It seems that the Turkish army has said that it will do everything necessary to to defend Turkey’s secular system.

In a statement released late on Friday night, the General Staff says it is following with ‘concern’ the debate over secular system in the presidential elections and would ‘openly display its position and attitudes when it becomes necessary’

The military issued a memorandum-like statement saying that Islamic reactionary activities were expanding in scope and vowing that it would fulfill its “lawful duties” to protect the state. The statement came on Friday night, hours after Parliament held the first round of the presidential election.
In a statement posted on its Web site, the General Staff said it was following with “concern” the debate over Turkey’s secular system in the presidential elections and would “openly display its position and attitudes when it becomes necessary.”

The is very powerful in Turkey and has several times in the past acted / overthrown governments. In other words, when the army makes statements like this, everybody takes it very serious.

Some Turkish civilians meanwhile responded with anger, as did some politicians and the EU.

The Turkish government itself did not remain silent either. Turkish Daily News:

The Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) government said Saturday a military warning against it was democratically unacceptable.

In a rather unaccustomed manner the Turkish government lashed out at the army, which accused it of endangering secularism, saying that the general staff “remains under the orders of the prime minister.”

“I would like to underline that it is inconceivable in a democratic state based on the rule of law for the general staff, which remains under the orders of the prime minister, to speak out against the government,” government spokesman Cemil Çiçek told a news conference.

He stressed the government’s commitment to the secular order of the country and said it was “unacceptable” for Turkey to resolve its problems outside the democratic system.

This is an extremely complicated matter. Turkey is secular and it would be a disaster for itself and for Europe if Erdogan and company destroy it bit by bit. On the other hand, a take over by the army would be quite disastrous as well, at least in the short term.

It seems to me that the army won’t act yet… but Erdogan and Gul have to be very, very careful. One mistake and the army might act.

Meanwhile, Ataturk’s party, the CHP, goes to court:

Turkey’s election of a new president headed to court Friday, after opposition deputies boycotted in an effort to deny a 367-vote majority to the nominee, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül. If the resort to the 11-judge Constitutional Court by opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is successful, it would mean the effective annulment of Gül’s election late in the afternoon by 357 votes of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and a handful of maverick deputies and new parliamentary elections.
Turkey’s unicameral legislature was the scene of day-long, high-stakes political maneuvering, as all sides sought to slalom through arcane procedures and interpretations of the Constitution, resulting in an ambiguous result that could take days or weeks to resolve. The skirmishing turns on a provision that requires a two-thirds majority — 367 votes — to elect a new president in the first two rounds of voting. If a choice is not made in the first two rounds, a final third round only requires a simple majority — 276 votes. After failing early Friday to win the support of independent and minor party deputies, the AKP strategy appeared to be a plan to muddle through two inconclusive voting rounds and put Gül in office on the third. The opposition, however, has countered that a 367 majority must at least be present during voting for the round to be legally completed and a second round authorized.

I wrote one week ago that we could expect more mass demonstrations in the coming weeks in Turkey. A Turkish commenter stopped by and said that I was wrong: there would be no protests. Well, if I were the “I told you so” type of person, I would say so now: “Some 700.000 Turks waving the red national flag flooded central Istanbul on Sunday to demand the resignation of the government, saying the Islamic roots of Turkey’s leaders threatened to destroy the country’s modern foundations.”

A retired government employee said (about Gül and Erdogan): “They want to drag Turkey to the dark ages.”

Ayse Bari on Gül’s headscarf wearing wife: “We don’t want a covered woman in Atatürks presidential palace. We want civilized, modern people there.”

More protests to come I am sure.

Heh. Ali seems to have received quite some, umh, not so friendly comments, after criticizing Islamist(’s supporting) organization CAIR.

Is China moving in to the direction of the Dutch?

With China’s carbon footprint expected to outsize America’s within a year, officials in Beijing appear to be backing away from their view that global warming is a Western problem that developed countries must solve.

While still insisting on their right to industrialize hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty, Chinese leaders are showing the first tentative signs of readiness to accept mandatory emissions-reductions targets. And they are setting themselves all kinds of green goals.

