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"I don't think I've ever expressed any remark favoring Kurdish independence."

Not you personally, but the sentiments frequently infest these threads. Given those posts, and given US plans to arm the Kurds, with anti-aircraft artillery, by the way, and given the principle that the only moral relationships are to the best mutual advantage of the parties concerned, the moral position is, at the very least, a better understanding of the Turks' position.

My fear is of a repeat of JFK's antics in the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam, overthrowing Diem and stting the stage for the eventual Communist takeover of that poor nation. I see the parallels here in the Turk/Kurd conflict, with the US, once again, by not unambiguously confronting and doing everything necessary to destroy a pack of Marxist mad dogs, enabling through inaction the eventual establishment of yet another Communist hell-hole at the expense of an ally, all the while acting indignantly at the protests of that same ally, inferring that she is really to blame for the mess.

...and given US plans to arm the Kurds, with anti-aircraft artillery, by the way, and given the principle that the only moral relationships are to the best mutual advantage of the parties concerned, the moral position is, at the very least, a better understanding of the Turks' position.

But, Mortimer, don't you see that the current Turkish position is actually forcing us into arming the Kurds more heavily? I have no doubt at this point we are preparing to airdrop or land tens of thousands of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to the Kurds. And this simply would not have happened had Turkey cooperated in its own self-interest and with a very generous aid package.

We do need an ally in the north. If the Turks won't, we'll have to take the Kurds. And it is the Turks who are forcing us to this. No one wanted it. No one wants to arm the Kurds. But if it means the difference in hundreds or thousands of American dead, we'll cut a deal with them for a northern front.

After the celebration of the Turkish parliament's vote, we didn't get a chance to see the celebrations going on in Kurdish territory in northern Iraq. But the Kurds and Saddam are the only ones who have any reason to be happy about it.

Iraq under Saddam was Socialist. This is no Vietnam. Think of what defending the teriritorial rights that arabs have to oil deposits, will do for us in the long run. The Turks stopped us from taking out Saddam in Gulf War 1. They have been allowing their neighbor Saddam to commit genocide on the Kurds.