Re: who lost Turkey?

2003-04-02 Thread Chris Burford 
At 2003-04-02 14:40 -0800, you wrote:

COMMENTARY

How the IMF Lost Turkey

By CLAUDIA ROSETT

How did we lose the loyalty of Turkey , and with it that much-wanted
northern front for the war in Iraq?
I would have thought that Turkey is a natural ally of Saddam Hussein, in so 
far as it does not want an autonomous, and still less an independent, 
Kurdistan. The Iraqi regime has drawn the Kurds towards Kirkuk and Mosul. 
Certainly I think the hypothesis must be considered.

Chris Burford

London

RE: who lost Turkey?

2003-04-02 Thread Devine, James 
Title: RE: [PEN-L:36429] who lost Turkey?






CLAUDIA ROSETT writes:  When Turkey 
borrowed its way into financial crisis in 1999 and came to Washington 
for help, the first mistake was to start supplying subsidies 
immediately. Had the U.S. left Turkey's politicians to sort out their 
own financial mess, the Turks would have had much keener incentives to 
work out their own routes to reform, routes perhaps less painful for the 
electorate. 


but the U.S. doesn't want Turkey's politicians to sort out their own financial mess. Instead they want a cookie-cutter IMF solution that wrecks the debtor economy, opens markets for US business, etc. It doesn't care about the Turkish electorate either. Maybe it's in the long-term interest of the capitalist class to follow different policies, but capitalism has always tended to sink its own boat. 

Jim