Posted on 10/16/2007 5:22:23 PM PDT by Lorianne
Turkey’s integration into the global economy was sealed last week by a billion-dollar offer by the American private-equity firm KKR for a local shipping company. Days later, Turkish troops shelled Kurdish villages in northern Iraq and prepared an incursion against Kurdish rebels, a measure that would undermine Turkey’s economic standing. Whether Turkey will fling away its new-found prosperity in a fit of national pique is hard to forecast, but that has been the way of all flesh. Europe plunged into World War I in 1914at the peak of its prosperity for similar reasons.
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
KURDISTAN WORKERS PARTY
The Kurdistan Workers Party (Kurdish: Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan or PKK, Turkish: Kurdistan Isci Partisi, also called KADEK, Kongra-Gel, and KCK) is an armed militant group founded in the 1970s and led, until his capture in 1999, by Abdullah Ocalan.[4] The PKK’s ideology was founded on revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and Kurdish nationalism. The PKK’s goal has been to create an independent socialist Kurdish state in a territory which it claims as Kurdistan, an area that comprises parts of south-eastern Turkey, north-eastern Iraq, north-eastern Syria and north-western Iran; those states oppose any such change.[5][6] It is an ethnic secessionist organization that uses force and the threat of force against both civilian[7] and military targets for the purpose of achieving its political goal.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization internationally by a number of states and organizations, including the USA, NATO and the EU.[1][3] More than 37,000 people have been killed in the Turkey-PKK conflict since 1984, most of which were civilians, [8] 4,568 being military personnel.[9]
I thought we were gonna help stop terrorism.
This is Marxist-Leninist terrorism. You have to wonder where their funding comes from.
The dominant religion in Armenia is Christianity, ==========
why aren’t we hearing “ The MOSLEM Turks killed one million CHRISTIAN Armenians?
Under the millet system of Ottoman law, Armenians (as dhimmis, along with Greeks, Jews and other ethnic and religious minorities) were subject to laws different from those applied to Muslims.[8] They had separate legal courts, although disputes involving a Muslim fell under sharia-based law. Armenians were exempt from serving in the military and were instead made to pay an exemption tax, the jizya; their testimony in Islamic courts was inadmissible against Muslims; they were not allowed to bear arms, and they had to pay a higher tax,[9] despite being one of the largest minorities in the Ottoman Empire
Turkey’s integration into the global economy was sealed last week by a billion-dollar offer by the American private-equity firm KKR for a local shipping company. Days later, Turkish troops shelled Kurdish villages in northern Iraq and prepared an incursion against Kurdish rebels, a measure that would undermine Turkey’s economic standing. Whether Turkey will fling away its new-found prosperity in a fit of national pique is hard to forecast, but that has been the way of all flesh. Europe plunged into World War I in 1914 at the peak of its prosperity for similar reasons.
News accounts link Turkey’s threat to invade northern Iraq with outrage over a resolution before the US Congress recognizing that Turkey committed genocide against its Armenian population in 1915. American diplomats are in Ankara seeking to persuade the Turks to stay on their side of the border. Why the Turks should take out their rancour at the US on the Kurds might seem anomalous until we consider that the issue of Armenian genocide has become a proxy for Turkey’s future disposition towards the Kurds. “We did not exterminate the Armenians,” Ankara says in effect, “and, by the way, we’re going to not exterminate the Kurds, too.”
Nations have tragic flaws, just as do individuals. The task of the tragedian is to show how catastrophic occurrences arise from hidden faults rather than from random error. Turkish history is tragic: a fatal flaw in the national character set loose the 1915 genocide against the Armenians, as much as Macbeth’s ambition forced him to murder Banquo. Because the same flaw still torments the Turkish nation, and the tragedy has a sequel in the person of the Kurds, Turkey cannot face up to its century-old crime against the Armenians.
