THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

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The claim that Saddam's regime killed 100k in 1996 revolves around the events in Irbil; there is no real account presented of what happened there, by anyone, yet there are extremely accurate numbers of those killed violently by Saddam. How is it possible? Where are these numbers derived from? I say 50k at 'one event' b/c there's no other explanation given besides the uprising in Irbil.

You believe Britannica b/c you choose to, not b/c there is any actual evidence. I've merely pointed out that barring information telling how their numbers are obtained, they cannot be trusted to be accurate; you have not refuted this in the slightest but still purport to quote these numbers as authoritative proof that Saddam's regime was bloodier then our current invasion. Intellectually lazy, and what's worse, you know it, and are advancing a weak argument anyways.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

...
The claim that Saddam's regime killed 100k in 1996 revolves around the events in Irbil; there is no real account presented of what happened there, by anyone, yet there are extremely accurate numbers of those killed violently by Saddam. How is it possible? Where are these numbers derived from? I say 50k at 'one event' b/c there's no other explanation given besides the uprising in Irbil.

You believe Britannica b/c you choose to, not b/c there is any actual evidence. I've merely pointed out that barring information telling how their numbers are obtained, they cannot be trusted to be accurate; you have not refuted this in the slightest but still purport to quote these numbers as authoritative proof that Saddam's regime was bloodier then our current invasion. Intellectually lazy, and what's worse, you know it, and are advancing a weak argument anyways.

Cycloptichorn

All this is your unsupported opinion. You apparently are "Intellectually lazy, and what's worse, you know it, and are advancing a weak argument anyways." You provide nothing more than your questionable logic based on your unsupportable opinion. Tell you what! Access Wikipedia! Maybe you can rewrite some of their stuff to get Wikipedia to say what you want to believe. Then quote it as your source!

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

VIOLENT DEATHS IN IRAQ 2003-2006

2006 23,482
2005 12,286*
2004 12,286*
2003 12,286*
TOTAL = 60,311

* Average per year 2003-2005.

60,341 / 4 = 15,085 VIOLENT DEATHS PER YEAR IN IRAQ 2003-2006.

In 2007 as of August 31 (8 months / 12 months = 0.67 years), there were 20,452 VIOLENT DEATHS IN IRAQ.

60,341 + 20,452 = 80,793; 80,793 / (4.67) = 17,300 VIOLENT DEATHS PER YEAR IN IRAQ 2003-AUG 2007.

Bull ****. You know that those numbers aren't correct in the slightest.

Cycloptichorn

Steer excrement, I know that your allegation isn't correct in the slightest. These 2003-2007 numbers are based on excerpts from IBC's numbers.

By the way, are you a Soros gang volunteer shill, or are you a Soros gang paid shill?

You know that I have nothing to do with Soros whatsoever. Are you a member of Mellon-scaife squad?

I know what I know! I don't know you "have nothing to do with Soros whatsoever!"

IBC knowingly admits that their numbers are inaccurate, with a bias towards under-reporting, due to their methodology. An honest person would admit this when he reprints those numbers, Ican. Are you an honest person?

You previously wrote: "You know that those [IBC] numbers aren't correct in the slightest." That conflicts with your statement, "IBC knowingly admits that their numbers are inaccurate, with a bias towards under-reporting, due to their methodology." Yes, IBC admits that, but that is not the same thing as, "aren't correct in the slightest."

Cycloptichorn

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

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wtf are you talking about.

You present statistics. I ask you to back your statistics up. You are unwilling or unable to do so. Then you blame me for intellectual laziness?

Ridiculous, Ican. And unsupportable. You should have more sense then to do something like this. If you don't have any further evidence to support your contentions, then state this and move on. Instead you are arguing yourself into a precarious position.

Cycloptichorn

I asked you to back up your allegations with more than your opinion. I infer from your behavior that you think your challenges of the veracity of Britannica, IBC, and Mostert is sufficiently responsible without any supporting evidence to justify your challenge.

