ANKARA

While a systematic delegitimization campaign against Turkey, not only is President Erdogan in full swing in the Western media and thank you, a successful PR campaign evaluating Greece as a “ bastion of Western interest, an island of stability and democracy ” is simultaneously carried out by mainly the same Turkophobic circles.

As such, it may be high time to remember the last decades of the history of anti-Americanism currently neglected by Greece and the record of undermining the West. The history of modern anti-Americanism in Greece dates back to the 1940s. When Greece fell into a bloody civil war in 1946, government forces prevailed after three years against the Greek People’s Liberation Army (ELAS ) widely popular and strong communist, only thanks to the immense military and financial support of Great Britain and America. While the government’s victory came with the cost of the execution, exile or imprisonment of around 100,000 Communists, the anti-left policies of the Greek state, which were supported or neglected by the The West and included the systematic suppression, discrimination and internal exile of the Communists. , continued even after the Civil War.[1] Naturally, this state of affairs created a deeply rooted anti-Americanism on the Greek left. The famous belief that the United States encouraged Turkish intervention in Cyprus in 1974 spread anti-Americanism in broader segments of Greek society, conservative, leftist and nationalist.

The very widespread and militant anti-Americanism in Greece began to develop from the 1980s under the reign of the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement of Andreas Papandreou (PASOK). Greece supported Jaruzelski’s dictatorship in Poland, refused to condemn the crackdown on dissidents in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc and the downing of a Korean commercial airliner by Soviet fighter jets in 1983 , and opposed the deployment of US cruise missiles and Pershing missiles in Europe against the Soviet Union. At the same time, it maintained relations and / or housed many organizations, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), the PKK, which were designated as terrorist organizations by the NATO allies of Greece, especially America.

Greek anti-Americanism, however, reached its peak during the Yugoslav War of Succession in the 1990s. Throughout these wars, Greece supported the Milosevic regime in Belgrade and the Karadzic regime in Pale morally, economically and politically. He has consistently violated the UN-imposed oil embargo on Serbia and the EU decision to freeze assets belonging to Milosevic’s regime.[2] Moreover, he neglected the fights of the Greek volunteers for the Serbian cause, condemned by the West, and the participation in the massacre of Srebrenica.[3] As a prominent Serbian journalist Peter Lucovic rightly said, “Greece’s policy has exclusively benefited the Milosevic regime, helping the Milosevic family and their associates to retain power in Belgrade.” The Milosevic regime used Greece as a fine example of a western country that supported democracy and patriotic Serbia. ” [4]

The first decade of the new millennium saw no improvement in pro-American sentiments in Greece. Feeling even more confident and empowered after becoming a member of the Eurozone who brought short-term prosperity to the country, the Greeks have become one of the most anti-American nations around the world.[5] At the time, most Greeks believed that the Americans had allied with the Turks and the Jews to attack Greece, Greek culture and religion. Among other things, they even believed that the United States itself was behind the terrorist attacks of September 11.[6]

One would be curious to know what kind of sanctions Greece has faced for its overtly anti-American policy, which has openly undermined American interests in the Middle East and the Balkans. The surprising answer is not at all a sanction. While the Greek state provided a safe haven for anti-American terrorist organizations and aided America’s enemies in the Balkans, America still did not hesitate to provide Greece with the most modern American weapons, including F-16 fighter jets and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. In addition, the United States under the Obama administration stepped in to pressure the EU to bail out Greece when its economy collapsed in 2009.

To be fair, Greek diplomacy, with the help of the strong Greek diaspora and other anti-Turkish circles in America, masterfully exploited the disputed areas between Turkey and America from the mid-2010s. America’s short-sighted alliance with the Syrian offspring of the terrorist group PKK YPG, ambiguous policy towards the terrorist group FETO, responsible for the coup attempt defeated on July 15, 2016, and mainly imposing an arms embargo secret and sometimes open to Turkey on the pretext that Turkey bought the S-400 SAM and thus acted against its commitments against America and NATO played an important role in the deterioration of Turkish-American relations.

Meanwhile, America began to change its policy regarding Turkish-Greek disagreements in the Aegean Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Cyprus. He expressed his support for the Greek maximalist demands, which cannot be accepted by any elected government in Turkey. Additionally, America intends to sell state-of-the-art F-35 frigates and fighter jets to Greece and is negotiating to expand its military presence in Greece. These developments would undoubtedly create two deep and immediate problems, not only for Turkey but also for America and NATO.

Being deprived of Western weapons to maintain the balance in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey should seek other alternatives. Such an initiative could indeed have negative economic, military and political implications for Turkey. However, losing Turkey, which has one of NATO’s most powerful and experienced armies, to other non-Western powers would practically mean the end of NATO, a guarantee of the West’s prosperity and security. for over 70 years.

* The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of the Anadolu agency.

[1] Martin Eve, “Anti-Communism and American Intervention in Greece,” Socialist Register 21 (1984): 101-113.

[2] Takis Michas, Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic’s Serbia: Greece and Serbia in the Nineties (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002).

[3] Hikmet Karcic, “Fear Not, For You Have Brothers In Greece”: Research Note, “Studies and Prevention of Genocide: An International Review 3, No. 1 (2008): 145-152.

[4] Takis Michas, “America The Despised”, The National Interest 67 (2002): 95.

[5] Elisabeth Kirtsoglou & Dimitrios Theodossopoulos, “The poetics of anti-Americanism in Greece: rhetoric, agency and local meaning”, Social Analysis 54, n ° 1 (2010): 106-124.

[6] Michael C. Geokas, “Anti-Americanism in Greece, an Iron Curtain between Greeks and Greek-Americans,” The National Herald (NY) (January 26-27, 2002).

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