What's wrong with putting the kibosh on Kurdish communist guerrillas trying to provoke a regional war?
Anonymous | 07.31.07 - 3:52 pm | #

" What's wrong with putting the kibosh on Kurdish communist guerrillas trying to provoke a regional war?"

A reasonable comment if you think you have a firm grasp of Kurdish political balances, the general regional situation, and the predictable and unpredictable consequences of a Turkish incursion.

I don't.

Back in the early 90s I had a conversation with some self-exiled Kurds living in Maryland. One of them told me about working in the same office in LA with someone from an indigenous Indochinese group - it might have been a Hmong guy. The indochinese person told the Kurd, commiserating over the aftermath of '91: 'They did it to us too.'

That's one big reason I feel queasy about a US withdrawal. We gotta stop doing that sort of thing.

Speaking of queasy, the Situation with a captital S is beginning to make me feel nauseous. The errors, many of which were predictable and predicted, have been like deep wounds.

One guy, now retired, who was a turkish-speaking American expert, now retired, treated me to a short but fierce harangue about what a mistake this was going to be. I heard forebodings from other people.

Speaking of Turkey. It's time to talk it. Vast resources, not least human lives, have been ****** away.

Face it.
Pavel Chichikov | Homepage | 07.31.07 - 4:27 pm | #

I am conflicted on this issue. I certainly think that attacking one of our biggest allies in Iraq at this point would be a mistake. Yet at the same time people with communist ties can not be trusted.
Giovanni | 07.31.07 - 4:28 pm | #

We **** everybody after wars. We let England and France stick it to Germany after WWI. My dad had to order soldiers to herd eastern Europeans onto trains at bayonet point, to ship them to the soviet sector after WWII. We drew some lines on a map and relegated millions to communist slavery. We got sick of the Korean “police action” and split the country, leaving millions in a living hell. We all saw what happened in Cambodia after the Viet Naum “conflict”. We don’t have the stomach for war. We never finish it. We always leave the despots in power (or get new ones).
John J. Simmins | 07.31.07 - 7:55 pm | #

"We don’t have the stomach for war. We never finish it. We always leave the despots in power (or get new ones)."

If I read de Tocqueville right, then it would seem that democracies in general do not have the stomach for such things as actually finishing wars.
JonathanR. | 07.31.07 - 9:15 pm | #

Countries that do have the stomach for war tend to have wars that last decades if not centuries with little to show for it (except corpses, of course). Be careful what you wish for!
Anonymous | 08.01.07 - 12:55 am | #

Well, that depends. Imperial Russia didn't grow that large through voluntary submission.
JonathanR. | 08.01.07 - 10:34 am | #