Posted on 10/14/2007 5:13:14 PM PDT by blam
US tries to halt Turkey attack
Diplomats fly to Ankara to stop military move against Iraqi Kurds after 'genocide' resolution
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday October 14, 2007
The Observer (UK)
Senior US officials were engaged last night in last-ditch efforts to persuade Turkey not to launch a major military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan to target armed separatists. A team was diverted from a mission to Russia to make an unscheduled stop in Ankara yesterday. Against the background of the escalating diplomatic row between Turkey and the US over a congressional resolution that branded as 'genocide' massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, revealed she had personally urged Turkey to refrain from any major military operation in northern Iraq. The row between the two Nato allies comes against the dangerous background of a threat by the Turkish parliament to approve this week a 'hot pursuit' of the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, across the border into northern Iraq.
The threat of military action came after last Sunday's killing by the PKK of 13 Turkish soldiers in an ambush in Sirnak province, close to the Iraqi border. 'I urged restraint,' said Rice, on a visit to Moscow, acknowledging 'a difficult time' between the two countries as she described her telephone conversations with Turkey's President Abdullah Gul, its Prime Minister and foreign minister.
'It's a difficult time for the relationship,' Rice said. 'We just thought it was a very good idea for two senior officials to go and talk to the Turks and have reassurance to the Turks that we really value this relationship.' Rice said that in her conversation with the Turks 'they were dismayed' by the congressional resolution. 'The Turkish government, I think,
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
They have their own autonomous region in Iraq. Not having their own nation doesn’t make it acceptable for Iraqi Kurdish terrorists to routinely sneak into Turkey to murder Turkish citizens.
***I agree. Would it be acceptable if the Kurds cooperated in rounding up the PKK in exchange for regional autonomy in eastern Turkey? Turks win (got rid of PKK) and Kurds win (get their own country, less some communist terrorists).
As for the analogy with U.S. and Mexico - if organized terrorist groups from Mexico were routinely coming to America to bomb and murder American citizens with Mexico enabling them, I’d want the U.S. to do a lot more than sit around building a fence - I’d want them to go into Mexico and root out the terrorist groups and take care of them for good.
***Interesting twist on what the current REAL situation is on the ground. To bring our two analogies together: Would the US give up a large portion of Texas and Mexico give up a large portion of northern mexico for a new TexMex country that is a democracy (with real tight border control!)? The new state of TexMex would have to cooperate in rounding up all AlQaeda & communist terrorist cells. I can say that as an American, the resistance is in giving up American soil to some illegal aliens who came across the border because of how good we built our country. But if it was all Legal citizens, a secession from the union would be kind of an interesting idea.
“The whole Kurdish showplace of freedom and orderly development in Iraqi Kurdistan has been jeopardized just because Pelosi and the Left felt it necessary to punish Turkey for the unforgivable sin of being an ally of the United States.”
In case you don’t know, the resolution is bipartisan that has many Republican cosponsors and it’s come up every year for many years — and killed every year for one reason or another.
The fact is roughly 1.5 million Christian Armenians were murdered by the Turkish government just for being “infidels,” which Turkey has always denied.
So let Turkey be angry about it. The truth is they need our support far more than we need theirs.
“They would throw over an ally...”
That’s where we disagree. Any nation that continuously denies and covers up evidence of a genocide and pretends to be “offended” that another nation acknowledges that genocide is no ally.
Sabotage in Wartime (Thomas Sowell)
Townhall.com ^ | October 15, 2007 | Thomas Sowell
Posted on 10/15/2007 8:32:40 PM CDT by jazusamo
Monday, October 15, 2007
With all the problems facing this country, both in Iraq and at home, why is Congress spending time trying to pass a resolution condemning the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago?
Make no mistake about it, that massacre of hundreds of thousands — perhaps a million or more — Armenians was one of the worst atrocities in all of history.
As with the later Holocaust against the Jews, it was not considered sufficient to kill innocent victims. They were first put through soul-scarring dehumanization in whatever sadistic ways occurred to those who carried out these atrocities.
Historians need to make us aware of such things. But why are politicians suddenly trying to pass Congressional resolutions about these events, long after all those involved are dead and after the Ottoman Empire in which all these things happened no longer exists?
The short answer is irresponsible politics.
People of Armenian ancestry in the United States and around the world are justifiably outraged at what happened in the Ottoman Empire — and at subsequent governments in Turkey which have refused to acknowledge or accept historical responsibility for the mass atrocities that took place on their soil.
But the sudden interest of Congressional Democrats in this issue goes beyond trying to pick up some votes.
They want a resolution to condemn what happened as “genocide” — a word that provokes instant anger among today’s Turks, since genocide means a deliberate government policy aimed at exterminating a whole people, as distinguished from horrors growing out of a widespread breakdown of law and order in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
These are issues of historical facts and semantics best left to scholars rather than politicians.