Shakespeare included the drunken Porter in Macbeth for comic relief; in the present version, the cognate role is played by US President George W Bush, who has begged Congress not to offend an important ally by stating the truth about what happened 100 years ago. The sorry spectacle of an American president begging Congress not to affirm what the whole civilized world knows to be true underlines the overall stupidity of US policy towards the Middle East. It is particularly despicable for a Western nation to avert its eyes from a Muslim genocide against a Christian population.
It offends reason to claim that the Turkish government’s 1915 campaign to exterminate the Armenians was not a genocide. Documentary evidence of a central plan is exhaustive, and available to anyone with access to Wikipedia. It was not quite the same as Hitler’s genocide against the Jews, that is, the Turks did not propose to kill every ethnic Armenian everywhere in the world, but only those in Anatolia. But it was genocide, or the word has no meaning. To teach Turkish schoolchildren that more Turks than Armenians died in a “conflict” is a symptom of national hysteria. Hysteria, however, does not occur spontaneously in countries with Turkey’s record of national success. One must dig for the root cause.
Turkey’s tragedy is that the 11th Seljuk conquerors of the Anatolian peninsula became masters of a majority Christian population, a cradle of Greek culture for two millennia, in which the oldest and hardiest ethnicity, the Armenians, held fast to the Christian religion they adopted in 301 AD. Even after the forced conversion of Anatolia to Islam, the Ottoman Turks comprised a minority. Turkey, so to speak, was ill-born to begin with, and the Armenian genocide touches upon a profound and well-justified insecurity in the Turkish national character.
After the loss of the European part of its empire in the Balkans, in the midst of World War I, the Ottoman Empire feared for its hold upon Anatolia itself, and decided to settle the long-unfinished business of conquest with a conscious act of genocide. But the Turks lacked the resources to do so in the midst of war, and Turkey’s military leaders enlisted Kurdish tribes to do most of the actual killing in return for Armenian land. That is why Kurds dominate eastern Turkey, which used to be called, “Western Armenia”. The Armenian genocide, in short, gave rise to what today is Turkey’s Kurdish problem.
Commentators close to the Bush administration allege that Democrats in Congress are exploiting the Armenian issue in order to sabotage America’s war effort in Iraq. Ralph Peters writes in the October 14 New York Post, for example, “The Dems calculate that, without those [US] flights and convoys [through Turkey], we won't be able to keep our troops adequately supplied. Key intelligence and strike missions would disappear. It's a brilliant ploy - the Dems get to stab our troops in the back, but lay the blame off on the Turks.”
I am shocked, shocked to learn that the Democratic Party is engaged in politics. Col Peters, though, misses the big picture. With or without the Armenian resolution, conflict had to erupt with Turkey. Far more threatening to Turkey than the resolution on Armenian genocide was the 75-23 vote in the US Senate last month in favor of dividing Iraq into Sunni, Shi’ite, and Kurdish zones. Republicans as well as Democrats supported this resolution, and with good reason. I have advocated the breakup of the Mesopotamian monster named “Iraq” for years, and do not think this step can long be withheld.
Kurdish nationhood will be the likely outcome of Iraq’s breakup. Ethnic Kurds comprise a full fifth of Turkey’s population, and the existence of a Kurdish nation will exercise a gravitational pull upon Kurds in Turkey. Turkey fears with good reason for its national integrity. If the American Congress accuses the Turkey of genocide against the Armenians (as 22 countries already have), the Kurds will have a stronger argument for autonomy - despite the fact that the Kurds dominate eastern Turkey precisely because they slaughtered the Armenians. The Kurds may not deserve nationhood, but “’Deserves’ got nothing to do with it,” as Clint Eastwood’s character offered in the movie Unforgiven.
When the issue of Armenian genocide erupted, I immediately looked for news about the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature, and the only Turk with a global voice. Pamuk reportedly spent his prize money on a Manhattan apartment, suggesting that he has no plans to return to a homeland that threatened to jail him for mentioning the Armenian massacres to a Swiss interviewer. That speaks volumes about the Turkish frame of mind.
