Created4
01-17-2012, 09:54 PM
Ok, I can understand Rick Perry's ridiculous answer last about Turkey comparing them to terrorists which caused a big uproar in Turkey and at the State Department today: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-turkey-us-state-dept-condemn-rick-perrys-islamic-terrorist-remarks-20120117,0,2678489.story
But what was behind Bret Baier's question, and why is no one seemingly upset about that? Turkey is a secular state, and very proud of that fact, even among the Islamic party which currently has a majority of seats in the Parliament. There have been peaceful democratic elections in Turkey since the last government coup in 1979. The U.S. has had military bases in Turkey forever, and they have the largest army in NATO. Baier mentioned they support Hamas, but they have done that long before the current government was put in place.
I checked Baier's assertion that violence against women (murders) has increased 1400 percent since the Islmaic-oriented party took over. He was quoting an article from Voice of America that stated murders of women rose from 66 in 2002 to 953 in 2009. Turkey has a population of over 70 million people. I could not verify these numbers, because most of the source would probably be in Turkish, but by contrast there are about 1500 women murdered in the U.S. each year, and two thirds of those are by domestic partners. When you look at violent crimes against women in the U.S. that do NOT lead to murder, it is astronomical, with over a quarter of a million rapes alone. So violence against women here in the US might actually be worse. Is that because we have a Christian president??
I am very concerned about this anti-Muslim bias in the GOP, and their apparent desire to police every single Muslim country in the World, including a democratic secular state like Turkey. It seems like wherever a democratic process is used to install a government that has ties to Islam, that government is deemed a terrorist by the current thinking in the GOP. This is not a war against terror, this is a religious war against Islam.
But what was behind Bret Baier's question, and why is no one seemingly upset about that? Turkey is a secular state, and very proud of that fact, even among the Islamic party which currently has a majority of seats in the Parliament. There have been peaceful democratic elections in Turkey since the last government coup in 1979. The U.S. has had military bases in Turkey forever, and they have the largest army in NATO. Baier mentioned they support Hamas, but they have done that long before the current government was put in place.
I checked Baier's assertion that violence against women (murders) has increased 1400 percent since the Islmaic-oriented party took over. He was quoting an article from Voice of America that stated murders of women rose from 66 in 2002 to 953 in 2009. Turkey has a population of over 70 million people. I could not verify these numbers, because most of the source would probably be in Turkish, but by contrast there are about 1500 women murdered in the U.S. each year, and two thirds of those are by domestic partners. When you look at violent crimes against women in the U.S. that do NOT lead to murder, it is astronomical, with over a quarter of a million rapes alone. So violence against women here in the US might actually be worse. Is that because we have a Christian president??
I am very concerned about this anti-Muslim bias in the GOP, and their apparent desire to police every single Muslim country in the World, including a democratic secular state like Turkey. It seems like wherever a democratic process is used to install a government that has ties to Islam, that government is deemed a terrorist by the current thinking in the GOP. This is not a war against terror, this is a religious war against Islam.