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An incongruous and equally indelible sight was an ultraprofessional urban rescue squad from Fairfax County, the A-team of American disaster response specialists. It took the squad barely a day to deploy 30 tons of equipment and 76 experts, who spent sleepless days and nights sifting through the rubble of collapsed buildings, searching for victims with the help of high-tech gadgetry that included a listening device so sensitive that it could detect a heartbeat, a gasp or a person drawing air far underground.
One afternoon, as hundreds of Turks looked on, brows furrowed, praying silently, the Fairfax team saved the life of a wiry, frightened 7-year-old boy who, having been asleep on the bottom half of a double bunk, was sealed under yards of wreckage when his apartment building collapsed. It saved the life of a spirited 24-year-old woman who joked with her rescuers as they sawed and shoveled their way through the rubble for more than four hours to reach her. And it saved the life of a 43-year-old woman whose brother was so sure she had died that he had brought a coffin to collect her body from a pile of twisted ruins where she had once lived in a third-floor flat.
That small example of our country’s awesome capability and reach — the ability to move civilian experts and heavy equipment more than 5,000 miles on a moment’s notice to help an ally in dire straits — probably did more to move Turkish hearts and minds than a hundred hollow speeches by politicians and diplomats. It’s precisely what is needed right now as Turkey grapples with this new catastrophe, which also shook northwestern Syria.
The United States and Turkey are awkward allies, vital to each other’s security and interests but always bickering over an array of crosscutting conflicts. At the top of that list, at the moment, is a standoff involving the expansion of NATO, in which the United States and Turkey are the two most populous members.
Ankara is blocking the accession of Sweden and Finland,which abandoned decades of official neutrality and asked to join the alliance after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. To help break the deadlock, President Biden has proposed that Congress accede to Turkey’s request for billions of dollars in upgrades to its fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, which lawmakers on Capitol Hill at the moment seem unlikely to approve.
The F-16 impasse is one component in a thicket of conflicts between Turkey and its NATO allies. Ankara also insists that Stockholm extradite Kurds living in Sweden who are regarded as terrorists by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Swedes have refused, citing the prerogatives of their independent judiciary. Diplomacy has so far failed to broker a deal.
Where conventional diplomacy fails, humanitarian diplomacy might chip away at the ice. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wasted no time on Monday in announcing that members of the alliance were gearing up to help Turkey recover, and he pledged “full solidarity with our ally Turkey in the aftermath of this terrible earthquake.”
And amid news that Israel was preparing to send rescue teams and medical help to Turkey, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had also received a request for assistance from Syria, Israel’s sworn enemy, through diplomatic channels. “I have authorized that,” he said. The Israeli leader’s decision will not produce a rapprochement with the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but it will likely register as a deposit of good will and might yield future returns.
Earthquakes like those that have struck Turkey — which, unlike hurricanes, cannot be forecast — are unspeakably destructive, leaving cities and towns so pulverized they look as if they have been bombed. Few countries have the means to respond on their own, and those with the resources to help have a moral obligation to do so.
In the case of Turkey, where Erdogan has occasionally wielded anti-Americanism to stir his nationalist base, U.S. humanitarian aid should be given quickly and selflessly. It could also do useful double-duty in reminding Turkey where its friends, and its interests, might coincide.
Turkey desperately needs our help. Let’s give it quickly and selflessly.
Before Monday’s earthquake in Turkey, the country’s worst temblor in recent memory was in 1999, an event that took the lives of 17,000 and left me with a tableau of horrific and heartbreaking memories. I had rushed there from Jerusalem, where I was then based as a Post foreign correspondent, and was immediately overwhelmed by scenes I will never forget — not least the calm, tireless, self-sacrificing help that Turks rendered to one another.An incongruous and equally indelible sight was an ultraprofessional urban rescue squad from Fairfax County, the A-team of American disaster response specialists. It took the squad barely a day to deploy 30 tons of equipment and 76 experts, who spent sleepless days and nights sifting through the rubble of collapsed buildings, searching for victims with the help of high-tech gadgetry that included a listening device so sensitive that it could detect a heartbeat, a gasp or a person drawing air far underground.
One afternoon, as hundreds of Turks looked on, brows furrowed, praying silently, the Fairfax team saved the life of a wiry, frightened 7-year-old boy who, having been asleep on the bottom half of a double bunk, was sealed under yards of wreckage when his apartment building collapsed. It saved the life of a spirited 24-year-old woman who joked with her rescuers as they sawed and shoveled their way through the rubble for more than four hours to reach her. And it saved the life of a 43-year-old woman whose brother was so sure she had died that he had brought a coffin to collect her body from a pile of twisted ruins where she had once lived in a third-floor flat.
That small example of our country’s awesome capability and reach — the ability to move civilian experts and heavy equipment more than 5,000 miles on a moment’s notice to help an ally in dire straits — probably did more to move Turkish hearts and minds than a hundred hollow speeches by politicians and diplomats. It’s precisely what is needed right now as Turkey grapples with this new catastrophe, which also shook northwestern Syria.
The United States and Turkey are awkward allies, vital to each other’s security and interests but always bickering over an array of crosscutting conflicts. At the top of that list, at the moment, is a standoff involving the expansion of NATO, in which the United States and Turkey are the two most populous members.
Ankara is blocking the accession of Sweden and Finland,which abandoned decades of official neutrality and asked to join the alliance after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. To help break the deadlock, President Biden has proposed that Congress accede to Turkey’s request for billions of dollars in upgrades to its fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, which lawmakers on Capitol Hill at the moment seem unlikely to approve.
The F-16 impasse is one component in a thicket of conflicts between Turkey and its NATO allies. Ankara also insists that Stockholm extradite Kurds living in Sweden who are regarded as terrorists by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Swedes have refused, citing the prerogatives of their independent judiciary. Diplomacy has so far failed to broker a deal.
Where conventional diplomacy fails, humanitarian diplomacy might chip away at the ice. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wasted no time on Monday in announcing that members of the alliance were gearing up to help Turkey recover, and he pledged “full solidarity with our ally Turkey in the aftermath of this terrible earthquake.”
And amid news that Israel was preparing to send rescue teams and medical help to Turkey, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had also received a request for assistance from Syria, Israel’s sworn enemy, through diplomatic channels. “I have authorized that,” he said. The Israeli leader’s decision will not produce a rapprochement with the regime of Bashar al-Assad, but it will likely register as a deposit of good will and might yield future returns.
Earthquakes like those that have struck Turkey — which, unlike hurricanes, cannot be forecast — are unspeakably destructive, leaving cities and towns so pulverized they look as if they have been bombed. Few countries have the means to respond on their own, and those with the resources to help have a moral obligation to do so.
In the case of Turkey, where Erdogan has occasionally wielded anti-Americanism to stir his nationalist base, U.S. humanitarian aid should be given quickly and selflessly. It could also do useful double-duty in reminding Turkey where its friends, and its interests, might coincide.