The world going green?

Good news after the reports that more and more countries are planning to break with Kyoto.

Andrew Sullivan’s Quote for the Day:
“When a newly revitalized al-Qaeda carries out a 9/11-scale attack, you will own that one,” - Senator Kit Bond, yesterday, to his Democratic colleagues in the Senate.

A great OP-ed over at The Jewish Daily Forward by Nathan Jeffay about the decision of the British National Union of Journalists to boycott Israel.

The first thing I did after I started working as a staff reporter at the London-based Jewish Chronicle was to join the National Union of Journalists. Those dependable union reps, I was told, would safeguard my every interest.

Holding on to that belief has become rather hard, now that the organization I had considered my ally in the effort to uphold informed and intelligent discussion in British society has taken its place at the front of the slogan-yelling, Israel-hating mob.

Earlier this month the National Union of Journalists voted to boycott Israeli goods. Some 40,000 journalists, including those on all the United Kingdom’s leading publications and channels, are meant to abide by the ban. The union is also committed to pressuring for “a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa, led by trade unions… to demand sanctions to be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations.”

Already a range of unions, representing all sorts of trades and professions, have sacrificed nuance for the sake of cheap polemics. It seemed we had reached rock bottom when unions of teachers and academics, the people responsible for the education of our society, jumped on the bandwagon. But the tirade against accuracy has reached new levels if we journalists — the people who control the flow of information — are joining in.

The advancement by the National Union of Journalists of this black-and-white understanding of the Middle East conflict — this absurd notion that Israel is the absolute baddy of the Middle East and the Palestinians the fair innocents — is especially obtuse at a time when one of our own, the BBC’s Alan Johnston, is being held hostage by a Palestinian group.

Amen.

The hypocrisy is infuriating.

Red State’s Jeff Emanuel reports from Iraq.

Some great original blogreporting.

Why hasn’t the Pentagon asked me? to visit Iraq, I wonder.

I mean, I am an honorary American.

It’s a good read, go and check it out.

The Houston Chronicle reports:

A package left at a women’s clinic that performs abortions contained an explosive device capable of inflicting serious injury or death, investigators said today.

“It was in fact an explosive device,” said David Carter, assistant chief of the Austin Police Department. “It was configured in such a way to cause serious bodily injury or death.”

The package was found Wednesday in a parking lot outside the Austin Women’s Health Center, south of downtown Austin.

Nearby Interstate 35 was briefly closed, and a nearby apartment complex was evacuated while a bomb squad detonated the device.

Yes, it are definitely not just Muslim extremists who are willing to use terrorism to further their cause. I sincerely hope that they will get the thugs who left the bomb at the clinic and punish them severely on terrorism charges.

Let me just add that pro-lifers and pro-life organizations would do right to speak out against this.

More at Feministe, Pandagon and Unfogged.

UPDATE:
Reader Steve S. e-mailed me the link to today’s Hugh Hewitt show. Hugh called it “an act of terrorism.”

The political ideology I adhere to, conservatism, believes that one should always look at the history, culture and traditions of a country and should not implement too many changes, too fast.

In that light, isn’t it completely wrong for the West to try to spread democracy throughout the world? If we do, we ignore how democracy came into existence in the West - that it was a incredibly long process. In the West, Democracy really did not ‘happen’ overnight, it came slowly, it took decades, no even hundreds of years to truly take over.

I am wondering what you all think about this.

Note: I am not just talking about spreading democracy through the use of force. I am also talking about helping countries in exchange for more democracy / freedom for the subjects of those other countries.

If a country is not ready for democracy, but we ‘force’ it on people, well, things can get ugly. The most prominent example is Iraq (force), but we can also look at, say, Palestine (no force as such).

Yes Chris, we take global warming very seriously:

It’s the new climate change dilemma: finding alternatives for oil and gas without doing more harm than good.

In the rush to develop biofuels, forests are burned in Asia to clear land for palm oil, and swaths of the Amazon are stripped of diverse vegetation for soya and sugar plantations for ethanol.