Without supporting evidence to support your challenges, your challenges are not only empty of substance, they are irresponsible.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:

VIOLENT DEATHS IN IRAQ 2003-2006

2006 23,482
2005 12,286*
2004 12,286*
2003 12,286*
TOTAL = 60,311

* Average per year 2003-2005.

60,341 / 4 = 15,085 VIOLENT DEATHS PER YEAR IN IRAQ 2003-2006.

In 2007 as of August 31 (8 months / 12 months = 0.67 years), there were 20,452 VIOLENT DEATHS IN IRAQ.

60,341 + 20,452 = 80,793; 80,793 / (4.67) = 17,300 VIOLENT DEATHS PER YEAR IN IRAQ 2003-AUG 2007.

Bull ****. You know that those numbers aren't correct in the slightest.

Cycloptichorn

Steer excrement, I know that your allegation isn't correct in the slightest. These 2003-2007 numbers are based on excerpts from IBC's numbers.

By the way, are you a Soros gang volunteer shill, or are you a Soros gang paid shill?

You know that I have nothing to do with Soros whatsoever. Are you a member of Mellon-scaife squad?

I know what I know! I don't know you "have nothing to do with Soros whatsoever!"

IBC knowingly admits that their numbers are inaccurate, with a bias towards under-reporting, due to their methodology. An honest person would admit this when he reprints those numbers, Ican. Are you an honest person?

You previously wrote: "You know that those [IBC] numbers aren't correct in the slightest." That conflicts with your statement, "IBC knowingly admits that their numbers are inaccurate, with a bias towards under-reporting, due to their methodology." Yes, IBC admits that, but that is not the same thing as, "aren't correct in the slightest."

Cycloptichorn

The IBC numbers for 2003 to present, and Mary Mostert's numbers for 1979 to 2002 are accurate enough to accept the reality that the annual violent death rates 1979-2002 were very much greater than than were the annual death rates 2003 to present.

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ican711nm wrote:

The IBC numbers for 2003 to present, and Mary Mostert's numbers for 1979 to 2002 are accurate enough to accept the reality that the annual violent death rates 1979-2002 were very much greater than than were the annual death rates 2003 to present.

If an organization admits that their numbers are inaccurate, then it's the same thing as saying their numbers 'aren't correct in the slightest.' They are not correct/inaccurate. Same thing. Yet you use them as if they were.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

...

ican711nm wrote:

The IBC numbers for 2003 to present, and Mary Mostert's numbers for 1979 to 2002 are accurate enough to accept the reality that the annual violent death rates 1979-2002 were very much greater than than were the annual death rates 2003 to present.

If an organization admits that their numbers are inaccurate, then it's the same thing as saying their numbers 'aren't correct in the slightest.' They are not correct/inaccurate. Same thing. Yet you use them as if they were.

Cycloptichorn

Malarkey! It is not the samething. All statistics are inaccurate to some degree. That applies to commonly accepted science and economic numbers as well. "Aren't correct in the slightest'" MEANS ZERO ACCURACY. "Inaccurate" MEANS NOT ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. Just how inaccurate do you believe these numbers are? What evidence do you have to support your belief?

I asked you to back up your allegations with more than your opinion. I infer from your behavior that you think your challenges of the ACCURACY of Britannica, IBC, and Mostert are responsible enough without any supporting evidence provided by you to justify your challenges. They are not. Your challenges without supporting evidence are mere noise that is empty of substance.

Without supporting evidence to support your challenges, your challenges are not only empty of substance, they are irresponsible.

Should you come up with valid evidence that the IBC violent death counts are 50% of the accurate Iraq counts, the violent death rate 1979-2002 would still "eclipse" the violent death rate 2003-2007.

ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

...

ican711nm wrote:

The IBC numbers for 2003 to present, and Mary Mostert's numbers for 1979 to 2002 are accurate enough to accept the reality that the annual violent death rates 1979-2002 were very much greater than than were the annual death rates 2003 to present.

