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Death to the Crusade
By TED WIDMER
Published: September 18, 2005
In a quiet courtyard near Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, patient merchants smoke unfiltered cigarettes and tend their stalls in the Secondhand Book Bazaar, or Sahaflar Carsisi. On this site, once the publishing center of the Ottoman Empire, customers have been buying manuscripts for 500 years, and books since 1732, after Ibrahim Muteferrika, an Ottoman diplomat, set up a printing press in Constantinople. A bust in the courtyard honors him, even though his improvements came over the objections of the scribes and illuminators who dominated the information industry of the day. Their presence is still felt here. I recently picked up an old Ottoman map of North America with antique calligraphy I cannot even begin to decipher.
Near the bazaar, Istanbul's new bookstores are selling out of a pulpy thriller that paints a significantly darker portrait of America than the one on my innocent map, sketched when the Ottomans barely considered America a part of civilization. The book, "Metal Storm," is available only in Turkish (as "Metal Firtina"), which is probably just as well. Written by Orkun Ucar (a science fiction writer) and Burak Turna (a reporter), this surprise best seller will give palpitations to anyone concerned about the image of the United States overseas.
Although its title might sound more like a Judas Priest album than a political thriller, "Metal Storm" offers a highly realistic account of an American war with Turkey. In the grand tradition of the cold-war farce "The Mouse That Roared," the book describes a series of baroque plot twists that result in Turkey's humbling the American military behemoth. To be sure, the book is trashy - its wild speculations include a shadow ruler behind the unnamed American president and arms smuggling via the Mexican drug mafia - and readers are presumably taking it with a grain of salt. Yet it's a sign of how far America's reputation has plummeted that "Metal Storm," first published in late 2004, is now in its eighth printing of 50,000. The book is said to be very popular with the Turkish military, and men aged 18 to 30.
That tinderbox demographic plays a part in the book, in the form of a secret service outfit that recruits 14-year-old orphans. At the start of the three-year training, each boy is given a puppy. At the end, he's ordered to shoot it - a lesson in how to banish all love from his heart except love of country. "Come time, you may have to kill a little baby, maybe a whole family or the girl you love, in order to save your country!" the boys are instructed.
The plot of "Metal Storm" unfolds something like this. American forces invade Turkey over two weeks in 2007. After war planners discover Turkey has a high concentration of borax, a strategic mineral needed for nuclear weapons and space technology, G.I.'s overrun Turkey from their position in neighboring Iraq. The first phase of the invasion, Operation Metal Storm, resembles Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. The Americans have no difficulty taking over Turkey's primary cities, where they allow cultural vandalism. They fail to secure the countryside, however, and slowly their hubris begins to do them in.
Things get stranger in Phase 2 of the war, named Operation Sèvres after the Treaty of Sèvres, which was signed after World War I and intended to carve up Turkey as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. In this phase, the United States attempts to partition Turkey between two historic rivals, Greece and Armenia, and allows a Kurdish state to come into being. Turkey responds with a creative solution straight out of a West Point seminar on worst-case scenarios. First, the Turks form a new alliance with China, Russia and Germany. Then, a brave Turkish secret agent named Gokan goes ballistic. In a shocking scene, he steals a poorly guarded nuclear weapon and takes out Washington. At the moment of impact, everything turns to vapor, including one Washington mother welcoming her children home from school. She leaves a trace outside her house "as if her photograph had been taken and the negative was there on the concrete." Presto, the crisis is over, catharsis achieved, and Turks can go to bed knowing the invader has been soundly and justly defeated.
The story is outlandish, and one hopes the Turks are reading it the way we watch "Star Wars," appreciating the special effects, but never expecting to wield light sabers in battle against the Empire. And yet, far-fetched though it is, "Metal Storm" is also accurate in uncanny ways. The American government includes Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and a grinning, nameless president who seems to enjoy war almost as much as his naps, speaks glowingly in terms of "crusades," and is close to evangelical Christians, who want to build a megachurch in Istanbul. Vladimir Putin is still at the helm in Russia. Nicolas Sarkozy is president of France (these authors are paying attention). The expert discussion of weapons technology and invasion routes might explain why Turkish military elites find it fascinating.
The book's anti-Americanism is all the more disturbing since Turkey is one of America's most important allies - a bastion of stability in a volatile region, the biggest army in NATO after us, a friend to both Israel and the Arabs, and a rare example of Islamic democracy. Our alliance goes back to the start of the cold war, and our friendship much farther than that. Since 1947, when President Truman staked his presidency on keeping Turkey out of Russia's orbit, the relationship has been essential to both nations. NATO and the Marshall Plan stemmed from it.
So it's not surprising the book has attracted attention in Washington. How many new thrillers have been the subject of testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? In March, Zeyno Baran, a Turkey expert from the Nixon Center, told the senators that "Metal Storm" was "essential in understanding the Turkish mind-set today."
Turkish-American relations have been sorely tested by the Iraq invasion, a fact clearly driving sales of "Metal Storm." The Turks found little reason to believe Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and thought America was stirring up a hornet's nest. The Bush administration was incensed by Turkey's democratic decision (a parliamentiary vote) not to allow the United States to invade Iraq from its soil. A Turkish newspaper recently editorialized, "At no period in Turkey's history has there been such antipathy toward the United States." The American ambassador to Turkey reportedly had to find scientists to prove that last winter's Asian tsunami was not caused by an American nuclear explosion. (Then again, the cultural misunderstandings run both ways; "The West Wing" recently portrayed Turkey as a country where women are beheaded for having sex with their fiancés.)
But the popularity of "Metal Storm" is not the only disturbing literary trend in Turkey today. In the past year, Hitler's "Mein Kampf" has sold tens of thousands of copies in Turkey, ever since an inexpensive version was published that costs only six new Turkish liras, or $4.50. This vexes Germany, one of Turkey's most important allies, where the book is banned (the state of Bavaria owns the copyright). Turkey has been relatively tolerant toward Jews since offering them refuge during the Spanish Inquisition, and is still home to a Jewish community of about 20,000. Turkey was also the first Islamic state to recognize Israel, in 1949. When two synagogues were bombed in 2003, it was a national tragedy. But the popularity of "Mein Kampf" suggests countercurrents are never far from the surface.
For now, there may be some relief that "Metal Storm" hasn't been translated into English and we can't hear what our friends are saying behind our back. But that's cold comfort if this book is only the first of the anti-American fantasies we'll be confronting in the years ahead. Only a few weeks ago, one of the authors of "Metal Storm" published another book, a spinoff of sorts. It still features the secret agent Gokan, only this time around, Turkey and Israel go to war. It could be a long century.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/bo...l?pagewanted=1