Death as a best interest

News coming from across the Atlantic is getting more to the point: It is in Turkey’s best interest to join the coalition and fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists. The Department of State is stressing that. Washington is sending Ankara president, vice president and various junior levels the very same message. Is it really so? Is it in Turkey’s best interest to engage in a war? Or worse, in a land war? Or, how long can Turkey handle thousands of refugees fleeing attacks from the ISIL terrorists piling at its door day and night? Already the number of “guests” Turkey has had to host nearly 2 million because of the Syria quagmire, Iraq conundrum or the ISIL catastrophe. The Finance Ministry has started preparations of introducing some tax adjustments to finance the budget deficit that widened with a further $10 billion because of the “forced guests.”

Far worse, the increased number of “guests” on the one hand, has turned the Turkish borders into a free trespass area or some sort of a refugee highway. A colleague was describing how not only civilians seeking refuge, but militants of various groups freely pass through Turkish borders – first sending herds of sheep to make sure there are no land mines. Indeed, what American executives have been underlining is something most Turks who oppose Turkey being further pulled into that huge fire next to our crowded and problematic house are very much aware, but insist on not seeing it. Is it possible for the fire not to jump to our house as well? How long can our house host so many forced guests? What if some members of our family try to make best use of this chaotic atmosphere? Are we not, for example, already fed up with screams of rape, women and drug trafficking or at least junctions at all Turkish cities being converted into some sort of begging ground by neighbors rendered homeless with the fire in their houses?

The May 2013 Reyhanlı blasts, on the other hand, that claimed the lives of 52 Turks and scores of similar incidents of terrorism all related to “forced guests” must serve as a sufficient cautionary warning of the darn consequences tomorrow may offer to this country, should it abandon its “passive defense” and replace it with an “aggressive defense” policy? Are we not worried of “sleeping cells” and what they might unleash?

The president and his entire apparatus are fuming in anger at the New York Times reports that in the heart of Ankara, families were joining ISIL. Indeed, instead of yelling at the American and other international reporting on Turks joining ISIL, the president and his men should stroll a bit in the Çinçinbağları district of Ankara, and then they would realize the dimension of the problem and probable consequences for tomorrow. For example, a talk with the district headman might reveal from which house how many people have joined ISIL over the past months, how many of them have returned. Worse, those houses vacated by people joining ISIL were filled with Syrians fleeing ISIL. With people returning tomorrow, there might be some very serious fights in that neighborhood. Çinçinbaşları was not the only district sending “fighters” to ISIL. What about Mamak, Balgat, Yenimahalle? Of course the answer must be with the intelligence organization, which indeed has so far not been able to satisfactorily answer what its trucks “captured” by the gendarmerie were carrying? Only those officers and policemen who “captured” those trucks were punished, we all know that… Turkmens never received any aid, so they say… The trucks were claimed to have been carrying aid for Turkmens. The situation smells really bad.

Anyhow, the question is how long can we continue embracing “guests” fleeing Sunni death squads of ISIL or should we be part of an international circumcision operation, which without boots on land, will never eradicate, but perhaps only help to contain the beast?

Is this our war? Shall we fight it? What will be the outcome? Would we not indeed help Turkey’s disintegration while assuming we are fighting an Islamist Sunni militia? How could death be in our best interest?