Given what I know about Turkey, and trying to take all sides into account, I would say that the main reasons for Turkey rejecting the US request are:

--Desire to one day be part of the EU.

--Too many loans, not enough free money from the US.

--A possible uprising or rise in extremism from the Turkish people, who are predominantly Muslim. The army is sworn to the principles of Atatürk, and would crush any uprising that could run counter to those ideals. (IIRC, when fundamentalism became more obvious there a few years back, the head of the army gently reminded those folks that things were not going to shift in that direction as a whole.) So, worst-case scenario, you could wind up seeing an army coup and lots of folks dead in the end.

--The US would not give them control over Northern Iraq...the Turks hate the Kurds, and would love to exert their control over more of them.

I now wonder if the US will try and twist Turkey's arm, much in the same way they are apparently trying to do with Mexico.

I was listening to Triple J from Australia when I heard about this article in The Observer. If it is indeed true, then:

1) I'm not surprised.
2) I didn't think anybody really knew what the NSA did.

Er, I can tell you exactly what the NSA does (I was going to work for them before deciding to go with SAIC).

<b>They spy.</b>

Everything they do revolves around that one central mission. They don't have secret agents like you see in the movies. They're a bunch of nerds that spy.

And you're being watched by DHS...right...about...now.

I always figured it was top-secret CIA-like shit, hence why it's called No Such Agency.

(I used to pass the exit for them along the B-W Pkwy all the time though...now, why the hell would you advertise where you're located?)

Turkey was already on the US top five for foreign aid. A list that includes Israel and Egypt. Another $15+ billion is an unknown percentage increase. I also don't know how that affects Greece since aid to Greece and Turkey was to be a 5 to 7 ratio.

US promised Turkey that the EU would be pressured into accepting Turkey as a member. Turkey already being one of the US's strongest allies in Nato (along with Britian, Germany, and Netherlands). However considering how badly US relationships are with most every EU and NATO nation, I would guess Turkey could have discounted that promise as empty.

They do lots of counterspying stuff too, projects like tempest are involved purely in stopped leakage of electomagnetic info from equipment.

It's not like the CIA. The CIA doesn't do <b>just</b> spying. They <b>do</b> have agents, have been involved in plenty of assassination plots, etc.

Whereas the NSA is really just a bunch of really smart men and women who spy (and do counter-intelligence, yes). Breaking codes and finding ways to secure our systems. That's the NSA.