It’s “Ralph Peters Gets Creative”. Of the last 100 page hits, it has received 29. For months now, that has been the most popular page on PC — a post without much content, mostly links, an animated gif of Ralph Peters’ imagined improvement for the Middle East, and a very simple summary of those links/image.

Many of the hits are a result of internet searches for an image linked here by a commenter on that thread:

That was a response to Arherring’s comment that,

This, at a fundamental, rule-set, level means that the Middle East will never be able to lift itself up and out of its petty hatreds until it realizes on that same fundamental level that this doctrine of exclusivity keeps you from reaching your potential as a people of strength and vision. You must ask yourself, “Why do I really hate my neighbor? Who told me to do so? What does it gain me to do so? Who is it who gains when I do?”

The impetus for the “Turkey Victorious” image may have also come from the animated gif posted in the entry, which combined two images from Ralph Peter’s essay in the Armed Forces Journal to show what he meant:



Oddly enough, these two items, plus current events of course, remind me of a mock image I once posted in a parody of a news item focusing on Mel Gibson:



Though a parody…I wonder if the arrow showing an invasion of Israel from Egypt may be the only wrong call!  (That post was also a 5GW parody, spinning off the idea that Mel might be a 5GW fighter.  That last image was a mock-up of an item “found” after it slipped from his car during his arrest for drunk driving.)


On YouTube, a brewing “war” between Turkey and Greece has developed, mostly instigated by Turkish YouTube users.  Just search for “Gayreek” on YouTube and read all the hate being thrown at Greece from Turkey.  (And the hate being slung back.)  Gayreek is a meme that seems to be growing, at least from a YouTube perspective; and the hate on display seems quite entrenched.  Similar to Ahmadinejad ‘s attempt to assert that Iran has no gays, the Gayreek meme follows a bipolar path: “Greece is full of gays, now and throughout history, and in fact invented homosexuality; but Turkey has no gays.” (Of couse, the Greek respondents to those YouTube videos often point out some famous Turks who were quite gay, and might have pointed out that Turkey was a hot-spot for gay holiday travelers from Europe in the past! It’s those Turkish baths…)

I believe that Turkey may be an example of the friction that comes with globalization, in which insecurities about national identity and national strength are made worse when confronted by more stable, perhaps more economically and militarily powerful forces.  Not that Greece is all that powerful, of course, but only that U.S. operations in the region and general EU power may be exacerbating an identity crises for Turkey.

I suppose I should also link the post on Phatic Communion that was recently linked from Kos: “Iran, the West, Turkey, and Kurdistan”.  Kos focused on the fact that Turkey and Iran purportedly have an anti-PKK pact, or at least are cooperating on keeping Kurdistan limited to the area in present-day Iraq.  Now that Iraq and Turkey are working on agreements for combatting the PKK, perhaps an invasion of northern Iraq is not in the cards — perhaps.  Much else can happen in the region to change attitudes over the next weeks, months, years.