On Friday, a Dutch committee will unveil stringent criteria for growing biofuels in ways that don’t damage the environment or release more greenhouse gases than they save.

Other European countries are working along similar lines and closely watching the Dutch initiative — the first to reach the level of government consideration.

More than a year in the making, the report reflects a heightened awareness of the risks and complexity in efforts to reduce emissions of the gases blamed for global warming.

Yes. We are good.

The Saudis have arrested 172 terroristsmilitants. Some of the reportedly “had trained abroad as pilots so they could fly aircraft in attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil fields.” The Interior Ministry ‘issued a statement saying the detainees were planning to carry out suicide atttacks against “public figures, oil facilities, refineries … and military zones” _ some of which were outside the kingdom.’

More:

“They had reached an advance stage of readiness and what remained only was to set the zero hour for their attacks. They had the personnel, the money, the arms. Almost all the elements for terror attacks were complete except for setting the zero hour for the attacks.”

An - obviously - important catch. Besides the 172 extremists, the Saudi police also seized $32.4 million in the operation. The operation is “one of the largest sweeps against terror cells in the kingdoms.”

Not all of the terrorists were Saudis.

The arrested terrorists are, most likely, members of… Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

If there is one country filled with extremists and terrorists it is Saudi Arabia. 172 sounds like many terrorists to us, but if the Saudis were to arrest all members of terrorist organizations living in the country, they would have to build a couple of extra prisons.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The IDF on Thursday held intensive training maneuvers in preparation for a feared Syrian attack on the Golan Heights.

Hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers, backed by helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, massed in the Judean Desert to drill simulations of war. The training exercise focused on Brigade 401 and its utilization of Israel’s most advanced tank - the Merkava Mark 4 - against the Syrian advanced Russian-made T-72.

Since the Second Lebanon War, Military Intelligence has claimed that war with Syria is now closer than ever, and the IDF is on heightened alert in the North in preparation for the possibility of a surprise attack.

President Bashar Assad, analysts have said, was empowered by Hizbullah’s surprise success while fighting the IDF. The assessment is that he might be motivated to launch hostilities in an effort to retrieve the Golan Heights, either by initiating a surprise attack to capture one or two Israeli communities or by firing long-range ballistic missiles at the home front.

But Nancy said Assad was a good, reasonable man!

Couldn’t resist that snark.

Israel still has the strongest military in the region, an attack by Syria would - most likely - be a major mistake. On the other hand, one also has to keep in mind that the anti-Israel crowd has quite a PR machine going. This PR machine could result in so much pressure on Israel, that Olmert will, once again, pull out too quickly / fight back with too little troops / commitment.

The US Senate approved the Iraq war spending bill, calling for US troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as July 1.

I am still waiting for the Democrats how they think a mass slaughter can be prevented once the US withdraws.

It seems that Democrats and Republicans are working towards a compromise.

Senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers began to weigh alternatives to the legislation’s most contentious provision, the binding withdrawal terms. The goal is to be more flexible but still restrain how Bush conducts the war…

The provision most likely to survive the next round is a set of political and diplomatic benchmarks for the Iraqi government. The language all but certain to be dropped, or at least diluted, would require troop withdrawals to begin as early as July 1 and no later than Oct. 1. Another sticking point is the bill’s $21 billion worth of domestic spending, which Bush and some Republicans have protested as pork.

A significant number of Republicans support the benchmarks — possibly enough to override a second veto, should Bush resort to that. The measures would prod Baghdad officials to build up military forces, crack down on militias and sectarian violence, protect minority rights and manage Iraq’s extensive petroleum reserves.

Meanwhile, General Patraeus said that “espite an increase in troop levels, the overall violence in Iraq has not declined, and he warned that U.S. casualties may increase in the coming months.”

He added: “This effort may get harder before it gets easier. It is an endeavor, again, that is going to require enormous commitment and commitment over time.”

There is one major problem: the ‘enormous commitment’ isn’t there. Democrats, and quite some Republicans, and the majority of the American people so it seems, do not want to be in Iraq for much longer.