If an organization admits that their numbers are inaccurate, then it's the same thing as saying their numbers 'aren't correct in the slightest.' They are not correct/inaccurate. Same thing. Yet you use them as if they were.

Cycloptichorn

Malarkey! It is not the samething. All statistics are inaccurate to some degree. That applies to commonly accepted science and economic numbers as well. "Aren't correct in the slightest'" MEANS ZERO ACCURACY. "Inaccurate" MEANS NOT ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. Just how inaccurate do you believe these numbers are? What evidence do you have to support your belief?

I asked you to back up your allegations with more than your opinion. I infer from your behavior that you think your challenges of the ACCURACY of Britannica, IBC, and Mostert are responsible enough without any supporting evidence provided by you to justify your challenges. They are not. Your challenges without supporting evidence are mere noise that is empty of substance.

Without supporting evidence to support your challenges, your challenges are not only empty of substance, they are irresponsible.

Should you come up with valid evidence that the IBC violent death counts are 50% of the accurate Iraq counts, the violent death rate 1979-2002 would still "eclipse" the violent death rate 2003-2007.

Only if you believe that the violent death rate is what you've reported. As there is no evidence to back up these numbers, there's no reason to believe that they are true.

A simple answer by you will solve this: upon what data does Brittanica base their assertions of casualty statistics? If you can't answer that question, then the numbers are useless. They might as well have been written by anyone.

Cycloptichorn

There's as much evidence that the Lancet's numbers - around 600k killed, when the study was released last year - are as accurate as anything which you have put forward. Their evidence was collected in a scientifically correct fashion.

How do you know these two assertions of yours are true?

You don't understand, apparently, that as the person who puts forward a number, you are required to back that number up upon request. You have completely failed to do so, and therefore have failed to make your case.

I understand better than you! That's why I repeatedly cited my sources, when you previously failed to do so.

The worst part is that you are dancing away from the simple admission that you don't know how Brittanica came up with their numbers; and that they are therefore not usable as evidence of anything.

I told you many posts ago that I did not know how Britannica's came up with their numbers. I do not know how Britannica did or does its research anymore than I know how Lancet did or does its research to come up with their numbers.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

There's as much evidence that the Lancet's numbers - around 600k killed, when the study was released last year - are as accurate as anything which you have put forward. Their evidence was collected in a scientifically correct fashion.

How do you know these two assertions of yours are true?

You don't understand, apparently, that as the person who puts forward a number, you are required to back that number up upon request. You have completely failed to do so, and therefore have failed to make your case.

I understand better than you! That's why I repeatedly cited my sources, when you previously failed to do so.

The worst part is that you are dancing away from the simple admission that you don't know how Brittanica came up with their numbers; and that they are therefore not usable as evidence of anything.

I told you many posts ago that I did not know how Britannica's came up with their numbers. I do not know how Britannica did or does its research anymore than I know how Lancet did or does its research to come up with their numbers.

Cycloptichorn

OK! Turn about is fair play!

Cyclo, "There is no evidence to back up [your] numbers, there's no reason to believe that they are true.

A simple answer by you will solve this: upon what data does [Lancet] base their assertions of casualty statistics? If you can't answer that question, then the numbers are useless. They might as well have been written by anyone."

That is of course your stupid argument turned around and applied to you.

The real argument comes down to whether or not we should believe the results of Britannica's, Mostert's, and IBC's research or Lancet's research.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Lancet did an alleged random sampling, house-to-house poll to get its numbers about deceased family members. They did not use hospital, morgue or police statistics.

There are several problems with polls--this one in particular. First, we do not know how truly random were the selections of those polled. Second we do not know what questions were asked by those doing the polling. Third, we do not know if those polled accurately excluded in their responses those family members not killed by violence who died by other causes. Fourth, we do not know whether those killed by violence responses excluded those family members killed before the Iraq invasion in 2003. Fifth, we do not know if those polled gave valid answers. Sixth, we do not know if the poll takers reported their results correctly. Seventh we do not know if the publishers of those results reported those results correctly.

Ican U R nuts.

ican711nm wrote:

...