Pamuk’s novel Snow comes as close to a national tragedy as Turkey is likely to produce. Set in the eastern border city of Kars, it shows how Islam is filling the hollow spaces in the secular Turkish society created by Kemal Ataturk, the great modernizer who fashioned the post-Ottoman state. Young women hang themselves in protest against the proscription of Islamic garb, and young men turn to Islamist terrorism. The decaying mansions of the murdered Armenians of Kars look down upon the tragedy like a spectral chorus. In past essays I have recommended Pamuk’s work to anyone who seeks to understand Turkey (The fallen bridge over the Bosporus, Oct 31, 2006; In defense of Turkish cigarettes, Aug 24, 2006). To his own chagrin, Pamuk has become the conscience of his nation, and a nation that exiles its conscience becomes a danger to itself and others.
Iraq never has been viable as a national entity, not when the British Colonial Office cobbled it together out of former Ottoman provinces in 1921, nor when Saddam Hussein ruled it by terror, and surely not under the present American occupation. As the US Senate has had the belated wisdom to recognize, it will break up. The Ottoman Empire never was viable - at its peak half of its population was Christian - and its Anatolian rump, namely modern Turkey, may break up as well. Iran, the mini-empire of the Persians who comprise only half the population, may not hold together, nor may Syria, a witches’ cauldron of ethnicities ruled by the brutal hand of the Alawite minority.
America is not responsible for chaos in the Middle East. The Middle East has known nothing but chaos for most of its history. The colonial policy of the European powers after World War I left inherently unstable structures in place that must, one day, meet their reckoning. But America’s obsession with the surgical implant of democracy in the region forces it into a murderous game of whack-a-mole with a welter of armed ethnicities.
How should American strategy respond to violent expressions of existential despair by failing ethnicities? One approach was suggested by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on October 14: “A starting point is [former Carter Administration National Security Advisor] Zbigniew Brzezinski's new book, Second Chance, which argues that America's best hope is to align itself with what he calls a 'global political awakening'. The former national security adviser explains: ‘In today's restless world, America needs to identify with the quest for universal human dignity, a dignity that embodies both freedom and democracy but also implies respect for cultural diversity.'"
I suppose Brzezinski means that America should avoid offending Turkish dignity when speaking about the Armenians, and do the same with the Armenians when speaking of the Turks. What makes the appeal to “cultural diversity” preposterous is that the self-expression of Seljuk Turk culture is the suppression of the Kurds, the self-expression of Sunni identity is to suppress the Shi’ites, and so on and so forth. Ethnic tantrums in response to perceived indignities are amplified by a sense of failure in the modern world that cannot be assuaged by American “respect”.
Live and let die, I propose instead. For the past seven years I have argued that the West cannot avoid perpetual conflict in the Middle East, and, rather than seeking stability, should steer the instability towards its own ends. Washington should forget about Turkish support in Iraq, allow the Mesopotamian entity to disintegrate into its constituent parts, while helping the Kurds maintain autonomy against Iraq. That would teach the Turks to bite the hand that feeds them. A pro-Western Kurdish state would strengthen Washington’s hand throughout region, with adumbrations in Syria and Iran as well as Turkey.
One should, of course, take Turkish interests into account. To restore its national dignity, Turkey should be encouraged to incorporate the Turkish-speaking (“Azeri”) minority of Iran, and so forth. Turkey ultimately may concede territory to an independent Kurdistan, but more than replace it by annexing portions of Western Iran. One cannot accord respect to failing nationalities; one can only let them fight it out. Breaking up Iraq will not foster stability. On the contrary, it will make the old instabilities a permanent feature of the regional landscape.
In the case of Iraq, the danger associated with partition stems from Iran’s influence among Iraqi Shi’ites. But Iran, as noted, is just as vulnerable to ethnic disintegration as Iraq, and Washington should do its best to encourage this. If, as I expect, the West employs force against Iran’s nuclear weapons development capacity, the ensuing humiliation of the Tehran regime would provide an opportunity to undo some of the dirty work of World War I-era cartographers. All this is hypothetical, of course; the little men behind the desks in Washington do not have the stomach for it. national integrity. If the American Congress accuses the Turkey of genocide against the Armenians (as 22 countries already have), the Kurds will have a stronger argument for autonomy - despite the fact that the Kurds dominate eastern Turkey precisely because they slaughtered the Armenians. The Kurds may not deserve nationhood, but “’Deserves’ got nothing to do with it,” as Clint Eastwood’s character offered in the movie Unforgiven.
