AES writes:

But let me also tell you: The prestigious US university EE Dept from
which I'm retired gets a fair number of its PhD grad students from
Turkey; I've known a fair number of them well (though never actually had
one as a PhD student of mine); they're superb students technically (they
have to be, to get into this program), and they are also superb
individuals on a purely personal basis.

Pilots do not generally have doctorates. Different population, different
culture.

We'd better find a way to help Turkey itself also move up into the
Western world, and not sink back down into the Middle Eastern.

Turkey needs to solve its own problems, like every other country. If they are
indeed fundamentally competent, then they don't need help. Their culture is
apparently more linked to the Middle East than Europe, which is bad for
development and advancement into the 20th (and eventually the 21st) century.