The real argument comes down to whether or not we should believe the results of Britannica's, Mostert's, and IBC's research or Lancet's research.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Lancet did an alleged random sampling, house-to-house poll to get its numbers about deceased family members. They did not use hospital, morgue or police statistics.

There are several problems with polls--this one in particular. First, we do not know how truly random were the selections of those polled. Second we do not know what questions were asked by those doing the polling. Third, we do not know if those polled accurately excluded in their responses those family members not killed by violence who died by other causes. Fourth, we do not know whether those killed by violence responses excluded those family members killed before the Iraq invasion in 2003. Fifth, we do not know if those polled gave valid answers. Sixth, we do not know if the poll takers reported their results correctly. Seventh we do not know if the publishers of those results reported those results correctly.

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All of those are smart questions. And in the following link, you will find the answers:

http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

Now, where is your equivalent link for Britannica? You will be unable to provide one, would be my guess. When it comes to the IBC, things are a little better; but you always quote their numbers without quoting the part about them knowing that these numbers are way low. It's a limitation of their method.

If you would apply the same sort of critical questioning to your own sources as you do mine, you'd be better off. Citing a source which itself has no citation, methodology, or explanation is essentially equivalent to not citing a source at all.

Cycloptichorn

McTag wrote:

Ican U R nuts.

What evidence do you have to support your allegation?

ican711nm wrote:

McTag wrote:

Ican U R nuts.

What evidence do you have to support your allegation?

(Years ago, my district's member of the U.S. House was listed by some magazine as being among the five stupidist. The dude called a press conference to deny the allegation. There were, he stated, more than five members more stupid them he was).

But I digress. And certainly this thread has digressed into a spitting match.

Here is a new issue which I post in my own words (I hate cutting and pasting):

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution declaring the purported deaths of 1 million Armenians in 1919 was an act of "genocide" by the disintegrating rulers of the Ottoman empire (now Turkey). The full House will vote in November.

1) There seems to be consensus that a lot of people died in that region in 1919, but
2) Turkey claims that the Armenians were also active in fighting the Ottoman forces (I am not real happy with my phrasing there: equally at fault? Aggressive? -rjb). Anyway the Turks claim they also sustained a lot of casualties.
3) Anyway, the Turkish government is now really pissed at the U.S for passing this resolution and have recalled their ambassador to the U.S. for "discussions."
4) Turkey allows us to use their air space to fly into an out of Irag (and Afghan?) and we also have bases there. Turkey has said that may be now in jeopardy.

I am going to stop there. Was this an attempt by the Dems to embarrass the Bush administration? Is a little genocide (if that was what is was) okay if committed by a strategic ally, versus genocide in, say, Sudan?

I hope yall have a fine evening. We finally are getting Fall here in VA.

ican711nm wrote:

McTag wrote:

Ican U R nuts.

What evidence do you have to support your allegation?

(Years ago, my district's member of the U.S. House was listed by some magazine as being among the five stupidist. The dude called a press conference to deny the allegation. There were, he stated, more than five members more stupid them he was).

But I digress. And certainly this thread has digressed into a spitting match.

Here is a new issue which I post in my own words (I hate cutting and pasting):

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution declaring the purported deaths of 1 million Armenians in 1919 was an act of "genocide" by the disintegrating rulers of the Ottoman empire (now Turkey). The full House will vote in November.

1) There seems to be consensus that a lot of people died in that region in 1919, but
2) Turkey claims that the Armenians were also active in fighting the Ottoman forces (I am not real happy with my phrasing there: equally at fault? Aggressive? -rjb). Anyway the Turks claim they also sustained a lot of casualties.
3) Anyway, the Turkish government is now really pissed at the U.S for passing this resolution and have recalled their ambassador to the U.S. for "discussions."
4) Turkey allows us to use their air space to fly into an out of Irag (and Afghan?) and we also have bases there. Turkey has said that may be now in jeopardy.

