THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Whinning or strident pessimism will accomplish nothing worth accomplishing.

ican711nm wrote:

Whinning or strident pessimism will accomplish nothing worth accomplishing.

Your pessimism about others' pessimism accomplishes nothing worth accomplishing.

Cycloptichorn

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/12/17/get-out-by-2009/

Ican, the vast majority of Americans agree that we should be out of Iraq within two years. This specifically is against your position. You see, you are a member of the fringe; your position is not popular. Now, I know that sometimes, unpopular positions are still the correct ones; in this case, however, it is not the correct decision.

You don't know what the long-term effects of leaving Iraq will be; all you know is that you are afraid.

Cycloptichorn

Without a viable Iraqi government, a slowdown in violence is not any indicator of "success." What country in this world can operate without a viable government? Name one?

I agree, it's progress, but for how long? Without a viable government, their country will return to chaos - or worse yet, the takeover by another country.

Whinning or strident pessimism will accomplish nothing worth accomplishing.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Was Rice's trip to Iraqi Kurdistan Deliberately Sabotaged?

So when we left off the story yesterday, US Secretary of State Condi Rice had just made a surprise visit to the northern oil city of Kirkuk, apparently to congratulate the provincial council for a move toward Kurdish-Arab reconciliation. But while Condi was doing that, the Turkish army invaded Iraq! And then the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Authority, Massoud Barzani angrily refused to meet Secretary Rice, saying that the US had given Turkey the 'green light' to attack Kurdistan and that the incursion was a 'crime.' I guess that means Barzani is calling Rice a criminal

Look, it is absolutely impossible that Condi plans out a trip to Kirkuk and a meeting with Barzani with full knowledge that while she is there, Turkey will send 500 Turkish soldiers into northern Iraq to occupy the villages of Kaya Retch Binwak, Janarok and Gelly Resh. Or even that when she set out on her trip, she knew that Turkey was planning to bomb Iraqi Kurdistan on Sunday, killing 3, wounding 8, and displacing 300 Kurdish villagers. (Turkey maintained that these villages were havens for the Kurdish Workers Party guerrilla (PKK) guerrilla group, which Ankara accuses of making cross-border raids to kill dozens of Turkish troops in the past few months.)

So there are only two possibilities. The first is that this whole affair is a SNAFU. Let us imagine that the US military is concerned about Barzani helping PKK guerrillas kill NATO troops (yes, Turkey is in NATO and a close US ally for decades). They complain to Irbil and Barzani blows them off. And the US military takes a little revenge on Barzani by giving the Turks real time intelligence on PKK movements. The Turks interpret this gesture as a green light for them to attack Iraq. In the meantime, the State Department has set up a secret trip to Kirkuk and Irbil for Condi.

That could explain Sunday's bombing raid, which was not a good omen for Rice's trip. But it can't explain Tuesday's ground invasion, which is an obvious provocation and done after it became known that Rice was in Kirkuk.

So in my view Turkey is trying to drive a wedge between the US and Barzani, and Turkish chief of staff Yasar Buyukanit deliberately embarrassed Secretary Rice and ruined her trip to celebrate Kurdish-Arab reconciliation (a reconciliation that is not actually good news for Ankara, which does not want to see the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government annex Kirkuk).

If the bombing raid was also not a SNAFU but was a deliberate attempt to thwart Rice's good feeling tour in Iraqi Kurdistan, then that would point to the Turkish military having received advance warning from someone in the US government about Rice's secret trip. That is, it would point to spying. That in turn would raise the question of whether there are relatively high USG officials who had knowledge of her secret itinerary, and who have an interest in bolstering the ties of the US with the Turkish military at the expense of Washington's de facto alliance with Barzani in Iraq. I'll bet you State is looking into this fiasco as we speak and if you hear fairly soon that someone high in the department (or another department who has similar clearances) suddenly resigns to spend more time with his family, you can reasonably speculate that he was the source of a leak to Buyukanit--if indeed there was one.

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So I am wondering; did we sanction Turkey invading Iraq Kirdistan or not?
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THIS
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 19, 6:36 AM ET

WASHINGTON - U.S. military commanders in Iraq didn't know Turkey was sending warplanes to bomb in northern Iraq until the planes had already crossed the border, said defense and diplomatic officials, who were angered about being left in the dark.

Americans have been providing Turkey with intelligence to go after Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. And a "coordination center" has been set up in Ankara so Turks, Iraqis and Americans can share information, two officials said Tuesday.

But defense and diplomatic officials in Washington and Baghdad told The Associated Press that U.S. commanders in Iraq knew nothing about Sunday's attack until it was already under way.

From Juan Cole;

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The one worrisome thing in the video, Zawhiri's conviction that the US presence in Iraq is keeping al-Qaeda alive as a cause, which may well be correct. A whole new generation of jihadis with key terrorism skills is being created by their struggle against what they see as US occupation. That US interests are held harmless from this development in the long run seems unlikely.[/b][/size]

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