To the Editor:
Your March 29th article by Raymond Bonner, "U.S. Helicopter Sale to Turkey Hits Snag, Rights Groups and Backers of Greece Combine Against Ankara", is ethnic-bashing at its worst. The tenor of the article, targeting an ethnic group and accusing it of orch estrating a "fierce lobbying campaign" to "block[] a lucrative weapons deal" in derogation of U.S. interests, smacks of the sort of anti-Semitic paranoia often directed against Jewish-American groups for their own lobbying efforts.
While the Western European press actively condemns the Turkish Government for torturing its dissidents, ethnically cleansing its non-Turkish minorities, and threatening its neighbors with invasion, our nation's media seems to have gone out of its way to a void any comparable criticism of Turkey. Rather than heap ethnic contempt upon Greek and Armenian-Americans, these groups should be applauded for speaking up on human rights and international legal issues where others have remained silent. As it has don e with a host of other injustices, it is the American press that should have taken the lead in exposing the State Department's unconscionable support of Turkey, arguably the most egregious human rights offender and violator of international law in both Eu rope and Asia.
Far more significant than the doctored warnings of job losses and geostrategic setbacks that would allegedly result from a decist from a decision not to sell Ankara ten Cobra helicopters is the protection of a commodity far more integral to America's well being: our nation's moral and spiritual integrity.
Very truly yours,
Phillip Spyropoulos, Esq.