STATEMENT FROM THE
U.S. Turkic Network (USTN)
Turkish American Political Action Committee (TurkishPAC)
January 18, 2012
Dear Governor Perry,
As Americans of Turkish and Turkic descent, we are writing to express our deep concern regarding your January 16 response to Brett Baier’s already Turcophobic and twisted question about Turkey. Sir, you made a disastrous mistake by saying that Turkey is supposedly governed by terrorists, should receive no U.S. foreign aid and its membership in NATO should somehow be questioned.
Turkey is the only country in the Middle East whose government is democratically elected by full participation of all of its citizens, regardless of race, religion or gender. Turkey’s current government is indeed Islamic leaning, but this is not much different than what we observe in the U.S. or other modern western democracies, where parties and politicians with far-right Christian leanings are often ruling and are regularly swept to power by the “conservative base”. It is indeed an outrageous and insulting statement to even claim that Turkey is somehow ruled by “terrorists” when it lost over 30,000 of its citizens fighting the PKK terrorists and over 100 of its diplomats and citizens were killed by Armenian terrorists (both PKK and ASALA are recognized by the U.S. State Department as terrorist organizations).
Actually, Turkey is a key strategic American ally and close partner supporting U.S. and NATO actions in the Balkans, Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan. Turkey recently played a significant part in supporting Arab freedom movements and is regarded as a model of democracy by regional nations whose majority population’s religion is Islam (although Turkey is also far more democratic than many of the regional Christian nations, such as Armenia). Turkey lost thousands of its troops supporting NATO and fighting Communism and terrorism since 1952. Turkey also has a flourishing free market economy, the sixth largest in Europe and 16th largest in the world (and soon will be a Top 10 economy). And even though you may have threatened to cut U.S. aid to Turkey, for your information, Turkey received no significant aid from the U.S. since the 1980s, so there is no foreign aid to cut in the first place. Indeed, Turkey itself is a net provider of aid to developing nations, and in time of need, has provided millions of dollars in aid to U.S., such as during Hurricane Katrina disaster.
We suggest that before making such far reaching, plain wrong and totally unfair accusations about a major U.S. ally, which among other blunders actually cost you an election, you should study and remember the facts, without being prejudiced by various clichés and biases (i.e., Turcophobia) that is spread by some ethnic lobbies out there. American people, and especially Texas residents, deserve nothing less from their Governor, from their state, local and federal governments, legislatures and judiciary – be fair, just and ethical, as well as factual.
We respectfully request that you, Gov. Perry, apologize for such untrue and unfortunate remarks, that hurt not only Turks and Turkey, but Turkic-Americans and Turkish-Americans.
Sincerely,
TurkishPAC Board of Directors
www.TurkishPAC.com
U.S. Turkic Network (USTN) Board of Directors
www.USTurkic.org