Headline, some time in the future: "30,000th American casualty spurs calls to enter Mexico, clean-up drug criminals.
"Just a fit of national pique, says drug czar. Washington should calm down."
No whey!
[rimshot!]
Get off your tuffet and keep it clean!
“along came a spider and sat down beside her and said...”
The Turks note that their problem with Armenian terrorists ended about the same time that their trouble with the Kurds began, and think that the same people are ultimately behind both groups.
The Armenians have their own country now (or I should say, “for now”). The Kurds do not. If the Turks had any brains, they’d set up a Kurdish autonomous area, with a view toward spinning it off for independence, then co-opt the guerrila movements by building one of their own to operate in Iran against the mullahcracy’s forces. That way they’d have no more trouble with the Kurds, as the Kurdish independence movement would owe everything to Turkey, and be 100 per cent reliant on it. Oh well. But they’re right — even in the time of the Shah, Iran played the local Kurds against the neighboring states with Kurdish populations, and Saddam played the same game. Right now the Kurds are a convenient proxy and buffer pseudo-state.
Good catch. Turkey is having some chickens come home to roost.
Here’s my usual post regarding this area.
Maybe my tagline will come true.
We should withdraw from Iraq — through Tehran. Here’s how I think we should “pull out of Iraq.” Add one more front to the scenario below, which would be a classic amphibious beach landing from the south in Iran, and it becomes a “strategic withdrawal” from Iraq. And I think the guy who would pull it off is Duncan Hunter.
How to Stand Up to Iran
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1808220/posts?page=36#36
Posted by Kevmo to TomasUSMC
On News/Activism 03/28/2007 7:11:08 PM PDT · 36 of 36
Split Iraq up and get out
***The bold military move would be to mobilize FROM Iraq into Iran through Kurdistan and then sweep downward, meeting up with the forces that we pull FROM Afghanistan in a 2-pronged offensive. We would be destroying nuke facilities and building concrete fences along geo-political lines, separating warring tribes physically. At the end, we take our boys into Kurdistan, set up a couple of big military bases and stay awhile. We could invite the French, Swiss, Italians, Mozambiqans, Argentinians, Koreans, whoever is willing to be the police forces for the regions that we move through, and if the area gets too hot for these peacekeeper weenies we send in military units. Basically, it would be learning the lesson of Iraq and applying it.
15 rules for understanding the Middle East
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1774248/posts
Rule 8: Civil wars in the Arab world are rarely about ideas — like liberalism vs. communism. They are about which tribe gets to rule. So, yes, Iraq is having a civil war as we once did. But there is no Abe Lincoln in this war. It’s the South vs. the South.
Rule 10: Mideast civil wars end in one of three ways: a) like the U.S. civil war, with one side vanquishing the other; b) like the Cyprus civil war, with a hard partition and a wall dividing the parties; or c) like the Lebanon civil war, with a soft partition under an iron fist (Syria) that keeps everyone in line. Saddam used to be the iron fist in Iraq. Now it is us. If we don’t want to play that role, Iraq’s civil war will end with A or B.
Let’s say my scenario above is what happens. Would that military mobilization qualify as a “withdrawal” from Iraq as well as Afghanistan? Then, when we’re all done and we set up bases in Kurdistan, it wouldn’t really be Iraq, would it? It would be Kurdistan.
.
.
I have posted in the past that I think the key to the strategy in the middle east is to start with an independent Kurdistan. If we engaged Iran in such a manner we might earn back the support of these windvane politicians and wussie voters who don’t mind seeing a quick & victorious fight but hate seeing endless police action battles that don’t secure a country.
