Posted on 04/27/2003 1:51:42 PM PDT by a_Turk
MOSUL, Iraq - Kurdish paramilitary forces have been given an ultimatum: Halt armed patrols around Mosul by Monday, or the U.S. Army will stop them by force.
Col. Joe Anderson, commander of the 101st Airborne's 2nd Brigade, said his troops are prepared to enforce the edict against fighters from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Militia members will be allowed to keep their weapons at their headquarters or militia compounds but will be banned from bringing them on patrol, Anderson said.
Anderson said Kurdish patrols carrying weapons after 10 a.m. Monday will be forcibly disarmed. Militia leaders may keep small groups of armed bodyguards for protection.
Since the fall of Mosul, Iraq (news - web sites)'s third largest city with 700,000 people, tensions have escalated between Arab residents and the large Kurdish minority.
Kurdish forces beat American troops into Mosul after Iraqi defenses collapsed. Many Arab residents blame the Kurdish forces for a security vacuum that touched off looting across the city.
The flexing of military muscle by Kurdish militias in northern Iraq has also been a potential flash point with neighboring Turkey.
And so it begins...
The basic problem is that devoid of Marxism-Leninism or Islamist ideology, there as many Kurdistans as there are Kurds. There is no unifying notion of what a Kurdistan is outside of these ideologies.
What goes on, and why the Turks are so recalcitrant in all this is that the PKK goes into a Turkish town, killing everyone remotely related to the government, like the teachers, doctors, and their families, the dogcatcher and all the dogs, or some indoctrinated homicidal-suicidal psychopath walks into a crowded department store with an incindiery bomb wrapped around him and sets it off. Turkey had to deal with the equivalent of 9/11 several times a year for more than ten years. When they responded they were vilified as monsters here in the US and in Europe.
The US and Europe have been extremely loath to support Turkey's fight with the PKK, allowing their political organs unimpeded and unconfronted access to the media and academia.
This is how the last Gulf War turned out for the Turks, with the added bonus of a collapsed economy due to her boycott of Iraq, a major trading partner, and Washington failed to deliver promised economic relief. The First Gulf War, followed up by the Clinton administration, was a prolonged nightmare for Turkey. Her security was compromised, not enhanced, by our lack of concern. Turks have learned a hard lesson in how no good deed goes unpunished.
This time they wanted the command and control of their own troops in Northern Iraq, to which Washington responded with a flat no. Erdogan and his idiots running the Turkish government were unable to generate a clear Parliamentary majority for the stationing of US troops on the Turkish-Iraqi frontier, continued to coyly dither any remaining good will from Washington away, and so now Turkey is included out of the loop so far as the New Iraq is concerned, but Washington expects them to be placated with assurances that there will be no Kurdistan.
All in all, a fine mess for everyone, and all parties concerned bearing responsibility, for reasons mostly related to ignorance and incompetence, which produced a profound lack of trust.
In contrast, we could have had a Turkish armored division stomping the terra in Northern Iraq, finally burning out the hornets' nests, causing problems by the score for the enemy.
KURDS IN IRAQ
The End of the Friendship
U.S. forces have started to disarm allied Kurdish fighters in the Northern-Iraq city of Mosul.
Mosul - U.S. soldiers advanced against three street blockades in Mosul which were occupied by Peschmerga fighters of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), as reporters present there observed. At first the Kurds refused to hand in their weapons. Kurds had also moved in reinforcements. Only when U.S. helicopter gunships and massed U.S. forces appeared did the situation ease, said a Reuter's reporter. U.S. soldiers confiscated numerous weapons. Lieutenant-colonel Chris Holden of the 101st air-borne division said: "Our intention is to disarm them. I don't want a confrontation. But, we won't back down". The Peschmerga fighters had to leave the town, Holden said.
Mosul had been taken by the Peschmerga fighters without a fight before U.S. troops moved in later.
"Spiegel-Online"..Das Ende der Freundschaft
Translated by longjack
Sounds like it was a little more than a yes sir, no sir conversation.
longjack
One would think that in the dossier there is a list of names of PKK to be rounded up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.