Talking Turkey. George Bush has intervened in the internal affairs of the European Union to say that he (and thus, presumably, his government) favors the admission of Turkey to the European Union. French President Chirac rebuffed that suggestion as interference in a matter that does not concern him, like France trying to tell him what the United States' relations with Mexico ought to be.
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Some comments. First, Bush said, "Including Turkey in the EU would prove that Europe is not the exclusive club of a single religion, and it would expose the 'clash of civilizations' as a passing myth of history." Cute line (which he, of course, could not possibly have written), but false.
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Alas for Pollyanna Bush, Europe is a Christian subcontinent very wary of being overwhelmed by Islam, not necessarily by military conquest but by immigrants from Moslem areas, whose reproductive rate is much higher than that of indigenous Europeans. It is very easy for someone from a huge Christian continent spanning the entire Western Hemisphere and insulated from Islam by wide oceans to tell Europeans to relax about Moslem demographic invasion and to promote diversity of types we don't permit. Our own immigration policy is very definitely and deliberately prejudiced against the very part of the world that Bush wants Europe to welcome.
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Israelis can come and go as they please to the United States, overstay their visas, and form large expat communities in this country, legal status be damned. But Palestinians and other Arabs can't even get student visas due to publicly expressed concern that there is a high probability that they will overstay their visas and try to remain in this country illegally. Why should that matter, if we welcome Moslems to participate in and contribute to our civilization?
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It would be refreshing to see the Republicans practice what they preach, but it won't happen under George Bush's watch.
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Second, Turkey is not, as Bush claims, a European power. Nor it it even, really, a European country. It does not speak an Indo-European language but a Turkic language, which has its origins in Central Asia. Its dominant religion isn't Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Orthodox Christianity, the dominant religions of Europe. Only a tiny fraction of its land area and population are in Europe; the bulk of the country is in Asia. The EUROPEAN Union should not be adding Asian countries without changing its fundamental mission and name.
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Third, Turkey is guilty of crimes against another recent EU member — from Asia — Cyprus, which it invaded and a disproportionately large share of which it still occupies, against international law, including various UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTIONS calling for withdrawal of Turkish troops from occupied northern Cyprus. I thought the Bush Administration held it as a sacred trust to enforce UN resolutions. Isn't that why we invaded Iraq? Oh, no, it wasn't. What was I thinking?
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Fourth, it is just plain stupid for the United States to be promoting the enlargement of an international grouping that has aspirations to superpowerdom in rivalry with the U.S., rivalry that could lead to diplomatic conflict, economic warfare, and eventual military conflict. The Pentagon under Dubya's father said it should be the policy of the United States actively to prevent the rise of another superpower. When it got out that the Pentagon had made that recommendation, Dubya's lily-livered father disowned any such intention. His stupid son seems intent on ignoring the same good advice.
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It seems to me that Dubya didn't like when France and Germany, a mere two members of the EU, took strong stands against U.S. plans to invade Iraq. Would he be more comfortable with a 27-member EU united — that is, forbidding Britain to depart from a single, joint EU foreign policy — to stop future plans of his or any other U.S. Administration? If not, why on Earth would he strengthen the EU? The man is truly a moron.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 10:37 PM