U.S., Please Come Beat the AK Party

“The fact that Ricciardione, who is President Obama’s candidate for the office of U.S. Embassy to Ankara, establishes very friendly relations with the governments in countries he serves and is soft on many issues is criticized.”

This sentence made the headlines in Milliyet for its “Sympathizer Ambassador” discussion on its July 11, 2010 issue. The news, which was based on news another foreign policy correspondent reported, had the following title inside the newspaper: “An ambassador showing not the carrot but the stick is needed.” The piece then quotes an unidentified person’s speech: “The ‘warm’ relations Francis Ricciardone, Obama’s candidate, tried to establish with the countries he served in is a highly debated issue.”

The first time we come across a “subject” in the news is in the following sentence: “Republicans opposed his appointment, saying that a ‘tougher U.S. ambassador to Turkey is needed.’” But I guess that voice is coming from a mouth someone else speaks through.

Let’s see what grave sin Ricciardone committed by “helping establish too warm of relations with the regimes of countries he served in.” This question is relevant because he runs the risk of committing “the same grave sins” in Turkey. The answer to this question results in the next title, “Ricciardione Can’t See the Flaws.” The impression we get from the writer in the first line of the news, “I am pretending to tell you but actually I hope he will get my message,” continues. When the news says “He Can’t See the Flaws,” they mean that “He Won’t See the Flaws in Ankara Either.”

Get ready to hear Ricciardione’s grave sin: Ricciardone did not support former U.S. President Bush’s efforts to spread democracy to Egypt when he was the American Ambassador to Cairo. But how did he do that? Quoting the statement, as reported in the news, by an official based in a Neo-Conservative center, “The Muslim Brotherhood won elections during Ricciardone’s stint in Cairo and he was unable to control the situation despite pressure from the George W. Bush White House.”

In other words, our democracy will be tested by a diplomat of Italian origin, who did not allow democracy to take hold in Egypt by not preventing Muslim Brotherhood’s election victory. Don’t you get it? Do I have to state the threat awaiting us more bluntly? As we learn from another part of the news, he is inadequate because he is “A Friend to the Muslims.” Ricciardone did not only side with the regimes in Islamic countries as an ambassador of a secular country, the United States, he also built connections with the people in those countries, since he is fluent in Arabic, Turkish, Italian and French. He visited the Grand Mufti of Egypt to celebrate his Ramadan Holiday in 2007, began his remarks by saying “Peace Be Upon You” and said “Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him” while referring to the Prophet Muhammad as he was answering the questions on the website of the U.S. Embassy to Afghanistan, the most recent position he had.

What if the new American Ambassador invited the leaders of religious brotherhoods in Turkey to a dinner during the approaching Ramadan? As if not being neutral were not enough, it seems that Ricciardone is also a straightforward person and a Democrat. Otherwise, would he say to a minister that “it is always because of this damn law [the Patriot Act]” in a meeting, which Condoleezza Rice also attended, when an Egyptian Minister said “but you also have the Patriot Act” as the Egyptian Minister was defending their harsh laws? What if this man, who was also interested in Kurdish issues when he was serving in positions in Turkey and is claimed to be fluent in Kurdish as well, uses his boldness in Ankara again?

Hence, it is best for this ambassador, who will be an AK Party sympathizer, to never come and turn the U.S. Embassy into a center of fundamentalists and separationists! And that news tells us already that the Republicans have not yet decided to block this appointment. This news, which helps us hear more clearly how the Neo-Cons’ and the crazy Turkish Kemalists’ hearts beat in perfect synchrony, is the most obvious symbol of how crazy AK Party opposition has gotten in this country.

Milliyet wishes that the United States would send an ambassador that would keep showing the stick to the AK Party government, but they would rather have the Neo-Conservatives express that. They do not save one of the most elite ambassadors of the United States from the terror of “labeling AK Party supporters,” because this ambassador is a little Democrat and has shown respect for the Muslims in the countries where he has served heretofore. And to conclude, let it be explained by the sui generis conditions of my country that the name of this newspaper is Milliyet [The Nationalist], not “The Colonialist.”