Wrongitude

Kevin Drum links approvingly to this post over at Headline Junky, which makes many good points about the damage the Bush administration has done to the US-Turkey alliance (mostly via Iraq), but unfortunately descends into blessed ignorance:

Turkey was already on our side. And we’re in the process of losing it, at the very moment when religious Muslims have begun to dominate the Turkish political scene.

For the time being, the Turkish military and cultural elites serve as guarantors of secularism. But if Turkey ever does wind up sliding into theocracy, it will be a major strategic setback for American regional interests.

Yes, it’s our old friend anti-Muslim hysteria (”It’s not just for Limbaugh anymore!”). Just to be clear, these are the same religious Muslims who (off the top of my head):

• made EU ascension their top priority.
• abolished the death penalty.
• opened up more of the economy to market forces
• challenged the primacy of the military in domestic politics

Yes, sharia will be around any day now. And those “guarantors of secularism”? They wanted to throw a coup because the wife of the presidential nominee wears a headscarf. Oh my, I gettin’ the vapors! A headscarf? Lawdy!