[Skybird]

My choice of words lacked precision. My fault. I had the orient of the last couple of decades on my mind when writing. Persia, Irak, Palestine, ME conflict in modern understanding.

However: historically, one could go back to the threat by the Osman empire, though. In fact one could go back to the time of the Islamic expansion one millenia and earlier ago, when parts of Europe up to the heart of France were under occupation by Arabs and North Africans who were "heavily influenced" by the ideology of Muhammad, to put it that way.

In the end, even the first crusade was a reaction to capture back territory that was considered worthy and that was to be get back from Islamic aggression, a territory that before was Christian-Jewish dominated, and was a Roman province.

The history of Europe and the orient of the past 1400 years is a history of war and attempts to conquer Europe - until today, though by different means nowadays.

Russia - is Russia, due to its mere size. It'S neither Europe nor Orient to me. It's Russia, showing very different faces in various parts of it'S territory.

But let'S not turn this into another Islam-thread. The Marshall Fund's release is about something different: USA -EUR-Asia, and touches upon Turkey only on a sideline.