...one more widely predicted problem the Bush administration failed to plan for before its misguided invasion — and one more problem it urgently needs to deal with as part of a swift and orderly exit from Iraq.
Exit? Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ain't part of the plan, Buckwheat.
Turkey’s civilian leaders are feeling strong popular pressure to lash back. The leadership should realize that the conflict is providing a dangerous opening for Turkey’s generals. The military is determined to regain the upper hand over Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom they detest for his party’s roots in Islamic politics.
Ankara needs to know that an invasion would not only add to Iraq’s chaos and raise the specter of a regional war, it would also do major damage to Turkey’s international standing and finish off its prospects for joining the European Union.
I'm not sure, but the Europeans might actually like to find an excuse to keep Turkey out of the EU.
Washington should also explain the dangerous facts of life to the leaders of Iraqi Kurdistan, who have done nothing to rein in the guerrillas or drive them out of their territory. Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, who is a Kurd, did no good Sunday when he first said he wanted “to solve problems peacefully,” but then declared that Iraq would not even turn over “a Kurdish cat” to Turkey.
The Kurds will find it much easier to prosper if they can live in peace with Turkey, whose businessmen already invest heavily in their region. And Mr. Talabani and other Iraqi Kurds need to understand that their enclave of comparative peace and prosperity will not survive a regional war.
Washington must now try to walk both sides back from this brink. [...]
That's the kiss of death! This administration isn't competent enough to throw a beer party in a brewery, and I hope they never try. The brewery, if it survived, would never again turn out a drinkable product.
With so many other problems in Iraq, the Bush administration apparently thought it could ignore this one. It can’t. If it doesn’t now move quickly, Iraq’s disastrous civil war could spiral into an even bigger disaster — a regional war.
The neocons' wet dream ain't turnin' out exactly like they want. No way, no how, ain't gonna happen. Their WH shills have demonstrated their near-perfect Reverse Midas Touch - everything they touch turns to shit - in the Mideast, and they'll be lucky if they can protect their rich friends in the small Gulf states. Hell, we'll be lucky if OPEC lets us buy the goddam oil at the inflated prices that are resulting from Bush's (and our) deflated dollars, let alone locking it up for our OCs.
Good going, Dick 'n Bush. You fuckers have screwed the pooch as bad as anyone ever has.
Lately I've been reading a lot about the First World War, since I feel that all our Middle East problems today stem directly from it. I mean 'directly' as in 'a straight line'.
One pistol shot fired by a Serbian nationalist killed a man. Normally, murder is handled by the criminal courts, but this murder was seized upon by a warmonger who wanted to crush Serbia once and for all. The whole deal got a little out of hand, resulting in the deaths of 40 millions, the fall of two already-crumbling empires, a couple more that weren't, and the rearrangement of many. many lines on the world map by politicos that shouldn't have, not to mention the most colossal case of PTSD in recorded history, that of a certain Austrian war vet and house painter who later had tremendous influence in today's Mid East. We are reaping now what was sowed then.
If I could go back in time, there are two things I would do. The first is to go back to Sarajevo in June of 1914 and knock the pistol out of Gavrilo Princip's hand just before Ferdy and his ol' lady rolled by in their big Gräf & Stift. If I was successful at that, perhaps I wouldn't have to do the second, which would be to travel to Ie Shima in 1945 and be the most outstanding Japanese anti-aircraft gunner ever. If 41 hadn't gotten out of his plane alive, he'da never been able to conceive 43 and the world would be a better place today.
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