Whether the Turks succeed in destroying or at least dispersing the PKK is a pretty moot point - they've broken the ice by this reconnaissance in force.
That's what it used to be called, if I recall correctly.
The US may be back-channel protesting to Ankara, but I doubt they'll find a receptive audience, NATO member or not.
Embassy in Belgrade burned.
Turks walking into North Iraq.
19% may soon prove to not be rock bottom.
this is the start of some very bad stuff...it just keeps getting uglyer...
Isn't this the second time that Turkey has done this though?
Plus the Turks can say they are following America's example & pursuing terrorist wherever they are.
Meanwhile in the main news section, some generic blonde has gone missing.
Tenacitus, yes, but not on this scale, and not with heavy snow on the ground. If you're just posturing, in my humble opinion, you do it in good weather.
look turky can see the writing on the wall. sadar is going to make a new big push soon...the us forces are streched very thin and it may finaly reach the cut and run time...tTurky will not stand for a kurdish state, if the us leaves iraq kurdistan will want to exist..quite a mess that we ahve made.
spot on, Hub.
Ankara is just setting repeated little precedents for moving toward Kirkuk. Each time, they'll go a bit farther and stay a little longer.
Every time they do it, it's like a Griz enlarging his territory by pissing on new ground. :o)
It's also giving another little crank on the handle of the bench vise in which george bush's nads currently reside.
And tenacitus nails it, too, with that about the Turks saying:
"WTF? Look what george bush has done, to go after HIS terrorists! Ours are practically sitting in our lap."
Unless I'm mistaken, the Turks have already used the "we're just chasin' terrorists" story. I think it was after the PKK killed a bunch of Turkish policemen last fall (which at least gives the Turks the benefit of actually telling the truth when they say they're chasin' terrorists).
What's reassuring, kind of, is today's news that Sadr is extending his cease-fire. It would be nice to know why he's doing so, though. NPR's reporter in Baghdad claimed that Sadr, as a politician, needed "credibility in reconciliation" if he had any hope of being a power broker in The New Iraq. Somehow I doubt that very much.
the most telling part of this story is that it simply doesn't matter what the u.s. thinks about this, because there isn't a single goddamned thing we can do about it.
the turks are there because they have determined that we don't have the capability to respond or to arm the kurds any further. one of the most logical scenarios i envisioned before the u.s. invasion involved incursions by the turks, the russians, and the iranians. it's all happening.
we have been lead by an idiot. and we will be paying for this shit for a very long time.
stickler,
I heard that too. I could offer a number of suppositions but anyone's best guess is as good as mine as to why Sadr extended his ceasefire. At this point the US elections become a major part of the strategy.
If McSurge becomes President then there is a certainty that the blank check will be extended to the al-Maliki government as the "Awakening" committees go back to war with the central government using US provided weapons. If Obama or Hillary become President then an actual governing coalition might have to be reached as the occupying force that has really iced in an ungovernable force will have been removed.
Though I would guess that he would also wait until a time where the whole US military couldn't be focussed on fighting just him. He is buying time until the Sunnis go back to war with the central government. That would be my guess at least.
Wengler:
Though I would guess that he would also wait until a time where the whole US military couldn't be focussed on fighting just him. He is buying time until the Sunnis go back to war with the central government. That would be my guess at least.
Yeah, maybe so. Another possibility is that somebody else is buying the time. Probably us, since Bush has been airdropping pallets of dollars over there for a while anyhow. Sadr is waiting, arming, training ... how many men was he supposed to have, anyhow? 60,000?
Yeah, maybe so. Another possibility is that somebody else is buying the time. Probably us, since Bush has been airdropping pallets of dollars over there for a while anyhow. Sadr is waiting, arming, training ... how many men was he supposed to have, anyhow? 60,000?
That was my guess too. Given how the US has been throwing money at other aspects of the Iraq problem it wouldn't surprise me in the least to find that Sadr is pocketing millions or some other similar quid-pro-quo.
I imagine the Bush Admin would drop pretty much any amount of cash to prove their "surge" is working.
However it doesn't appear that any of the underlying issues have been resolved. Not one.
The truth is that the underlying ability to create a power-sharing government was probably finally destroyed by the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad that occurred under the Surge(TM). The Sunni Arab coalition at this point will probably operate on the periphery as a possible ally of Sadr against the current government, but will be characterized more as a regional power like the Kurds instead of the deciding factor in Iraqi politics.
Iraq's professional and technocratic classes are gone. Read any good overseas newspaper online or go through the archives at Juan Cole's blog and you will see the blow by blow of how Iraq was hollowed out. The regime elected under occupation is intensely kleptocratic with corruption conspiracies spiraling into the tens of billions. Some Iraqis are trying to come home now but have found they they have no home to come home to. Gaining entrance to Fallujah requires a retinal scan and a long walk since all vehicle traffic is still banned.
I am simply amazed at how the corporate media has actually REGRESSED in their coverage of the occupation into first accepting all resistance was once again al Qaeda and now once again in last night's debate and official journalistic pronouncement that the "surge is working". It's as if we are getting Judith Miller'd all over again, with our collective ignorance once again leading us down the rabbit hole.
Wengler, it IS amazing what a fucking bunch of bushCo shilling poodles the MSM are; but we need to remember; when bush sent those units across the Kuwait border, he put every fucking chip these shitbirds have, on a number and a color that doesn't even EXIST.
