Happy 100, Türkiye! America's Greatest Ally in the Middle East...
May the Turkish Republic last for a thousand years!
Live forever, my Turkish friends, and long live your Republic.
It isn’t easy falling in love with a country that isn’t your own — at least not if you’re a patriot.
And yet when I first went to Türkiye I felt her charms though I knew barely a word of her tongue. That’s changed since, of course, and the country has changed me, largely for the better. I knew that I’d be back and I spent just shy of sixty days in the Turkish Republic this past summer. One day, God willing, I’d like to live there for at least a year and maybe even permanently. Who knows what kismet has in store for me? To be sure the Turkish Republic is a fragile young Republic but then again, so are we. We Republics must hang together—or hang separately. We must work together — we sons of the derin devlet — to oppose all enemies foreign and domestic.
We speak often about a vibe and Turkiye’s aesthetics are on point. Her natural beauty is well known. Her food is delicious. Her women are feminine and fabulous. Her men are masculine and brave.
The Turks are young. They are ambitious. They are as we were — making it happen, hustling, bustling. This is a nation of entrepreneurs, engineers, of builders. They show. They don’t market. They don’t build brands but they can build anything else.
Europe is a mausoleum—or a morgue. That is, if you believed in Europe at all. That ended first with Brexit and finally with Nordstream. I always looked upon Europe and saw Dutch, Germans, French, and Italians — all free riding off of U.S. security guarantees. Why would the Turks want to join so weak a Union? Far better to march East and take on a weakened China in the resource rich Turkic states. Far better to patrol the skies above the African savannah and the coves of the Eastern Mediterranean.
No, History never ended in Türkiye—notwithstanding attempts by neocons like Bernard Lewis to lie about her history and slander her people.
In Turkiye the stakes are real. Turkish drones secure the skies and the peace in Libya and Armenia. Her students aspire to work for her defense contractors. They see it not only as their duty but take great pride in their craft. In Turkiye everyone is mobilized — in one form or another.
They never ever quit—and yes, that includes their women. To be a feminist in Turkiye is to believe as Atatürk did — that women have a place alongside men. Turkish women are impressive and its not uncommon to run into electrical engineers or computer scientists who happen to be women.
There is no energy in Turkiye except from the wind, sun, and the sweat of her people. Turks are clever in the way that everyone who has shopped on a budget is. Capital is scarce but family is abundant. Family businesses are, well, they’re byzantine and their dramas seem as if the writers of Succession might have stopped instead at the Turkish rivera while filming.
Still there’s ambition in the air. The scion of an agricultural family trying to make something of himself for his son. The lady lawyer turned social entrepreneur. The American football loving son of Istanbul. The beauty who knows all about the Turkish defense industry. The American-educated e-bike entrepreneur who saw something very bad about the Scientologists—and said something though he was but a boy to warn the country he loves but wasn’t born in. The womanizing son of the deep state who knows how to find you anything you might need and a few things you shouldn’t anywhere in the country. The self-made Alevi doctor who loves children and her American husband. The Turkish Airlines flight attendant who rescued the widowed German Air Force officer from his Weltschmerz after a failed second marriage. The single woman in an Ankara apartment who takes in the children rendered homeless and orphans by the earthquakes. The granddaughter of diplomats who dreams of European vacations—if she can finally get a visa. And so many others. Yes, it’s fair to say I love them all, each and every one of them. And I hope, like all great loves, it is requited.
But of all of them have protected me—not just in their altogether safe country but on the Miami streets and at New York dinner parties.
My friend in Ankara gave me a bracelet which she had imbued with magical powers. She worked in the National Assembly. The next day the Assembly was bombed by Kurdish terrorists—allied with the United State and Israel. Suffice it to say I haven’t taken off the bracelet since. I don’t think I ever will.
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But that’s because Turks have always stood up for our world and its freedom. They paid the price in Korea.
When Israel sent orange juice to the front during the Korean War, Turkiye sent her sons. “We never did a USS Liberty to you,” they remind me with the sadness that comes from wanting to be your true love and knowing that you’re going with someone else to the dance.
Still we had our moments and they were meaningful all the same. We can have them again. Can’t we?
There is but one guarantor of peace in the world — a willingness to fight for it. A dear friend of mine has a tattoo that says “warrior in the garden.” She loves guns and short skirts but most of all she loves her country and Israel. She fears an Islam that has no space for her and she rebels as all good Turks do against rules and regulations.
In Israel the Ultra Orthodox eat and study their sky friend and shtupe on welfare while others serve on the front or as their protection. This isn’t tenable and anyone celebrating “muh birthrates” of the religious kooks is either a fool—or bought and paid for by the oligarchy which loves its physical and mental slavery.
“You work and I shall eat, you serve and I shall take” is the language of slavery. It has no business in any free country. Lincoln knew this. The Israelis know this, too — notwithstanding the criminals running their country.
Every Turkish man and not a few of the Turkish women know what’s up. That’s why they were in the streets. They know that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
I want to tell you a series of visions I have of our people together, operating in harmony.
I see an American president, speaking before your National Assembly, in Turkish.
I see a Russian-Ukrainian armistice signed in front of a Tatar defense secretary and brokered by a Turkish prime minister.
I see solar powered cars like Aptera ferrying Turks to and fro — rendering in one fell swoop irrelevant Russian and Saudi oil.
I see Turkish drones replacing Chinese-Israeli drones on our border.
I imagine American commuters riding on electric bikes made not in China but in Turkiye.
Elon was invited to Teknofest by Erdogan but I went on my accord, invited as I was, by a daughter of Atatürk.
How could I not love a country where this was prominently displayed in a bar?
Keep being magnificent — çok harika! — very Turkish friends and remember…
I don't think this article aged very well...but maybe I am missing something.