I am going to stop there. Was this an attempt by the Dems to embarrass the Bush administration? Is a little genocide (if that was what is was) okay if committed by a strategic ally, versus genocide in, say, Sudan?

I hope yall have a fine evening. We finally are getting Fall here in VA.

Administration, Congress at Odds Over Armenian Genocide Bill
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
October 08, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Despite efforts by the Bush administration to kill it, a bill before a congressional committee this week is threatening to unsettle U.S. ties with an important ally. The ripple effect may impact Iraq and Israel.

The legislation calls on the administration to refer to the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during the closing years of the Ottoman Empire as "genocide." It is the latest in a decades-long effort to change official U.S. policy.

Support for and opposition to the non-binding resolution, which goes before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, crosses party lines. Sponsors include Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.), and the more than 220 co-sponsors include Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

A related bill in the Senate was sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and has 32 co-sponsors, including Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) and Republican presidential candidate Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.).

The White House opposes the move -- as did the Clinton White House, which intervened in Oct. 2000 to prevent a similar House initiative. Former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, a Republican who chairs the American-Turkish Council, has cautioned against the bill, and eight former secretaries of state, Republican and Democrat, have urged Pelosi to block it.

The government of Armenia, a predominantly orthodox Christian former Soviet republic, has made the issue a top priority. Islamic Turkey is strongly opposed, and in recent weeks its government has warned the U.S. in no uncertain terms about the implications of passing such a resolution.

A member of NATO and aspiring future member of the European Union, Turkey is strategically located between Southeast Europe and Asia, and borders Syria, Iraq and Iran. It has strong ties with Israel.

Despite the Turkish parliament's refusal in March 2003 to allow U.S. forces to use Turkish territory to invade Iraq, Turkey by nature of its location, regional clout and a long-running war against Kurdish separatists is considered a key player in future events there. The U.S. airbase at Incirlik is also critical for ongoing U.S. operations in Iraq.

Now, however, Turkish lawmakers are threatening to force an end to the U.S. right to use the base if the Armenian genocide bill in passed. Other possible responses being mulled include a withdrawal of support for International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operations in Afghanistan.

A multi-party delegation of Turkish lawmakers will visit Washington this week to discuss the matter with U.S. members of Congress, and Turkish media quoted parliamentary speaker Koksal Toptan as telling Pelosi in a letter that "it might take decades to heal negative effects of the bill if it passes."

'National security interests'

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call Friday told President Bush that although the resolution is non-binding, it would harm bilateral relations. It would also harm Turkish-Armenian reconciliation efforts, he added.

(Relations between the two neighbors are not affected only by their history; Turkey cut diplomatic ties with Armenia over its 1993 occupation of Nagorno-Karabagh, an enclave inside Azerbaijan, a fellow Muslim ally of Turkey.)

After the conversation, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "the president has described the events of 1915 as 'one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century,' but believes that the determination of whether or not the events constitute a genocide should be a matter for historical inquiry, not legislation."

Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, noted during a briefing Friday that former Secretaries of State Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, Warren Christopher, Lawrence Eagleburger, James Baker, George Shultz, Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger had warned in a joint letter that the resolution could "endanger our national security interests in the region, including the safety of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Supporters of the bill dismiss the argument about angering Turkey.

"There is no question that Turkey is bitterly opposed to recognition and is threatening our military and commercial relationship, including access to the Incirlik air base, but Turkey has made similar threats to other nations in the past only to retreat from them," resolution sponsor Schiff said in a House speech last April.

He noted that the European Union's stance on the issue had not prevented Ankara from seeking E.U. membership.

'Jews could be targeted'

Turkish officials said Erdogan also has appealed to Israel's ceremonial President Shimon Peres to use his influence with Washington. Last week, Turkish foreign minister Ali Babacan told the Today's Zaman newspaper that the resolution, if passed, could stoke anger among Turks directed at Jews, as many Turks had a perception that Jews and Armenians were cooperating in the campaign.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a Jewish organization that counters anti-Semitism, last August announced that it had reviewed its position and now regarded the historical events - which it had previously described as "massacres and atrocities" - as "genocide."