If Congress has gone nearly a century without passing a resolution accusing the Turks of genocide, why now, in the midst of the Iraq war?
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this resolution is just the latest in a series of Congressional efforts to sabotage the conduct of that war.
Large numbers of American troops and vast amounts of military equipment go to Iraq through Turkey, one of the few nations in the Islamic Middle East that has long been an American ally.
Turkey has also thus far refrained from retaliating against guerrilla attacks from the Kurdish regions of Iraq onto Turkish soil. But the Turks could retaliate big time if they chose.
There are more Turkish troops on the border of Iraq than there are American troops within Iraq.
Turkey has already recalled its ambassador from Washington to show its displeasure over Congress’ raising this issue. The Turks may or may not stop at that.
In this touchy situation, why stir up a hornet’s nest over something in the past that neither we nor anybody else can do anything about today?
Japan has yet to acknowledge its atrocities from the Second World War. Yet the Congress of the United States does not try to make worldwide pariahs of today’s Japanese, most of whom were not even born when those atrocities occurred.
Even fewer, if any, Turks who took part in attacks on Armenians during the First World War are likely to still be alive.
Too many Democrats in Congress have gotten into the habit of treating the Iraq war as President Bush’s war — and therefore fair game for political tactics making it harder for him to conduct that war.
In a rare but revealing slip, Democratic Congressman James Clyburn said that an American victory in Iraq “would be a real big problem for us” in the 2008 elections.
Unwilling to take responsibility for ending the war by cutting off the money to fight it, as many of their supporters want them to, Congressional Democrats have instead tried to sabotage the prospects of victory by seeking to micro-manage the deployment of troops, delaying the passing of appropriations — and now this genocide resolution that is the latest, and perhaps lowest, of these tactics.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy.
Turkey is an ally. Ally does not mean they wear the same clothes as you do and go to the same parties. it means that turkey provides supply lines and basing for our troops and aircraft. Turkey is not the Ottoman Empire any more than we are the British Empire. We do not beat our breasts and beg forgiveness because our government at the time allowed a million Irishmen to die by deliberate policy. For you it is just fine if we are forced from Iraq so long as you get to slap the Sultan’s face. But it will do you no good while it bids to do your country (you are American?) evil. The Sultan is long gone. The Ottoman Empire is long gone. You also believe that nominal white Americans must pay reparations for slavery, right? that most of the assets in the country belong to blacks of whatever descent because some folks in the South once held slaves? Irredentists are irrational and dangerous fools in any era.
You have maybe 150.000 GIs in Iraq whose support lines run over Turkish soil. Of those 150.000 men you are able to relocate 75.000 men. Those 75.000 GIs face a full scale 1.000.000 men NATO-standard army that is highly motivated. Even if some Kurdish "freedom-fighters" (BTW - freedom-fighter was also used for OBL and his dudes in the 80ties) would join you against the Turks I can assure a quite hard time for your soldiers. America has for sure better things to do than to throw down the gauntlet to the Turks without any need.
Besides - the US do not spread democracy in the region in the moment. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan are "democracies" in the western sense. Both nations refer to Islam and the Sharia law system. There are better examples than the countries you helped recently: We should be happy that the Turks found a way to canalize their weird religion into privacy trough a quite secular system that has a democratic frame. It is for sure not perfect and far from our standards, but Turkey provides a quite free platform to live in the ME. Together with Israel it is de facto the only place there where the individual has some rights. Therefore I think Turkey could be the example for other muslim nations. I doubt that we westerners will overcome this false religion. Arabs, Persians and Turks will continue to believe into their weird and funny Mohammad or whatever is his name. Therefore we have to look for secular government systems in the ME we can deal with. It is indeed possible to deal with Turkey but it is de facto impossible to deal with theocratic Iraq or Afghanistan in the long turn. Not to speak about Iran, Syria, Pakistan etc. etc. pp.
This is something that should be understood soon.
The Kurds want democracy and autonomy and it is the right thing for them in Iraqi Kurdistan & Iranian Kurdistan. We’ll certainly help them with those 2 areas.
You are already in trouble if you help the Kurds on Iraqi territory. The Iranians and the Turks already made some joint actions to chase Kurdish terrorists on ...Iraqi... soil. They did not ask America or the government in Baghdad. America would be well advised to stabilize the status quo instead of dreaming about a Kurdish nation on Iranian or Turkish soil. It is simply a matter of limited American possibilities and we do not need more bloodshed in this shaken area.
You have maybe 150.000 GIs in Iraq whose support lines run over Turkish soil. Of those 150.000 men you are able to relocate 75.000 men. Those 75.000 GIs face a full scale 1.000.000 men NATO-standard army that is highly motivated.
