U.S. tries to keep Turkey in its orbit, even through lies and incompetence

Washington now needs Muslim support which she so rashly lost due to the fall of Hosni Mubarak. After all, Egypt and not Turkey was a staunch U.S. ally in the Arab world.

Before 1915 there used to be around four thousand operating churches in Western Armenia, of which only 44 in Istanbul and 6 in Anatolia now operate underneath the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople. All the rest were either destroyed or converted into mosques, warehouses, sheds. Most of the churches are simply ruined, and they can be recognized only by the few extant photographs. And U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone, appointed by Barack Obama during the Congressional recess, cannot but know all of this.

August 26, 2011