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Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead
I've only been to Turkey, and only for two days BTW. And from what I understand, Turkey isn't anything like the rest of the Middle East.
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Well, thankfully it was peaceful when Sonic Youth visited recently too, but right now there's turmoil in southeast Turkey on the northern border of Iraq.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...LsoXx-FoI4GDaQ
Also, during the last days of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th c., there was a civil war and it's now only recently come to light that the early Turkish government engaged in the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians. This makes the sad chapter in history the first holocaust, with The Third Reich's being the second with 6 million Jews being senselessly slain. Of course, the slaughter of the Native Americans was really a genocide as well, albeit a more conventional one, with some 12 million natives killed in battle, but they were not tortured or mass-executed in quite the same brutal fashion. And there is evidence that they would routinely torture Calvary troops that were captured. The warlike tribes (not all of them were, of course) loved scalping as well, both before and after the kill. Still, 12 million is twice as much as 6, no?
The Turks would tie the Armenians up with ropes in a long line and then shoot the first person who would drag everyone into rivers or ditches in many cases. They were also particularly fond of mutulating genitals and raping and killing women and children it seems. But don't trust my word, look it up for yourself.
http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Gen...n_genocide.htm
Many of Armenian descent are starting to demand reparations.