At the same time, however, the ADL said it opposed the resolution. National director Abraham Foxman said it would not help Turk-Armenian reconciliation, could put the Turkish Jewish community at risk, and could jeopardize the important multilateral relationship between the U.S., Turkey and Israel.

Divisions over the resolution also were evident in a recent decision by Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat and foreign policy hawk, to withdraw her support for the bill.

In a letter to the House foreign affairs committee, Harman said while she viewed the events of 1915 as a "terrible crime ... against the Armenian people," she would vote against the resolution.

Harman, a former ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee who currently chairs the homeland security committee's intelligence subcommittee, said she believed that Turkey "plays a critically important role in moderating extremist forces" in the Middle East.

"Given the nature of the threat, I believe it is imperative to nurture that role -- however valid from the historical perspective, we should avoid taking steps that would embarrass or isolate the Turkish leadership."

Atrocities

According to the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, more than half of the 2.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were killed in 1915-1916 and again around 1923.

On April 24, 1915 more than 5,000 Armenians were massacred in Constantinople, today's Istanbul. In other cases, people were first deported, then killed. Some starved to death in prison camps, and others were loaded onto barges, which were sunk in the Black Sea, it says.

Turkey says between 250,000 and 500,000 Armenians, and a larger number of Muslims, died amid chaos accompanying the collapse of the 600-year Ottoman Empire and World War I.

"Documents of the time list intercommunal violence, forced migration of all ethnic groups, disease, and starvation as causes of death. Others died as a result of the same war-induced causes that ravaged all peoples during the period," the Turkish government says in a document responding to the allegations.

Armenia is slightly larger than Maryland, and home to some 2.9 million people. Some seven million Armenians live abroad, including one million in the U.S.

REESE ERLICH: Well, it's very complicated. Because on the one hand, the United States is very much opposes to the P.K.K.'s actions in Turkey. On the other hand they're supporting P.K.K.'s attack on Iran. This is kind of typical of the clandestine efforts by the United States when we saw the U.S. support for the Mujahadeen against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They sided with some pretty nefarious characters who ended up forming al Qaeda and bombing New York.

So once again, the U.S. is allying with one faction of this party, but not with the other, playing a very dangerous game and they're playing a very similar game with the Mujahadeen al-Halb, another Iranian group and with groups in Baluchestan which is near the Pakistan Iranian boarder where some revolutionary guard buses were blown up. It's a very very dangerous, duplicitous game that the United States is playing.

Turkey has been the strongest ally that the United States has had in the Middle East since the end of WW II. The Marshall Plan started with Northern tier states like Turkey and Greece. Turkey joined NATO and was a key player in the American victory in the Cold War. As a secular government, Turkey stood against the rising tide of Muslim radicalism. To the extent that Turkey is moderating its long-term secular militancy, and moving toward fair elections, it may be providing a model for a moderate, democratic Middle East. Its economy is growing rapidly, foreign investment is in the billions. Turkey is in short, almost everything the US could have asked for in the Middle East.

But the Bush administration, during the past five years, increasingly thrown away this asset, and now is in danger of losing a close and valued ally altogether. It is unclear what US interests are served by this repeated and profound damage inflicted by Washington on Turkey, or what Ankara ever did to us that we are treating them so horribly.

The threat of a Turkish hot pursuit of PKK guerrillas into Iraqi Kurdistan is starting to have an effect on Kurdistan's economy and stability. Inflation is high and some Turkish businesses that had won bids to operate in the Kurdistan Regional Authority (KRG) are going back home in fear of trouble. Getting banks to underwrite economic enterprises is getting harder, which could result in a slowdown for Iraqi Kurdistan. This area was the last in Iraq not to be hit hard by instability, but tensions are growing.

Imagine what things look like from a Turkish point of view. Remember that Turkey is a NATO ally, that it stood with the US during the Korean War (in which its troops fought), during the Cold War, and during Bush's war on terror. Turkey gives the US military facilities, including the Incirlik Air Force base, through which large amounts of materiel for the US forces in northern Iraq flows.