This could get very ugly. And it won't take long. More and more people are realizing that the GOP'S last chance to win goes down with Clinton. And the moment it becomes clear that Obama's the one, the GOP will take another look at the turnouts the dems have been getting, and, I think, make one run at swiftboating him some way, ANY way, and then cave.
Same as ever; We put up Obama, and McCain and the GOP are political roadkill.
One thing: the MSM are also front-runners, and once the house of cards unspinnably starts collapsing, they won't be shy about pointing it out.
The US response is to look on and try to ignore it, like every other issue that this administration has dealt with, foreign and domestic.
What hurrican Katrina? That's a photo op right?
Iraq is sliding towards total anarchy, entire Middle East (the Arab part) is destabilized, angry Arabs watch al Jazeera and compare the news feed from Gaza with that from Iraq and see nary a difference...
Americans - exactly WHOSE interests is this Iraq fiasco serving?
I know, I know - hard question, the 500 lbs gorilla in the room, never to be mentioned on "respectable" leftist blogs.
Never mind - carry on.
Sigh.
It was oil, of course say the lefties.
It was WMD and liberating Iraq from Saddam, say the righties...
Double sigh.
I dunno. Maybe, like NPR wants me to believe, Mr. Sadr is just a Huey Long in a dishdasha, with crappier teeth.
But Steve Gilliard had a habit of pointing to Sadr, and not in a happy way. What Steve wrote, struck me as damned prescient. Sadr is a player, with a big militia, and a family tree full of martyrs. Oh -- and he's not an Iranian pawn, and he wants to inherit all of Iraq as a Shiite state.
Steve kept telling us to keep our eyes on Sadr. I think Steve was right. So when I hear that Sadr agreed to another six month ceasefire, I have to wonder: "at what price?"
And I know damned well who is going to be paying that price. Us.
Dang it all, every time someone posts, and I get an idea to reply, my pal Tanbark usually nails it.
So this is my summary, n Tan ya raht bastid, ya took my lengthy rant and cut it short. I GUESS, that's good for all of us!! *G* Yer a hoss, pal . . . keep it comin.
1) Of pheakin COURSE we are payin Sadr, and Sunni's, and Shia's, of all denominations, we are payin them off in GREAT denominations. That phreakin $12 Billion weekly is all about contracting evil, but it's also about state department, CIA, covert and political evil.
2) It ain't EVEN begin to fracture.
Turks into Iraq for Kurds.
Iraq itself ready to blow.
Afghanistan goin all Talibani, AGAIN! (gotto love Ronnie Raygun's Freedom Fighters).
Pakistan ready to boil over.
Gaza Strip Open, Closed, Open, Closed.
Kosovo. No Serbia. No Kosovo.
Never MIND the Russians and Putin on THAT one.
China. Our Debt. Taiwan.
Oil. Middle East. OPEC. Saudi's taunting Bush.
Oil.
Isreal, AIPAC, KILL THE PALISTINEANS!
Isreal.
China, Russia, INDIA (our pals). They got energy, gas, oil, and pipe line deals thru places we are at war in. WE lose?
It goes on and on. USA is screwed.
And our infrastructure and middle class continue to fragment, break up, and fall further and further into decline.
Beat the Pub's, senseless.
We are SO close to maybe, turning 4 decades of losing around, back into the hands of We The People.
Beat the GOP SENSELESS, back into the closet of their OWN anxieties.
Beat them back so Roe V Wade, Kansas V Board Of Ed, and the Civil Rights Act actually MEAN something again, and Revisionist History and misogony, racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism and feudalism and enslavement and the Confeds, Neocons and the 23% Fundie Insane mean NOTHING, for 100 years.
Can I get an amen here, please.
Thanks Hub for settin THIS Larue off.
I got yer back, if ya need it.
You call, I WILL answer.
But please, Doc, don't be emailin me no more.
Your concern is touching, but it's spookin the horses, and it's sure as shat scarin me.
Harumph.
*G*
Folks, check out alternatereality456.blogspot.com.
The Secret Service has reduced security on Obama. Am I paranoid to suspect that he's being set up?
The Turkish invasion of Kurdistan is still another manifestation(as if one was needed) of the massive lack of understanding of the historical forces we have unleashed. The Turks feel they were jobbed by the Brits when Iraq was created. Kirkuk was included in Iraq solely because of the oilfields, over the protests of the Turks. The "pursuing terrists" meme is simply a convenient excuse for them to reclaim what they feel should have been theirs all along.
Not to worry, the gap-toothed incomptetent bint Sec of State is on the job! Anybody feel reassured?
Selah.
extending the cease fire is a coldly calculated work of a cunning strategist. while the mahdi army cools its heels and lets the americans and the sunnis do the heavy lifting work of fighting his enemies sadr's force remains intact and cohesive. he's smelling the american withdrawal in the wind and reserving his forces for the real fight that's coming as soon as we have left.
dude's been de facto leader of the only thing that resembles an iraqi state for the last three years. as soon as we're gone he and his forces will move into the vacuum (something nature abhors) and assume de jure status too.
minstrel - agree 100%.
Which makes it really funny that we, the United States, have taken out a secular regime and will replace it with an islamist one...
minstrel: "extending the cease fire is a coldly calculated work of a cunning strategist."
gee, you would think Sadr knows that Dear Leader cannot keep the Surge troops in Iraq without breaking the Army and USMC
Putin must be laughing his ass off, Junior got punked.
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