As many of us may have noticed, there is much talk of the Bush-Turkey relationship over the past few days, because of the Armenian genocide resolution which is now going in Congress. If you have been reading about this topic of knowledge you may have seen many complicated terms such as Ottoman, PKK, bilateral, Incirlik, Kurd, and Gul. These unusual terms are only parts of many bigger ideas involved which are confusing to us. I will try to explain with simpler words so that this problem may be understood better.
First, we must look at history. For much time, the relationship of Bush and Turkey has been very good:
There was only happiness, reflected in goofy open-mouthed grins and congenial hand of Bush on back of Turkey. This indicates good bilateral relations.
But now, possible recognition of the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians makes Turkey mad. Turkey is embarrassed and ashamed and he does not want this bad part of his past mentioned for all to hear. CNN explains very well the anger of Turkey in this article they have published about this new problem in the relationship of Bush and Turkey. Here are parts of the article which I have clarified to make many facts easier to understand:
[Turkey] warned Thursday that consequences "won’t be pleasant" if the U.S. House of Representatives approves calling the killings of Armenians in Turkey during World War I "genocide." …
[Turkey] also said the resolution’s passage would be a "very injurious move to the psyche of [Turkey]." …
"Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball," said [Turkey]. "I can assure you Turkey knows how to play hardball."
These stern words show the deep unhappiness of Turkey. Turkey is afraid his "psyche" or "mind" will be hurt by the bad words of Congress against him. This fear has made him very mad at his old friend Bush, and so he will "play hardball" on him. Pictures are worth many more words than just words on their own, so here is what Turkey plans now for Bush:
This indicates bad bilateral relations.
The Distant Ocean 
It’s funny about that whole Armenian thing, because Turkey looks almost harmless!
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It’s funny about that whole Armenian thing, because Turkey looks almost harmless!
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Crap. Tried to go back and ended up resending post-data. Sorry!
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No worries. I agree–Turkey does look harmless, doesn’t he? Just goes to show.
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This is a stale joke about this countries name. In fact you are laughing at your own poor latino-germanic hybrid language. Europeans took this domestic bird from turks and by then it was named something like “Turkey chicken” or “turkey bird” (I am not sure.) Then speakers were lasy and they dropped the word bird or chicken and Turkey remained.. It is simply stupid to laugh at this because it is the country that gave its name to the bird.. not vice versa.. suppose we called hamburgers “USA sandwitch” and then just “USA” and then laughed at your country because it has a sandwitch’es name.. so .. “USA humor”
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You’ve got it all wrong; it’s mostly a stale joke about George Bush being pecked in the nuts by a turkey.
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Or is it a stale bush – come on January
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Whatever it is, you can see that the Turkey is indeed going straight for the Bush. I would have to argue that the country did indeed get its name from the bird. In fact, I heard of the bird before I heard of the country. So, even though the country is giving us the bird, I now give the bird back. This is indeed a stale joke about the country’s name though. Did 1.5 Armenians die because of the Turkey’s bad sense of humor?
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