Turkish Delight
Booksellers in Turkey are reporting soaring sales figures for "Mein Kampf," or "Kavgam" in Turkish. Hitler's political manifesto has been a top 10 bestseller in the past two months, to the dismay of the country's Jewish community, as well as the German embassy in Ankara, and at least two new Turkish language versions of "Mein Kampf" are now out in paperback.
Asked to comment on the phenomenon, government spokesman Cemil Cicek said: "There is no racism in this country."
The current #1 bestseller in Turkey, ahead of "Mein Kampf," is "Metal Storm," which depicts a U.S. invasion of the country. The Turkish hero avenges his homeland by destroying Washington with a nuclear device.
One of Turkey's largest newspapers published a recent column that took one of Metal Storm's plot points - that members of Skull and Bones, the secret society that President Bush and John Kerry joined while students at Yale, has taken control of US foreign policy - and presented it as straight-faced fact, while also suggesting that the US military is developing technology that would allow it to trigger earthquakes, something that would eventually be used against Turkey.
Stated a US diplomat, who declined to be named: "Just like sex sells, anti-Americanism sells right now. Unfortunately, it's nothing to laugh at, because it's damaging to both American national interests and to Turkish national interests. We're really pulling our hair out trying to figure out how to deal with this."