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Turkey role This is not altogether surprising but, nonetheless, it is a potentially serious complication:
A Turkish military source told Reuters about 1,500 commandos crossed Turkey’s southern border at three points late on Friday, aiming to secure access for subsequent, larger deployments.
“Turkish units have begun crossing into northern Iraq to take security measures at various points,” the official said.
The United States has told Turkey it would not welcome a unilateral incursion into northern Iraq, where local Kurds are suspicious of Turkish motives and have said such a move could lead to conflict.
Fighting between Kurds and Turks in the North of Iraq? Not impossible by any means.
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David,
I suspect this is being overblown in significance: you can almost see the drooping faces of the peaceniks light up in hope that something’s going wrong.
However, my point about the US state department seems vindicated: if they can’t persuade France, Russia, China to back US action, they should at least be aware of their plans. To be “shocked” as Powell is said to have been by Chirac’s duplicity hasn’t been a good excuse for anyone connected to diplomacy since about 1976. Regarding Turkey, US diplomacy hasn’t exactly been a resounding success.
These may be mere hiccups. Let’s hope so.
To be horribly blunt about it, in a very cruel way, I would have supported selling out the Kurds to the Turks if it meant basing in Turkey and safer conditions for allied troops. I’d feel queasy about it, but if it could be said to help the overall effort, and Iraq was still democratized in the end, I could stomach it. War’s not a pleasant business.
But the Turks rejected our offers and gave us bare necessity support. In which case, to hell with them. I hope Mr. Blair pushes them hard, mentioning EU membership regularly, and that Bush is even ruder about it.
Damn the Turks.
“But the Turks rejected our offers and gave us bare necessity support. In which case, to hell with them. I hope Mr. Blair pushes them hard, mentioning EU membership regularly, and that Bush is even ruder about it.”
Supposedly (CNN), US airborne forces are bound for Northern Iraq – probably because to head off this contingency.
Regards / GulGnu
-Stabil som fan!
They’re doing nothing.
Turkey also admitted that they were surprised we pulled our offer from the table. They thought we only had a “Plan A.”
Then they don’t know us.
And our ships are on their way from Turkey back thru the Suez.
I forgot to say, “Plan A” which included them.
Turkey is a democracy. It’s a Muslim democracy. While that has been an oxymoron to date, it will be the future.
If the Turkish people decide not to do what we request, so be it.
The military coalition has contingency plans for any…well, contingency.
Sounds like you need a break – You are invited to join the campaign
“Turkey is a democracy.”
One of the problems with democracy is the “tyranny of the majority.” The Kurds in Turkey are a minority, so they get crushed.
Democracy sucks. A Republic — where government powers are limited, and individual rights cannot be subverted by majority rule — is far superior.
If we bring “democracy” to Iraq, we should expect to see the various factions start slaughtering each other so as to obtain a “majority.” This probably isn’t the desired outcome.
In my post, I used “democracy” as a descriptive generic term to describe a desired Iraqi governing concept preferable to the thugocracies and theocracies that rule the Middle East now.
A republic, or federal republic, form of government for Iraq would indeed be better than a “pure democracy”, where any minority (e.g., Kurds) could easily get squished.
As to the comment by dPhilc above, I have no idea what that post means.
If democracy leads to the “tyranny of the majority” then why do we pander to all the minorities and ignore public opinion (like bring back capital punishment, reject the euro, close the borders, and other popular views) in the uk?