Susan Block

ISTANBUL -- The allegations can be heard almost everywhere in Turkey now, from farmers' wives eating in humble kebab shops, in influential journals, and from erudite political leaders: American troops have raped thousands of Iraqi women and young girls since ousting dictator Saddam Hussein.

Articles in Turkey's Islamist press reporting the allegations have fanned opposition here to the US invasion of Iraq to white-hot anger -- and even, apparently, to murder.

Nurullah Kuncak says his father, Ilyas Kuncak, was boiling about the rumored rapes just before he killed himself delivering the huge car bomb that devasted the Turkish headquarters of HSBC bank last month, killing a dozen people and wounding scores more.

So, a couple female GIs are discharged for beating up Iraqi men while their fellow soldiers are raping thousands of Iraqi women?

The initial reports in the Turkish press were published in Yeni Safak, a leading Islamist journal.

The first, a front-page article on Oct. 22, stated: ''In addition to the occupation and despoilation, thousands of Iraqi women are being raped by American soldiers. There are more than 4,000 rape events on the record.''

What is the significance of the number 4000 to the Islamofascist? Oddly enough, it's the same number of Jews who were said to have stayed home from work at their jobs in the WTC on 911.

The second article, published Dec. 3, claimed that the 54 Iraqis killed in the city of Samarra on Nov. 30 did not die when they attacked US convoys and were repulsed, as the US occupation authority reported, but were shot while rioting over the kidnapping and rape of 30 young girls by US soldiers.

Most humans have a filter they can pass information through and determine whether it has a "ring of truth" to it. Most, but not all.

One of the most dangerous aspects of these rumors, say Turkish and Western officials, is that people who do not at all fit the stereotypes of suicide bombers -- people like Ilyas Kuncak -- may be motivated to drastic action. The embassy official noted that Kuncak's son and one of his daughters told the Turkish media after their father blew up the HSBC office building in Istanbul's financial district that their father had been upset about the rape reports in the days before he set off the blast.

The suicide bomber's son, Nurullah, interviewed recently in his late father's spice shop in Istanbul's Bagcilar neighborhood, said Ilyas Kuncak's anger was perhaps a key to understanding the otherwise baffling question of why his father did what he did.

''Until now, I agreed with the Western idea that suicide bombers were poor people with nothing to lose,'' Nurullah Kuncak said. ''But look at my father. He had two houses, a good shop, five children, and two grandchildren.''

What is the immediate cause of this bizarre claims, resulting in so much death? According to this Boston Globe article credit goes to self-proclaimed "sex therapist" Dr. Susan Block, (California-based, doctorate in philosophy) who posted a porn-laced idiotarian hate screed on her website:

The supreme victory for the rapist is proof that his victim "enjoyed" it. Though he may force his way into her property, demolish her home, murder her loved ones, pillage her belongings, though he may terrify and humiliate her, beat and batter her, break her bones and tear her flesh, spill her blood, wound her organs and lay waste to her very soul, if, in the midst of the rape, between tears and shrieks of agony, if his victim should, for a moment, for some reason, any reason, if she should smile, or, better yet, orgasm, the rapist is redeemed; he is even (in his mind) heroic.

This is why, when the Anglo-American rape of Iraq began, we so desperately searched the Iraqi faces on our televisions for a smile.

I'll refrain from commenting on the type and level of detail involved in her rather well-developed rape fantasy.

The violence and the discovery of the source reached the US Embassy in Turkey, which

...strongly denounced the reports, calling them ''outrageous allegations . . . based on a US `source' best known for her pornographic websites and erotic television program.

"Dr" Block responds:

''I am a sex therapist and I use sexual terminology for political commentary,'' Block said. ''I did not say American troops are literally raping Iraqi women. . . . I don't know if Americans are raping Iraqi women. I do know they are killing them. I don't know if that's much better.'' She said it is clear that she was using ''rape'' as a metaphor for "invasion."

Obviously there are a lot of things she doesn't know. And it's clear that her web site still features the screed quite prominently posted. I suppose in her mind a few dead Turks is a small price to pay for the increase in web site visitors.

The bottom line though, is here is another example of the proof to the claim that idiotarian public statements from the American left do influence the actions of our enemies around the world, and in this case actually helped create enemies.

And bring death. Of course, "Dr" Block says she doesn't know if murder is much better than rape.

I'm not advocating any abridgement of free speech here; just pointing out that such speech has consequences.

''I am appalled to be misquoted and even more appalled that the story inspired someone to such violence,'' she said.

Smiling, perhaps.

Hat tip Best of the Web Today