L
LyingGarbageDemocrats
Guest
The Nancy Pelosi Invasion
The Turkish Parliament authorized their government to invade northern Iraq
any time during the next year in order to quell the terrorist attacks in the
Kurdish regions of southern Turkey. The overwhelming vote to authorize the
invasion demonstrates the declining influence of the US with its NATO
partner and Middle East ally, a situation exacerbated by the Congressional
effort to censure Turkey over a genocide from a century ago:
The Turkish parliament Wednesday authorized cross-border military operations
into northern Iraq to combat Kurdish separatist rebels as world leaders
implored Turkey to delay any action.
In the hours before the parliament voted by a gaping margin of 507 to 19 to
give Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan permission to launch
strikes any time over the next year, Iraqi and NATO officials made a flurry
of cautionary, last-minute telephone calls to the country's top leaders.
The vote came just moments after President Bush in a White House press
conference urged Turkey to continue talking to Iraq officials about the
situation and to not move troops against the rebels.
"We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their
interests to send troops into Iraq," Bush told reporters. " . . . There's a
better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops
into the country."
It's almost impossible to overestimate the damage this could cause to the
stability we've managed to get thus far in Iraq. The Kurdish territory has
been our biggest success story to this point. Their economy has boomed, and
the violence in western Iraq has mostly been non-existent in the north. They
see America as the savior of the Kurds against both Saddam and the
post-invasion chaos.
If the Turks invade the territory, we will have three choices, all of them
bad. We could defend the Kurds, which means war with the only Middle Eastern
Muslim democracy and a distraction from stabilizing Iraq and containing
Iran. We could sit on our hands and alienate the Iraqi Kurds, who won't be
able to defend themselves, while the entire north dissolves into guerilla
warfare. We could stand between the two groups and try to defend a DMZ, and
get our collective asses shot off. That's all of the possibilities, and none
of them sound too appetizing.
Iraq's central government offered an intermediate step that might work.
Nouri al-Maliki offered to conduct joint operations with the Turks to clear
the PKK out of the border region. He'd better do something quick, because a
Turkish invasion would likely be followed by Syrian and Iranian incursions
into Iraq as well, although the US might take either as enough provocation
to conduct military attacks on both capitals. The Iranians have already
begun shelling PKK sites along the border. Joint operations would take some
resources away from Coalition operations, but this would be a higher
priority at the moment.
It goes without saying that we would have had more influence on the
situation in Turkey had Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress made
themselves the arbiter of the Armenian genocide of 1915. If the troops cross
the border, we can thank Pelosi and her colleagues for reducing our ability
to avoid a shooting war that could cost thousands of lives here and now.
--
"We must stay the course" in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked for more
troops to finish the job.
"We have to exert all of our efforts militarily"
November 29, 2003 Hilary visits the troops In Iraq and Afghanistan
The Turkish Parliament authorized their government to invade northern Iraq
any time during the next year in order to quell the terrorist attacks in the
Kurdish regions of southern Turkey. The overwhelming vote to authorize the
invasion demonstrates the declining influence of the US with its NATO
partner and Middle East ally, a situation exacerbated by the Congressional
effort to censure Turkey over a genocide from a century ago:
The Turkish parliament Wednesday authorized cross-border military operations
into northern Iraq to combat Kurdish separatist rebels as world leaders
implored Turkey to delay any action.
In the hours before the parliament voted by a gaping margin of 507 to 19 to
give Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan permission to launch
strikes any time over the next year, Iraqi and NATO officials made a flurry
of cautionary, last-minute telephone calls to the country's top leaders.
The vote came just moments after President Bush in a White House press
conference urged Turkey to continue talking to Iraq officials about the
situation and to not move troops against the rebels.
"We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their
interests to send troops into Iraq," Bush told reporters. " . . . There's a
better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops
into the country."
It's almost impossible to overestimate the damage this could cause to the
stability we've managed to get thus far in Iraq. The Kurdish territory has
been our biggest success story to this point. Their economy has boomed, and
the violence in western Iraq has mostly been non-existent in the north. They
see America as the savior of the Kurds against both Saddam and the
post-invasion chaos.
If the Turks invade the territory, we will have three choices, all of them
bad. We could defend the Kurds, which means war with the only Middle Eastern
Muslim democracy and a distraction from stabilizing Iraq and containing
Iran. We could sit on our hands and alienate the Iraqi Kurds, who won't be
able to defend themselves, while the entire north dissolves into guerilla
warfare. We could stand between the two groups and try to defend a DMZ, and
get our collective asses shot off. That's all of the possibilities, and none
of them sound too appetizing.
Iraq's central government offered an intermediate step that might work.
Nouri al-Maliki offered to conduct joint operations with the Turks to clear
the PKK out of the border region. He'd better do something quick, because a
Turkish invasion would likely be followed by Syrian and Iranian incursions
into Iraq as well, although the US might take either as enough provocation
to conduct military attacks on both capitals. The Iranians have already
begun shelling PKK sites along the border. Joint operations would take some
resources away from Coalition operations, but this would be a higher
priority at the moment.
It goes without saying that we would have had more influence on the
situation in Turkey had Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress made
themselves the arbiter of the Armenian genocide of 1915. If the troops cross
the border, we can thank Pelosi and her colleagues for reducing our ability
to avoid a shooting war that could cost thousands of lives here and now.
--
"We must stay the course" in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and asked for more
troops to finish the job.
"We have to exert all of our efforts militarily"
November 29, 2003 Hilary visits the troops In Iraq and Afghanistan