[a_Turk]

If anybody wants on or off my list, now's a good time to let me know..

[river rat]

Are you kidding!
NOW is the time to follow what is going on in Turkey..
Actions now, will determine the future.

I strongly suspect our own State Department on several levels...and our leftist media with attempting to influence the Turkisk decision in ANY way they could....
Powell was wrong to insist we go to the U.N..
I never fully trusted Powell, and still do not...

But, I am more concerned that Islamists in control of Turkey's legislature will hold the radical Islamist view of the world, closer than the welfare of their own Nation..
In that direction, lies destruction..

Semper Fi

[Robert_Paulson2]

why would I want off the list? Good information is easy to find when somebody else collects it for you... which you do well.
keep up the work...

[Thud]

Too late. Once Turkey proved itself to be an unreliable ally, it doesn't matter whose fault the final screwup was. Things shouldn't have gotten that far.

The area has become an American vital interest and the power disparity is just too great. Sure we have our share of incompetent idiots - it is still foolish to just stand there when the blind giant is stomping around. Turkey had its chance at controlling northern Iraq and blew it.

American forces will move into northern Iraq from the south. Turkish forces in Iraq will then either make themselves useful on American terms without compensation or face the consequences. The goodwill necessary to minimize unfortunate incidents won't exist.

Yes it will be tragic, and should have been avoided. But it will happen on Turkey's doorstep and not ours.

[marron]

This is upsetting, but the fact remains that we still have
Incirlik. If we lost that our situation would be very difficult. This alone is a very important concession and its importance cannot be overstated.

Our State department has been a problem as long as I can remember. They have always had what I interpreted as a leftist bias all during the Cold War, and nothing has really changed. They are Clintonists, but they were Clintonists before there was a Clinton.

Powell's great challenge has been to try and bring them on board, but it would have been an uphill battle no matter who was over there. They have been open in their contempt for Bush, they have not attempted to hide it. I doubt anything can be done about it with the present split in the Congress, but given a second term and a few more senators I would sanction an overhaul from the ground up. A good chunk of that deparment needs to be teaching junior college somewhere.

It will be difficult for us to occupy Kurdistan as quickly as we need to, but the primary objectives can be met another way. The oil fields can be seized with airborne troops. Thats what they are for. Heavier armor can follow from the south whenever they can get there. Likewise the need for a capping force to prevent an Iraqi retreat north can be handled by the air force from Incirlik along with that same airborne unit with perhaps the aid of Kurdish militia. That problem is do-able, Saddam can't retreat north.

We need to secure the north to make sure it doesn't become some kind of lawless enclave, but that is not something that has to happen in the first few days of the war. The Kurds themselves are already policing it, the Turks already have a small force there, and we have apparently already pre-positioned a force to take on the Al Qaedists that have settled along the border.

So this is annoying, but not fatal. The tanks and infantry floating in the Mediterranean could possibly be brought in via Jordan. The same $6 billion that was offered Turkey might be enough to cover the highway toll to bring them into Western Iraq. Its not exactly "northern" Iraq, but its a second front. It possible that we were already planning something like this, but quietly, and this situation will make it explicit, stealing the surprise element. But its still do-able.

And finally, on the issue of Kurdistan, I am fairly sympathetic to Kurdish aspirations. But not to PKK aspirations. You don't respond to a lovers quarrel with body blows, and you don't respond to a close tie vote in the Turkish parliament by seeking the dissollution of their country. Calls for an independent Kurdistan just to spite the Turks make pithy posts, but are not good policy.

The Kurds rightfully should have been given their own territory from the beginning, but this is now. If we do it right, Iraq becomes Kurdistan. Iraq has to be re-built as a free, or quasi-free, country, in which Kurds are free, as well as Arabs and Chaldeans and Turcs. Our challenge is to create, not a tiny Kurdish enclave in the north, but to extend the relative freedom they have created over the last 10 years to the whole country. "Free Kurdistan" should reach from Turkey to Kuwait, along with Free Arabstan etcetera.

I have no objection to Kurds carrying light weapons, I am after all a 2nd ammendment guy. But AntiAircraft weapons need to be in the hands of a formal military command. The reality is that such weapons are probably available on the black market, but we should be in the business of taking them off the market, not adding more merchandise to the market.

[prairiebreeze]

Actually a_Turk would you please add me to your list?

thanks!

prairiebreeze

[Kenny Bunk]

Turk, hats off to your guys in the old country!

If only we had some chaps here who could act so forthrightly in their country's best interests.

Dude, it ain't rocket science. The Turks want an oil field (or two) of their very own. Kirkuk and Mosul would do nicely. And I totally concur! The entire faux-country, "Iraq," would, IMNSVHO, be better off as as a vilayet of Turkey than as a rump convenience of the defunct Foreign Office of the British Empire.

As far as our overly picturesque quondam allies, the Kurds go, well, so be it. They need clean drinking water and fast horses, and their bandit culture and all-too-numerous-progeny are secure. The Turks won't treat'em much worse than the Maine state police would. And one whole hell of a lot better than the deal they are getting from Saddam Hussein. (Let the Swedish Highway Patrol deal with the rest of them...."so how are you liking this diversity crap, Sven?")

Very mysterious of Allah to place these lucrative deposits under the posteriors of the Kurds. Have at them. These quaint and colorful natives are about as capable of running a country (or a church picnic) as Bruce Springsteen is of playing the guitar!