I thought it would be cool for us to set up security for the Kurds on their southern border with Iraq, rewarding them for their bravery in defying Saddam Hussein. We put in some military bases there for, say, 20 years as part of the occupation of Iraq in their transition to democracy. We guarantee the autonomy of Iraqi Kurdistan as long as they don’t engage with Turkey. But that doesn’t say anything about engaging with Iranian Kurdistan. Within those 20 years the Kurds could have a secure and independent nation with expanding borders into Iran. After we close down the US bases, Kurdistan is on her own. But at least Kurdistan would be an independent nation with about half its territory carved out of Persia. If Turkey doesn’t relinquish her claim on Turkish Kurdistan after that, it isn’t our problem, it’s 2 of our allies fighting each other, one for independence and the other for regional primacy. I support democratic independence over a bullying arrogant minority.
The kurds are the closest thing we have to friends in that area. They fought against Saddam (got nerve-gassed), they’re fighting against Iran, they squabble with our so-called ally Turkey (who didn’t allow Americans to operate in the north of Iraq this time around).
It’s time for them to have their own country. They deserve it. They carve Kurdistan out of northern Iraq, northern Iran, and try to achieve some kind of autonomy in eastern Turkey. If Turkey gets angry, we let them know that there are consequences to turning your back on your “friend” when they need you. If the Turks want trouble, they can invade the Iraqi or Persian state of Kurdistan and kill americans to make their point. It wouldn’t be a wise move for them, they’d get their backsides handed to them and have eastern Turkey carved out of their country as a result.
If such an act of betrayal to an ally means they get a thorn in their side, I would be happy with it. It’s time for people who call themselves our allies to put up or shut up. The Kurds have been putting up and deserve to be rewarded with an autonomous and sovereign Kurdistan, borne out of the blood of their own patriots.
Should Turkey decide to make trouble with their Kurdish population, we would stay out of it, other than to guarantee sovereignty in the formerly Iranian and Iraqi portions of Kurdistan. When one of our allies wants to fight another of our allies, it’s a messy situation. If Turkey goes “into the war on Iran’s side” then they ain’t really our allies and that’s the end of that.
I agree that it’s hard on troops and their families. We won the war 4 years ago. This aftermath is the nation builders and peacekeeper weenies realizing that they need to understand things like the “15 rules for understanding the Middle East”
This was the strategic error that GWB committed. It was another brilliant military campaign but the followup should have been 4X as big. All those countries that don’t agree with sending troups to fight a war should have been willing to send in policemen and nurses to set up infrastructure and repair the country.
What do you think we should do with Iraq?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1752311/posts
Posted by Kevmo to Blue Scourge
On News/Activism 12/12/2006 9:17:33 AM PST · 23 of 105
My original contention was that we should have approached the reluctant “allies” like the French to send in Police forces for the occupation after battle, since they were so unwilling to engage in the fighting. It was easy to see that we’d need as many folks in police and nurse’s uniforms as we would in US Army unitorms in order to establish a democracy in the middle east. But, since we didn’t follow that line of approach, we now have a civil war on our hands. If we were to set our sights again on the police/nurse approach, we might still be able to pull this one off. I think we won the war in Iraq; we just haven’t won the peace.
I also think we should simply divide the country. The Kurds deserve their own country, they’ve proven to be good allies. We could work with them to carve out a section of Iraq, set their sights on carving some territory out of Iran, and then when they’re done with that, we can help “negotiate” with our other “allies”, the Turks, to secure Kurdish autonomy in what presently eastern Turkey.
That leaves the Sunnis and Shiites to divide up what’s left. We would occupy the areas between the two warring factions. Also, the UN/US should occupy the oil-producing regions and parcel out the revenue according to whatever plan they come up with. That gives all the sides something to argue about rather than shooting at us.
That leaves Damascus for round II. The whole deal could be circumvented by Syria if they simply allow real inspections of the WOMD sites. And when I say “real”, I mean real — the inspectors would have a small armor division that they could call on whenever they get held up by some local yocal who didn’t get this month’s bribe. Hussein was an idiot to dismantle all of his WOMDs and then not let the inspectors in. If he had done so, he’d still be in power, pulling Bush’s chain.
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