I've been thinking a little bit about the tenor of the Turkish response to the PKK attack on Turkish soldiers. A Turkish friend, Z, was explaining the situation: Turkey will respond "through patience and diplomacy! The fight against terror is a long one. But watching news of young soldiers killed by PKK terrorists infiltrating into Turkey from the north of Iraq hurts too much. They were only 20 or 21 years old. Some were newly married, some had new born babies. Pft that's not fair!"
There's something about this response that just strikes me as different than our response when American soldiers are killed. It's certainly not the sorrow or the anger. I think maybe it's the sense of unfairness. It almost reminds me of American responses to 9/11-- only smaller scale and without the shock.
Turkey has a draft. All I have is an anecdote for evidence, but I wonder if universal service blurs the military-civilian distinction in the minds of the people.
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