostile generally to liberal, Western societies.

 

Egypt has also had miseries enough with Hamas to find it worthwhile maintaining the blockade, though this seems to be of less interest to the "freedom flotilla" crowd. This ship convoy is not about freedom and not about aid. It is patently about helping Hamas and harming Israel. 

Me: It is important to recognize that Israel had offered its ports for the offloading of humanitarian aid and then see it transported to Gaza.  But the "peace activists" would not agree.  They insisted on provoking an incident.  And, unfortunately, they succeeded.

Update:

TURKEY: AN ALLY NO MORE

Some people may wonder why I blog about Turkey.  Simple.  It's Islamist drift spells major effects on Europe and Israel and the Middle East.  Daniel Pipes, an astute observer of issues Islamic and of the Middle East writes:

“There is no doubt he is our friend,” Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, says of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as he accuses Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman of threatening to use nuclear weapons against Gaza. These outrageous assertions point to the profound change of orientation by Turkey’s government, for six decades the West’s closest Muslim ally, since Erdoğan’s AK party came to power in 2002.

Three events this past month reveal the extent of that change. The first came on October 11 with the news that the Turkish military – a long-time bastion of secularism and advocate of cooperation

TURKEY TURNS ON ISRAEL

Joel Rosenberg has the story.

Over the past 10 days or so:

• Turkey has canceled a NATO military exercise because Israel was invited to participate
• Turkey has aired a drama on state-run TV portraying an Israeli soldier walking up to a Palestinian child and barbarically shooting her point-blank
• Turkey has made moves to draw closer to Iran and Syria, including choosing to engage in military exercises with Syria instead of Israel
• Turkey has made moves to draw closer to Russia  [more...]
  

TURKEY SLIDING INTO A MIDDLE EASTERN-STYLE POLICE STATE

Michael Rubin writes:

Prime Minister Erdogan continues to emulate Vladimir Putin as he consolidates control in Turkey. Yesterday, after warning the news group to stop criticizing him and calling for a boycott of critical newspapers, his appointees slapped a $500 million fine on the Dogan Group.

Meanwhile, wiretapping scandals continue and even Turkish diplomats say they are afraid to go to restaurants and talk about politics or policy openly as Turkey continues its slide into becoming a Middle Eastern-style police state.

Trouble in Turkey

- Update 1/14/09 - Secularism is waning in Turkey.  Bassam Tibi, a senior professor based in Germany, examines "Turkey's Islamist Danger" from a European perspective. This is a tremendously insightful article.   (HT: Michael Rubin)

- (Original post) Michael Rubin reports:

As the international media focuses on Gaza, trouble is growing in Turkey as the government continues to round up political opponents, academicians, and secular intellectuals on charges of alleged involvement in a plot against the government. (My background on the case, here). 

Turkey is Nearing the Cliff

Michael Rubin writes persuasively of Turkey's precarious situation and the threat posed by Fethullah Gülen.  One has to read Rubin's article to understand what is going on in Turkey.

Quick Takes

** Stanley Kurtz writes on Dr.James Cone, a leading advocate of Black Liberation theology, and the mentor of Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

** Victor Davis Hanson takes a look at Rev. Jeremiah Wright's successor, Rev. Moss who "likens the media storm over Jeremiah Wright's racist and anti-American remarks to a lynching and crucifixion."

Rev. Moss’s interviews and sermons concerning Wright suggest that he is in complete agreement with his former pastor’s views, and will continue to promulgate them, albeit perhaps with less profanity and slander.

** Turkish ruling party cracks down on a free press 

** Andrew G. Bostom on our inability to stand tall for human rights

** Stephen Brown writes on Dutch MP Geert Wilders (filmaker) - "The Islamists' Nemesis"   Update 3/28/08 - Here's the link to the Geert Wilders movie

TURKEY BECOMING MORE OVERTLY ISLAMIST

Update:  Turkey’s Protestant Churches are facing constant harassment, intimidation, and physical harm.   (HT: Andrew Jackson)

** Michael Rubin reports on Turkey's Islamist turn:

Daniel Pipes asks: "Turkey, Still a Western Ally?

After a substantial discussion (which notes among other things, the rapid growth of anti-Americanism within the population) Pipes concludes: 

The recent transformation has happened so quickly that – formal NATO relations notwithstanding – Turkey can no longer be considered a Western ally.  Nor, certainly, is it an enemy.  Rather it falls into a middle status – like Russia,  China, and Saudi Arabia -- of rival.  One day it cooperates, the next it competes.  Before long, it may well threaten.

External influences will have limited impact on a Turkey determined to turn Islamist, but existing tools must be fully deployed. Most importantly, an ideologically assertive Turkey must be denied membership in the European Union.

Wise Words on Turkey by Victor Davis Hanson

Click here.    Update: Tony Blankley over at the Washington Times, has a different take.

Me: I think both articles need to be viewed together for a full picture,with Hanson offering perhaps the deeper perspective, recognizing as he does the internal Islamist situation in Turkey.

Turkey: Will it Go Islamist? Plus: Three Christians Martyred in April

Earlier this month Amir Taheri published an important article titled Turkey's Creeping Coup D'Etat. It offers unusually insightful analysis of the Islamist political maneuvering going on in Turkey. 

While on the subject of Turkey, I'd like to provide links to accounts of the recent vicious attack and martyrdom of three Christians in Turkey.  The Voice of the Martyrs has an extensive report here (also reported here). It is tremendously moving and I urge you to click through to read it.  It begins this way:

On April 18, five Muslims entered a Christian publishing company and killed three believers in the southeastern province of Malatya. Two of the victims were Turkish converts from Islam and the third man was a German citizen who had lived in Turkey for 10 years. News reports said four of the attackers admitted that the killings were motivated by both “nationalist and religious feelings.”

The article is composed primarily of a letter from a Turkish Church that details what happened and explains the situation that confronts believers in Turkey today.  I found the following particularly moving:

In an act that hit front pages in the largest newspapers in Turkey, Susanne Geske [wife of the martyred German man] in a television interview expressed her forgiveness. She did not want revenge, she told reporters. “Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do,” she said, wholeheartedly agreeing with the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23:34).

In a country where blood-for-blood revenge is as normal as breathing, many many reports have come to the attention of the church of how this comment of Susanne Geske has changed lives. One columnist wrote of her comment, “She said in one sentence what 1000 missionaries in 1000 years could never do.”

A church pastor said in urging prayer for the Church in Turkey:  “Don’t pray against persecution, pray for perseverence."  A torture report of one of the martyrs is available here (but I don't necessarily advise reading it.) 

The Associated Press tells the story of the slain German missionary and his surviving family here. To my mind, modern heroes.

Christian Publishing House Attacked in Turkey... 3 Dead!

-- 5/28/07 UPDATE:  For an update, click here,

**

Michelle Malkin has perhaps the more correct headline:  Jihadist Attack at Christian Publishing House.  This makes me sick to my stomach and nauseous.  The Christian workers had their throats slit.  When is this violence against Christians going to stop?  I don't think it ever will unless there is some sort of dramatic theological revolution within Islam.  Religion of peace?  That is a sick, cynical, verbal joke foisted on the ignorant.   The so-called "moderate" Muslims, but for a few exceptions, are cowering and silent.  They know what kind of "peace" they will experience if they speak out against the violence.  It will be the peace of the grave.   I am in the process of reading Brigitte Gabriel's book Because They Hate.  It is gripping, sad reading of Muslim terror and killing against Christians in Lebanon.