M. Süheyl Konuksay

  Never before a brilliant looking idea saddened me this much. Not only me but the whole Turkish nation would be devastated by sorrow seeing two of our favourite peoples destroy each other’s culture and lifestyle. You see, we in the area, contrary to popular belief in the West, feel no enmity to the peoples around us. Eastern Mediterranean is like a huge house where different branches of a family live together, we may fight from time to time but there is no hatred between the peoples. The governments with the help of “allies” do that. Imagine the Sabbath in the taverns of Athens and Thessaloniki. Think of the church bells in Tel Aviv. Behold the kibbutz on this beautiful small Aegean island where it is very inappropriate to wear anything while sun bathing. Imagine the federation’s Jewish finance minister’s face after he sees the first financial report. Extend your sympathies to the teacher trying to explain to Greek school children why an unknown race as the Arabs are bad people fr...

  This is a very good question if the southern part of the Empire is considered as southern Anatolia. (As mentioned in other answers of course the Mesopotamian campaign took place but the objective if that operation was to secure the oil fields.) During the decision making process of the Dardanelles Campaign the alternative was an amphibious attack to Iskenderun  İskenderun - Wikipedia  and invasion of Anatolia through Cilicia.  Cilicia - Wikipedia Winston Churchill considered the attack seriously but had to give up the idea because of French concerns. The French had ambitions regarding the area and would not accept a British or invasion easily. The advantage of a Cilician Operation would be to divide Anatolia in two and force a surrender. However, both operations’ objective was to start an uprising or a coup d’etat and take Turkey out of the war. After all it was obvious that either by bringing a war weary fleet into the Marmara sea which is by all means a huge pond...

  The writing on the wall was visible when Admiral Fisher decided that the new Dreadnought class battle ship would be built and use petrol instead of coal. At the time oil was available in a few places out of the US. Azerbaijan had oil fields but were unavailable to the British. Oil fields in Abadan Iran were in nominal British control but was far from the Mediterranean. What remained was in Turkish control. The fact that the victors of the Great War (British and the French) almost declared war on each other over the route and control of a certain pipeline from Mosul to Eastern Mediterranean proves the importance of this issue. To check the Russian expansion to the south Turkey was needed to the British Empire. Especially during the times of the Great Game when India was at stake the only way to check the Russians was to support the Turks. When Russia became too powerful and the fact that it would attack Turkey not later than 1918 became obvious and the British changed naval techno...

  Believe me, I really tried hard to remember the name of the first mobster who standardized the infamous “protection scam”. It was on the tip of my tongue but I could not remember so let me call him Harry S. which is as good as any name. You see, a protection scam works like this: Imagine you are a restaurant owner in New York. City and these two shady characters approach you and say that there are bad people in the neighborhood who may one night put a torch to your place of business. But nothing to worry because those shady characters are more than willing and able to thwart the threat for a reasonable fee and of course now that everbody is friendly you will buy your supplies from their friends. Of course you are being a street smart fellow get the drift immediately and pay the hoods because you are sure that if you do not, one night they will come and torch the place. This is what is called a protection scam where the threat is either imaginary or controlled by the protector. Be...

  Turkish satire is sometimes extremely vulgar and even more problematic to translate but given the subject discussed I cannot stop myself. :) Please note that the following is not intended as an insult for anybody or group of people and is only a pathetic attempt at translating some satirical Turkish poetry written in the old days when homosexuality was not tolerated. The quatrain goes something like the following. (The rumours on who actually put it together is various and should be considered as anonymous until new evidence is found on the poet.) “ Mankind is weird Does not take words lightly Call one a pansy and he is queered Bugger him and won’t be disturbed slightly. “ USA has been queering this country for a long time now and I don’t think anybody will mind who they designate what after all. But seriously, in my opinion it will not happen because there is still a few people in the country who think that we are allies with the US and they need not be estranged.

  I have to assume that the question assumes a “good” decision to be for the benefit of all and a “bad” one harming everybody because the US, being a major power from the start, affected everybody on the planet by foreign policy decisions and in the middle to long term is similarly affected. If there are people who think that in the long term what is good for the US may be bad for others and vica versa I humbly advise them to check their history books. Having said that, I will try to list from bad to worst for I cannot bring myself to accept even one decision as “good”. Please keep in mind that the list will be omitting a lot of decisions. Listed ones are the ones just came to my mind. Call me biased. Least bad decision: By the declaration of Monroe Doctrine  Monroe Doctrine - Wikipedia  Central and some South American states were decreased to a level of “vassal states” of a country which was on the way of becoming the greatest democracy of history. Instead the seeds of a...

  Elementary my dear... I will find out which group is richer, has a potential to create more wealth, suspect to propaganda, and easier to communicate with. Apparently the settlers are better in all aspects so I will side with them. I will use my vast experience in international relations and learn all about the tensions between the various groups of the indigenous people thereby sowing the seeds of enmity and war will start in no time at all. When the designed war starts I will tell the settlers to side with the weaker side because after all we are decent folk and supporting the underdog against aggression is the decent thing to do. I will use my foreign methods unknown to the originally naive indigenous people and turn the war into an unbelievably bloody enterprise. When both sides of the conflict are disgusted by the unaccustomed bloodshed and conveniently weakened I will send both sides humanitarian aid. Pox infested blankets may come handy. In a few short winters they will be ...

  According to the not yet famous “21. Century American Bureaucratic Dictionary of Hypocrisy” the following definitions are expected to be used in all communications: Coup: An open military intervention against a government. If the government was against us the intervention will be defined as a “positive step towards democracy” If the coup against a government we do not support fails, it never happened. Revolt: An uprising of a group of bad people against a government we support. Local police should be sufficient to suppress. If it happens against a bad govetnment then we call the event “a glorious uprising” Revolution: A successful revolt and a very bad thing. It should be tried to recruit the new government first. If they disagree military intervention should be considered. There is no good revolution for the last 200 years. Insurgency: The fighting back of the people after a country is bombed and invaded following a decision of military intervention. If these people are fighting...

  Not very long ago there was a boy who watched a lot of movies and played a lot of video games. He sometimes posed as the infallible special operations expert and sometimes as the pilot of an F-16. In all roles he was very successful. He hit what he aimed and usually won the games. He also watched many new and old Hollywood movies and watched classics like Rambo and being interested in world affairs he asked his father why the Moslem guys were allies with Rambo.  Rambo III (1988)  They looked very much like the Taliban. His father had a hard time explaining but being the kind of man who prefers to use ten words for a two word explanation he managed or so he thought. The boy grew a little and now he was totally confident that he was an expert an matters of militaristic nature. That’s when his father took him to the gun range. The AK-47  AK-47 - Wikipedia  has a muzzle energy of almost 1500 ft-lbs and has quite a kick. The boy holds the AK, poses for the photos, ...