Not Exactly A Surprise
CNN announces what most of us knew was coming: Turkey approves Iraq incursion
(CNN) — The Turkish parliament has voted to allow its military to make an incursion into Iraq and chase down Kurdish rebels staging cross-border attacks.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government had asked parliament in Ankara on Monday to authorize a military incursion, and the lawmakers responded with overwhelming approval, 507 to 19.
Parliamentary approval, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said before the debate, would not necessarily trigger immediate military action and many analysts doubt a full-scale invasion will be launched.
Turkey has already massed 60,000 troops in the region and over the weekend it shelled farms across the border.
But the chances of such military action raises great concerns in the United States, which fears it would undermine the stability of the American-backed government in Baghdad and jeopardize the supply lines that support U.S. troops in Iraq.
And it heightens anxiety in Iraq, where officials have been taking all-out diplomatic efforts to keep Turkey from carrying out cross-border assaults against Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, rebels in northern Iraq.
Speaking as news of the vote was announced, U.S. President George W. Bush — who said there already are Turkish troops stationed in Iraq — said “we are making it very clear to Turkey that we don’t think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq.”
Note that the Turkish military waited for parliamentary approval, so they aren’t into the wonders of the “unitary executive” yet.
What is the Shrubbery talking about – “there already are Turkish troops stationed in Iraq”? The Turks wanted to station troops in Iraq for a buffer zone to prevent PKK attacks, but that wasn’t agreed to, and the US has escorted out Turkish special forces units who have attempted to assist the Turkomen minority.
If the US doesn’t deal with the PKK, the Turks will. It would be in the best interest of everyone for the Kurdish leaders in Iraq to sit down with the PKK and arrange a truce until things quiet down.
Oh, the price of oil is going up again on the news of the Turkish vote.
4 comments
A History Lesson to Our US Congress:
How is this genocide? Let us look at the facts first.
Genocide implies the systematic destruction of an ethnic group.
1. The Armenians in Istanbul and the Aegean Region were never touched and at the time the Turkish Ambassador to the UK was in fact Armenian.
2. The Armenians in Eastern Turkey who sided with the Russians and killed thousands of Turks were the only ones targeted for removal and attack.
3. Armenians have started the war backed with Russians.
4.The Ottoman records are open the Armenian records are closed – whose got something to hide? Please bother to check Russian archives to see that Armenians had sided with Russia when Turkey was attacked; Armenians massacred Turks and Kurds when the Russians advanced, when the Russians withdrew Turks and Kurds paid back in kind.
5. In 1836 Russia liquidated free Albanian church, subordinated it to Armenian and thus created a favorable condition of Armenianization of the ancient population of Azerbaijan-the Christian Albans.
6. Armenians started claims to their lands. Later the Tsarist Russia armed Armenians and began mass genocide against Turkic-Moslem Azerbaijanis and gave start to the genocide of all Azerbaijanis and the Turkic-Moslem population of the southern Caucasus.
7. The liberty movement in Northern Azerbaijan concluded tragically. In March 1918 the Dashnak-Bolshevik government with Shaumyan (an Armenian) at its head executed the terrible genocide against Azeris.
8. But the interference of Turkey brought victory to liberation movement in Azerbaijan and death of Armenians.
Now, having disclosed all the facts as I know them, The U.S. government should formally recognize its own genocidal transgressions first before passing judgment on other independent nations
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
This is not the first time Turkey has sent troops into Iraq to chase the rebels of the Maoist PKK. Turkey invaded Northern Iraq in 1992. They did it again in 1995 and again in 1997 twice. The Turkish suppression of its Kurdish population in Southeastern Turkey and the resulting reprisals by the PKK has been going on since the 1970’s. What is different this time is that we are an occupying force in Iraq and the Turks think we are not doing enough to solve the problem. They blame us now for their problems and that changes the dynamic somewhat. If the incursion into Iraq is sufficiently large and violent there is a considerable chance that it would encourage the Iranians to go ahead an claim the south of Iraq. We may be seeing the beginning of the end of Iraq as a nation.
The real problem for the US is that the PKK is a designated “terrorist” group on the State Department’s list, and we have done nothing about them. The MEK is also another “terrorist” group in Iraqi Kurdistan we have done nothing about. The PJAK is Kurdish group that the Iranians keep shelling on their border with Kurdistan, but the PJAK aren’t officially designated.
This War on Terror™ crap really messes up things, making the solutions almost always violent.
The Kurds have a long history of being oppressed by everyone in the area, as well as a history of reacting violently. If Winston Churchill and his acquaintances had bothered to spend a little more time actually looking at the people who lived in the countries they were creating after WWI, these things would have been settled almost 80 years ago.
If you want the truth of what really going on in the Middle East
With 100% accuracy you need to see
The May 15th Prophecy, unlike the “fiction” book on the subject, God has sent his Watchman he promised in Habakkuk chpt#2
Who has made plain the revelation at
http://lastdaywatchers.blogspot.com