First, the Bush administration insisted on invading Iraq and overthrowing the secular Iraqi government. It thereby let the Salafi Sunni and the Shiite fundamentalist genies out of the bottle and created vast instability on the southeastern border. It would be as though a US ally had invaded Mexico and inadvertently unleashed a Marxist peasant rebellion against San Diego. Secular Turkey already felt itself menaced by the Shiite ayatollahs of Iran and by the rising Salafi and al-Qaeda trends, and the US made everything far worse.

Then, the US gave the Kurdistan Regional Authority control over the Kirkuk police force and unleashed Kurdish troops on the Turkmen city of Tal Afar. (The Turks look on Iraq's 800,000 Turkmen as little brethren, over whom they feel protective, and don't want them dominated by Kurds).

The Kurds promptly announced their aspiration of annexing 3 further provinces, or at least big swathes of them, including the oil province of Kirkuk, and including substantial Turkmen populations. Not only was that guaranteed to cause violence with the Arabs and Turkmen, but it would give Kurdistan a source of fabulous wealth with which it could hope to attract Kurds in neighboring countries to join it, a la German Unification after the fall of the Berlin Wall - except that this unification would dismember several other countries.

Then the Kurdistan Regional Authority gave safe haven to 3,000 to 5,000 Kurdish guerrillas from eastern Anatolia in Turkey who have been killing Turks and blowing up things, reviving violence that had subsided in the early zeroes. Despite the US military occupation of Iraq, Washington has done nothing to stop what Turkey sees as terrorists from going over the border into Turkey and killing Turks. Turkish intelligence is convinced that the camps in Iraqi Kurdistan are key to weapons provision for the PKK, and that funding is coming from Kurdish small businessmen in Western Europe.

PKK guerrillas have just killed 13 Turkish troops on Sunday and in the past few weeks have killed 28 altogether. If guerrillas were raiding over the border into the United States and had killed 28 US troops I think I know what Washington's response would be.

The the US Congress abruptly condemned modern Kemalist Turkey for the Armenian genocide, committed by the Ottoman Empire. I have long held that Turkey should acknowledge the genocide, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more hundreds of thousands. The Turkish government could then point out that it was committed by a tyrannical and oppressive government-- the Ottoman Empire under Enver Pasha's military Junta-- against which the Kemalists also fought a long and determined war to establish a modern republic. I can't understand Ankara's unwillingness to distance itself from a predecessor it doesn't even think well of (the capital is in Ankara and not Istanbul in part for this very reason!)

But no dispassionate observer could avoid the conclusion that the Congressional vote condemning Turkey came at a most inopportune time for US-Turkish diplomacy, at a time when Turks were already raw from watching the US upset all the apple carts in their neighborhood, unleash existential threats against them, cause the rise of Salafi radicalism next door, coddle terrorists killing them, coddle the separatist KRG, and strengthen the Shiite ayatollahs on their borders.

The Congressional vote came despite the discomfort of elements of the Israel lobby with recognizing the mass killing of Armenians as a genocide. Andrew E. Matthis explains Abraham Foxman's intellectually bankrupt vacillations on this issue. Foxman and others of his ideological orientation have been forced grudgingly to back off their genocide denial in the case of the Armenians by a general shift in opinion among the American public, and his change of position may have removed any fears among congressional representatives that the Israel lobby would punish them for their vote. (Turkey and Israel have long had a strong military and diplomatic relationship, which the Israel lobby had earlier attempted to preserve by lobbying congress on Turkey's behalf with regard to some issues. But the Israel lobby is now split between pro-Kurdish factions and pro-Turkish factions, and the pro-Kurdish ones appear to be winning out. Richard Perle Michael Rubin of AEI are examples of the pro-Kurdish Neoconservative strain in the Israel lobby. They are losing.)

In 2000, 56% of Turks reported in polls that they had a favorable view of the United States. In 2005 that statistic had fallen to 12%. I shudder to think what it is now.