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Entry: D'Annunzio, Mussolini, and the Fate of Empires Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/dannunzio_mussolini_and_the_fate_of_empires#5399 Post contents: Turkey in the 40s was surrounded by enemies. The the northwest, the Germans eager to put their Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway under their direct control, and to use as a means to ship oil. To the west a nation with irredentist intentions after the 1922 war. To the north and south there were Russia, Britain (in Palestine and Iraq), and France )in Syria and Lebanon). These three European powers had longtime plans to control the Dardanelles. To call the Turk's prudent response to this encirclement "lazy" is quite odd. "Lazy" would be news to the Gallipoli vets. I suspect that in 1974 the Great Powers did not "reward" their loyal NATO ally Turkey when she took, rightly or wrongly, what she regarded to be her Alsace. Given the tenor of anti-Turkish feeling in the Balkans, the real eastern Europe, and in Near East, Turkey may have had good reasons to fear genocide in Cyprus. Instead, the NATO powers knew of Cold War tensions with respect to Russian ambitions, and they needed bases in Turkey to launch a rear front if the Russians attacked in Europe. Also Greece in 1974 was under control of a distasteful regime. "Perfidy" should be made of sterner stuff, or baser motives. For the young men of the US to die for the interests of Zionist nationalists is repugnant. For US foreign policy to serve the nationalist ambitions of the Serbian Black Hand is equally so. So also Albanian irredentism and expansionism. Sent at: 2008 09 06