***Let’s use round numbers. 100k relocatable GIs vs. 1M Turks. We could take those odds any day of the week and twice on Sundays. I’ll even tell you part of the strategy so you won’t lose so many men: deterrence. We knock a few cities and a few Special Forces landings to pin down a division here and there, supported by our Air Supremacy. Turkey would be lucky to mobilize 200k men into battle into Kurdistan, where they face us and... the Kurds. Lotsa Kurds. Fighting for independence in their own country. Fighting bravely alongside American GI’s who signed up for defending democratic principles. Ouch for them Turks.
Even if some Kurdish “freedom-fighters” (BTW - freedom-fighter was also used for OBL and his dudes in the 80ties)
***Common term, including Nicaraguan guerillas & contras — both sides.
would join you against the Turks I can assure a quite hard time for your soldiers.
***Of course it would be a hard time. I can assure you a hard time for Turkey. Who would win? We would. Democracy would. Tyranny loses.
America has for sure better things to do than to throw down the gauntlet to the Turks without any need.
***Turkey needs to focus on fixing their country rather than invading Kurdistan. The Kurds are the 2nd bravest allies we have in that area, just behind the Israelis.
Besides - the US do not spread democracy in the region in the moment.
***Nice little straw argument, “in the moment”. Let’s see, Iraq holding the first democratic election in the region — somehow that’s not significant to you. You are way off, and so is Turkey of they buy into this line of baloney.
Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan are “democracies” in the western sense.
***They are on their way. Both countries are better off than they were under their former tyrants.
Both nations refer to Islam and the Sharia law system.
***And our nation refers to Christ, “one nation under God” and congress starts out with a prayer. Your point is?
There are better examples than the countries you helped recently:
***There are better examples: Panama.
We should be happy that the Turks found a way to canalize their weird religion into privacy trough a quite secular system that has a democratic frame.
***I am quite happy. But it is no excuse for a tyranny over an indigenous people who want democracy.
It is for sure not perfect and far from our standards, but Turkey provides a quite free platform to live in the ME.
***Except that they hate Kurds.
Together with Israel it is de facto the only place there where the individual has some rights.
***Then let’s have another place: Democratic Kurdistan, taking up parts of what were tyrannical Iraq, tyrannical Iran, and quasi-tyrannical Turkey.
Therefore I think Turkey could be the example for other muslim nations.
***I agree. Other muslim nations could get broken into their prospective ethnic components with corresponding democracies. Iraqi Shiitestan, Iraqi Sunnistan, Iran, Kurdistan, Turkey, and whatever other countries decide to cause trouble in the region with WOMDs, i.e. Syria is next.
I doubt that we westerners will overcome this false religion. Arabs, Persians and Turks will continue to believe into their weird and funny Mohammad or whatever is his name.
***That’s why we need to make this about democracy so that the arab street will want it. Democracy and Islam are not mutually exclusive.
Therefore we have to look for secular government systems in the ME we can deal with.
***I agree. And the Kurds are on their way to this democratic secular goal.
It is indeed possible to deal with Turkey but it is de facto impossible to deal with theocratic Iraq or Afghanistan in the long turn. Not to speak about Iran, Syria, Pakistan etc. etc. pp.
***This statement makes no freeping sense whatsoever.
This is something that should be understood soon.
***There is plenty understood in what you say, but little to agree with.
The Kurds want democracy and autonomy and it is the right thing for them in Iraqi Kurdistan & Iranian Kurdistan. We’ll certainly help them with those 2 areas.
***Glad to hear it. If Turkey follows your plan, helps in those 2 areas and doesn’t invade Iraq, they might not get a bloody nose in eastern Turkikurdistan, or whatever it’s called. If they make an incursion into Iraq, they lose Turkikurdistan. So far, the track record for Turkey suggests they’ll be having a large territory carved out of their eastern flank some time soon.
You are already in trouble if you help the Kurds on Iraqi territory.
***You’re all over the map. This sentence contradicts the earlier sentence where you say it’s the right thing and we’ll help them. It also contradicts a later sentence. Get it straight what you want to say.
The Iranians and the Turks already made some joint actions to chase Kurdish terrorists on ...Iraqi... soil. They did not ask America or the government in Baghdad.
***Incredibly, amazingly, and stupefyingly DUMB idea for Turkey.
America would be well advised to stabilize the status quo instead of dreaming about a Kurdish nation on Iranian or Turkish soil.
***Wow, the more you write, the further off into the weeds you go. What’s wrong with dreaming about a Kurdish nation on Iraqi & Iranian soil? ESPECIALLY when you say it’s the right thing?
It is simply a matter of limited American possibilities and we do not need more bloodshed in this shaken area.
***American possibilities may be limited but regular patriotic citizens like Kurds will fight tooth & nail for autonomy and democracy. Those possibilities are limitless.
Let’s wait and see. :)
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