Word: islamist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the White House on November 5 marks an important test of the relationship between America and its best ally in the Muslim world. In Erdogan, the U.S. has a friend who is that rarest of rarities: a democratically elected, democratically minded, economically liberal Islamist - an important bridge between the Muslim world and the secular West. The U.S. needs Erdogan as much as Erdogan needs Washington's cooperation in a recent slew of crises...
...84th anniversary of modern Turkey's founding turned into massive nationwide demonstrations against the Kurdish group. The red and white Turkish flag hung across streets and from balconies; cars sported flags on their trunks. This militancy has put Erdogan and his political allies in a difficult spot. His Islamist roots have earned him the distrust of the Turkish military, the old power brokers in the country and the fortress of the nation's secular traditions. America's alliance was as much with the Turkish military as it was with the civilian government, perhaps more so. Indeed, Erdogan's government strongly...
...declare the mass killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks starting in 1915 a genocide. The situation is also complicated by the desire of the Turkish military to improve its standing among ordinary Turks after its failed attempt to block the election of the moderate Islamist Abdullah Gul as the country's President earlier this year...
...hundreds of Lebanese troops. But this year, the Lebanese army's manpower was stretched to the limit with security commitments in Beirut, along the southern border with Israel, the eastern border with Syria and in the north of the country where troops fought a bloody three-month battle against Islamist militants during the summer hashish growing season. Furthermore, the hashish farmers threatened to burn down the houses of local tractor owners who are hired each year by the government to plough up the illegal crops...
...Unfortunately, Lebanon's recent troubles cloud the outlook for the wine industry. This year, impoverished Bekaa farmers took advantage of the security forces' being distracted by the protracted battle against Islamist radicals holed up in a Palestinian refugee camp, to plant another of the Bekaa's fabled crops: hashish. Hashish farming threatens to gobble up land that could be used for vineyards, and creates a get-rich-quick gangster culture that's at odds with the patient investment necessary to produce wine...