The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Turks vs. Kurds in D.C.

Posted on | May 17, 2017 | Comments Off on Turks vs. Kurds in D.C.

Some people just don’t understand this “democracy” thing works:

Nine people were hurt and two arrests were made during an altercation at the Turkish ambassador’s residence in the US capital during a visit by Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
According to witnesses, a brawl erupted when Erdogan’s security detail attacked protesters carrying the flag of the Kurdish PYD party outside the residence. A local NBC television affiliate reported Erdo?an was inside the building at the time. . . .
“All of the sudden they just ran towards us,” Yazidi Kurd demonstrator Lucy Usoyan told ABC, adding that she was attacked by a pro-Erdo?an supporter.
“Someone was beating me in the head nonstop, and I thought, ‘Okay, I’m on the ground already, what is the purpose to beat me?’”
The altercation came the same day that Erdogan met Donald Trump at the White House. The State Department declined to comment.
Earlier Trump and Erdogan had stood side by side at the White House and promised to strengthen strained ties despite the Turkish leader’s stern warning about Washington’s arming of a Kurdish militia. . . .

(Via Drudge.) As much as I’d enjoy seeing some old-fashioned skull-cracking police brutality against certain protest groups in this country, I recognize that a free society must tolerate dissent, even by filthy subversive scum like your typical MSNBC viewer.

Am I pro-Kurd or anti-Kurd? I don’t know enough about the Kurds to take sides in this dispute, and just because some Kurds got beat up by Turkish bodyguards doesn’t mean that the Kurds are better than Turks. On the other hand, whenever one side of any political conflict resorts to violence, we naturally assume that they are the bad guys, which means the Turks are villains, right? However, as Edmund Burke observed, “Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle.” That is to say, maybe the Kurds are just a bunch of grumbling malcontents who, if they ever achieved national independence, would turn Kurdistan into a cesspool of misery and despair, like Detroit.

Anyway, my point here is neither to condemn the Turks nor praise the Kurds, but merely to say that if it were accepted in diplomatic protocol to start cracking skulls every time a bunch of protesters showed up outside your embassy, the Marines who guard U.S. embassies would be beating the crap out of protesters on a daily basis all over the world. There’s always some wacko America-haters turning out to wave signs and chant slogans in front of a U.S. embassy, and we just have to tolerate it, because we’re America. By contrast, the Turks aren’t accustomed to sign-waving wackos outside their embassies, so they sent a few of those Kurdish malcontents to the hospital. If only we could find a way to encourage MSNBC viewers to protest outside Turkish embassies . . .

 

Category: Turkey

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