Whoa. I totally don't care. That cannot possibly be a good sign.

that war is only a matter of time, the kurds have been severely opressed in turkey and the Kurdistan workers party PKK is considered a terrorist organization there.

is basically a deja vu man, remember when the muhajadin were called "freedom fighters by reagan? now that they reincarnated as al queda theyre terrorists.

our allies are freedom fighters now and they have a just fight against the turks, but they do use terrorism. they can not overthrow the enemy and have used terrorism since the 70's. if only people read their history before invading. the turks use terrorism but is a state is not considered such, just like us. bomb fallujah into the stone age but is not terrorism is freedom fighting.

man, this is one lovely fucking mess we have helped create. people should read this week's NYTIMES magazine, it has a pretty good article on the exile iraquis who are now running iraq and basically became a shiite revenge goverment against the sunnis.

The reality of the situation is darker than the admin's spin. We've actually been funding the Kurdish guerilla groups because we think of them as our first line of defence vs. Iran. In addition to making incursions into Turkey and waging a guerilla war there, they've been making forays into Iran. That bit we really want to continue. And of course there's the oil....

No, not good. And, yes, entirely predictable at the start of this debacle.

Yep, puts us in a pretty pickle alright.

As the only secular democracy in the region, Turkey receives a huge amount of U.S. military aid, and the idea that they might use some of that against the Kurds, whom we've been arming to the teeth, for all the reasons cited previously, must have analysts at the CIA, DoD and NSA among others, just about shitting themselves right now.

As gnossos said, entirely predictable, but also exactly the sort of scenario most intelligence experts have been dreading as much as the equally inevitable involvement of the Iranians in the current debacle.

Only, in this case, shrub can't even TRY to build a case for bombing Ankara back to the stone age.

Thanks to our neo-con overlords, for fucking things up SO badly, all the while shredding the Constitution and the notion of fiscal sanity, while looting the treasury. Fuckers.

Comte @ 5: "exactly the sort of scenario most intelligence experts have been dreading as much as the equally inevitable involvement of the Iranians in the current debacle."

And, to inject a political note into it, this is what scares me most about a Clinton victory.

It would be one thing if she said she went along with shrub for something like unity in the face of crisis or some such shit. I would reject it, but I could understand it.

To say she voted for the war because she believed what he said, tells me that a) she doesn't have even a basic grasp of the history/culture/politics of the middle east and that b) no one on her staff does or she doesn't listen to them.

I don't need for her apologize and grovel. But I do need for her to acknowledge her profound ignorance and pledge that she will actively recruit, hire and listen to those who do really know this region.

Until then, nothing she says (including her borderline idiot comments on withdrawal) counts. In fact, it counts heavily against her.

Peter Galbraith called it.

Turkey probably won't do a damn thing, though. They're catching a lot of flak for the Cyprus question, and invading Kurdistan wouldn't win them any points in the EU. The benefits of joining the EU outweigh the small chance the PKK has of actually overthrowing the Turkish government.

The benefits of joining the EU outweigh the small chance the PKK has of actually overthrowing the Turkish government.

Yeah, but in whose eyes? No matter how much the governmental powers in Turkey might agree with you (and I don't really know if they actually do) I'd be willing to bet that the tide of popular opinion in Turkey will sweep that all away. The prospect of repaying in blood beats out membership in the EU anyday.

Kinaidos - it's an even trickier situation when you consider that the vast majority of goods that come into Kurdish Iraq come in from Iran. Iran can turn off the faucet whenever it wants.

You do not tell me what to do!

Historically speaking, the Turks, like the Germans, have been bullies on the playground of war. The Kurds chummed the waters and the bellicose stomachs of the Turkish sharks have been growling louder and louder. Not surprised at this nascent turn of events.

Is Slog hiring people to post the morning news before fucking noon EST? Because write to me if you are.

@13

Just go to Drudge. Fuck it.

No one could possibly have forseen the destabilization of the entire Middle East!

Huh. The thing is, Turkey is a NATO member, and therefore, we are legally bound to regard any attack on them as an attack on ourselves. According to our alliance with them, we should be attacking Kurdistan ourselves.

Good thing we don't give a fuck about international law anymore.

Gitai,

That would make sense if Turkey were being attacked by another sovereign state, but in this case we're talking a (barely) semi-autonomous region within a (also barely) sovereign state, so I don't know if our NATO committment would apply in that case.

And since we're already clearly and openly supplying arms to both sides here, whichever ever way we decide to throw our support turns into yet another lose-lose scenario.

Fucked again.

This is quite a pickle. I am, however, not surprised.

The nation of Turkey has a long history of abusing civil rights. Turkey's genocide of millions of Armenians, Pontians, and Assyrians is still not recognized by Turkey. Even worse, it is illegal to imply that the genocide even occurred. Turkey is still oppressive towards her non-Turkish citizens, including the Kurds. It is not surprising that there is insurgency.

Post number 11 shows the typical attitude.

I hope that some balance can be reached, because the world doesn't need this.

Thanks, Dan for the info. I shall pass it on.

This goes back a ways. Before there was Turkey, there was the Ottoman Empire, which finally dislodged the Greeks in 1453. The Ottoman Empire was multi-ethnic, run by Turks, and collapsed in World War 1.

The British and French took over the Middle East, and attempted to carve up Turkey. Ataturk set Turkey up as a modern, secular, unitary ethnic state, and they fended off the European powers. It worked, but part and parcel of this project has been the denial and suppression of non-Turkish ethnic identity, Armenian and Kurdish especially.

The Turks are now caught in a trap of their own making: they want to join the European Union, but must respect minority rights to be admitted, while terrorism is hitting home, based on their past mistreatment of those same minorities.

@18 - i think 11 was a joke.

@12. so, i'm confused. are the turks playground bullies, or sharks?

or are they shark bullies? oooh! that's the worst kind. except sharks that shoot bees out of their mouths.

Predictable. The reason the kurds are so happily pushing for a three state solution is so they can try and make their own little Kurdistan, and yank part of Turkey off as they do it. Then Turkey turns on them, and everybody will expect us to solve the situation.

In the past week the deaths of Spc. Vincent G. Kamka, 23, and Lance Cpl. Jeremy Burris, 22, marked the 100th and 101rst Washington state related deaths in the Bush/Savage war on Iraq.

Excerpt from "Say Yes To War" by Dan Savage October 2002:

In the meantime, invading and rebuilding Iraq will not only free the Iraqi people, it will also make the Saudis aware of the consequences they face if they continue to oppress their own people while exporting terrorism and terrorists. The War on Iraq will make it clear to our friends and enemies in the Middle East (and elsewhere) that we mean business: Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize... or we're going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves.

This is good news. The war needs to escalate in the near future to justify bombing Iran. Looking twenty years out with the goal of securing Israel, we'll need to soften up Turkey, Iran, and place American/Israeli airbases throughtout the region to lock down Israel's role as regional leader.

I'd tell Turkey go ahead. American's will then allow the war to escalate to "protect the Kurds, and protect gay rights in Iran".