We are told that America supports Turkey because it is a secular Muslim democracy.
Turkey has among the worst human rights records on Earth.
Oz-like, behind a thin veneer of democracy. For the fifth consecutive year, Turkey leads the world in imprisoned journalists and has recently admitted to using death squads to kill as many as 14,000 people since the 1980s. Most of the 35,000 fatalities arising from Turkey's war against Kurdish separatists have been Kurds, and Human Rights Watch attributes the vast majority of civilian deaths to Turkish troops. According to a State Department report, up to 3 million Kurds have been forcefully displaced by Turkey's military. In 1974, Turkish forces ethnically cleansed 200,000 Cypriots after invading the north of Cyprus, which Turkey still occupies.