I wish that the debate would be about what’s best for Iraq. They are talking about “getting our troops out,” okay, fair enough, I understand that, but… what about all those Iraqis who do not want the violence to continue but cannot stop it all by themselves? What about those Iraqis who did not ask the US to invade, but the US - leading a coalition of the willing - did so anyway? What about them? Are these people suggesting abandoning them?

“Our troops can’t get in the middle of a civil war,” is one of the things one hears quite often. Perhaps it is time to remember those who say this that without US intervention there would be no civil war. Whether you opposed the war or supported it… one has to look at the situation today.

I am repeating myself, I am aware of that, but the reason for that is that I find it increasingly worrisome and frustrating. They are talking about the US troops, about the US military, about the US deficit… but they are not talking about the Iraqi people anymore. My point? The tone of the debate is wrong. They are leaving one important aspect out of the entire debate.

Meanwhile, E.J. Dionne wrote an interesting column about the war in Iraq for today’s Washington Post. Dionne writes:

This is not really an argument over the “surge” of troops into Iraq. It is a fight over whether we want to make an open-ended commitment to keeping combat forces in Iraq for many years or whether we anticipate pulling most of them out within a year or two.

Even if the surge succeeds in a narrow sense — by reducing the number of Iraqis killed in sectarian violence in Baghdad — there is no guarantee that the overall situation in Iraq will be any better, no guarantee that Iraqi leaders will take the political steps necessary to end the internecine killing and create a stable government, no guarantee that we will make progress against al-Qaeda.

Very, very true and ‘we’ should way the risks against the potential for success very carefully, ‘we’ should include all major factors, but one of those factors that has to be included is… yes, the Iraqi people. Dionne too, does not mention them in his column.

Also read this article at NRO by Joseph Morrison Skelly.

It seems that Gordon Brown “is becoming a growing electoral liability to the Labor Party.” He is, in the polls, falling further and further behind David Cameron.

The poll points to Labour’s worst local election performance in two decades, with the party poised to lose hundreds of seats in England and Wales. Labour is also facing a catastrophic loss of power to the nationalists in Scotland, opening up the prospect of a referendum on the end of the Union within four years.

The Tory leader has surged into a 10-point lead after voters were asked if they would prefer a Cameron-led Conservative government to a Brown administration.

The rapidly growing gap has triggered the first signs of panic within the Labour Party leadership that the local elections will give a powerful boost to Mr Cameron’s aim to be regarded as a potential prime minister.

The results: When asked “whether voters would prefer a Cameron or Brown government,” 45% said they favored Cameron, 35% said they favored a Brown government. Keep in mind that “18 months ago a majority of voters indicated the opposite.”

Besides that, a narrow majority now also said that they believe that the Tories are better best suited to run the economy, Labor, on the other hand, is believed to be best able to ruin it.

The Brits would be wise to vote the Tories into office. Britain has some real challenges, that have to be dealt with. Labor is, quite simply, not able, or not willing, to do so. The idea that Labor is better suited do run the economy is, of course, close to hilarious. If there is one weakness Labor / social democrats have, it is the economy.

“The Rule of Law… implies limits to the scope of legislation: it restricts it to the kind of general rules known as formal law and excludes legislation either directly aimed at particular people or at enabling anybody to use the coercive power of the state for the purpose of such discrimination. It means, not that everything is regulated by law, but, on the contrary, that the coercive power of the state can be used only in cases defined in advance by the law and in such a way that it can be foreseen how it will be used. A particular enactment can thus infringe the Rule of Law.”

- Hayek in The Road to Serfdom

Yesterday was the first Democratic debate regarding the presidential elections. Overall, it seems that if you, like me, did not watch it, well, you didn’t miss out on much. For a round-up go to Instapundit. One must read post on the debate, is this post at Reason Magazine.

It seems that John Edwards, quite simply, underperformed, same goes for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton did not impress most people either and… well… That’s the debate in a nutshell.

On the other hand there is this post at TMV, praising Obama and Clinton. More at NRO’s The Hillary Spot.

Check out this blog: Heading Right. From the about: “Welcome to HeadingRight - the central hub for Conservatives on BlogTalk Radio. This is where the best conservative thinkers, writers, pundits and characters from the online community gather to discuss current events and politics through the miracle of BlogTalkRadio.”

Some of the co-bloggers: bRight and Early, Ed Morrissey David Odeen, Rick Moran of Rightwing Nut House and others.

So, ch-ch-ch-check it out!

One note on Blog Talk Radio: I believe that blog talk radio will get big. I hope that some Centrist bloggers will become hosts as well. I have encouraged Joe to start a show - he would make a great host, of that I am 100% sure. Joe: enrich Blog Talk Radio - start your own show!

Cross posted at The Moderate Voice

“You never agree with any one candidate 100%. I don’t agree with myself 100%.” - Rudy Giuliani.

By Roman Genn, courtesy of Pajamas Media.

An interesting article at the New York Times about how some religious conservative Muslimas try to combine their religion, with Western fashion:

Clad in skinny jeans, wrap dresses and carefully sculpted headscarves, a generation of young Muslim women is making its mark on Europe’s urban street culture, and influencing mainstream fashion.

The daughters of migrants to Europe from Turkey or the Maghreb, these girls say they are as conscious of style as of Islamic dress codes — and want to fuse contemporary chic with elements of their religious and ethnic background.

Multiculturalism in action. This time in a not so bad way.

They could lose the headscarves though (which I consider to be a sign of the oppression of women since it indicates that women are less than men).

MSNBC reports:

The deployment of Britain’s Prince Harry to Iraq is constantly under review, the Ministry of Defense said Thursday after a newspaper reported that his dream of fighting on the front line may be over.

Harry, who is third in line to the throne, is due to head to Iraq with his “A” Squadron of the Blues and Royals regiment in the coming weeks as part of the latest British troop rotation.

“Prince Harry’s deployment to Iraq, as we have always said, is under constant consideration,” a defense ministry spokeswoman said. “It is still our intention that Prince Harry will deploy as a troop leader.”
[…]
But the best-selling Sun tabloid reported that army chiefs had ordered an 11th-hour review of his planned deployment.

The move would likely end up with Harry being banned from going near the frontline, the Sun cited unnamed senior sources as saying. The younger son of Charles, the Prince of Wales, could still deploy to Iraq for six months but may be desk-bound for the duration, it reported.

Now, one has to remember that it is a tabloid we are talking about here, but let us assume the story to be accurate, at least for now: it would be, albeit understandable, a wrong decision to ban Prince Harry from “going near the frontline.” There was a time, once, that monarchs, well, rulers in general for that matter, who got into a position of power by inheritance, had to prove their worth on the battlegrounds. People respected them, respected their authority and listened to them, because they knew that, when push would come to shove, these rulers would out there, on the forefront to protect their subjects.

To touch that is dangerous. Those who support the monarchy in Britain should think twice. Once it is established that princes should not do dangerous work, that it should be left up to ‘John Doe’ since John is replaceable, the people will lose their respect for the Royal family. Indeed, they are in a position of power, without ever have done anything to deserve their priviliged position. The only way to justify that (position) is to protect the ‘people’. That was, of course, how noble families became noble in the first place. Yes they had money, yes they had power, yes they priviliges, but in the end, they were also the ones leading the forces to battle.

What I am writing is - perhaps - an ancient concept, but so is the concept of (the) Monarchy.

h/t Holly

This is hilarious:

An Indian court ordered the arrest of Hollywood star Richard Gere Thursday for kissing Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS campaign event this month saying it was an obscene act committed in public.

Gere’s repeated kisses on Shetty’s cheeks at an event to promote AIDS awareness in New Delhi sparked protests in some parts of India, mostly by Hindu vigilante groups, who saw it as an outrage against her modesty and an affront to Indian culture.

The order by a court in the northern city of Jaipur came in response to a complaint by a local lawyer.

The judge watched a video recording of Gere kissing Shetty and found him guilty of violating Indian laws against public obscenity, the lawyer, Poonam Chand Bhandari, said.

I agree. Gere should be arrested. If for nothing else, than for not appearing in any good movies (lately). Isn’t there some Indian law against that?