Insanity Compounded by Insanity: Bush Offers to Bomb Iraqi Kurds

Insanity Compounded by Insanity: Bush Offers to Bomb Iraqi Kurds

The Herald Sun. Posted October 25, 2007.

Bush, in a deep hole, just keeps digging.


A few things to consider when reading this story. First, PKK guerrillas are believed to be holed up in highly-protected mountain redoubts and it's doubtful that airstrikes would have much of a long-term effect on their operational capabilities. Second, while the Iraqi Kurdish leadership has been taking a cautious approach to the escalating conflict, "Kurdistan" president Massoud Barzani has twice promised that the powerful Peshmerga militia -- estimated at more than 100,000 strong and arguably the most effective ground forces in Iraq -- would join PKK fighters in the case of a Turkish ground incursion. The Iraqi Kurdish leadership would be hard-pressed to make that move, but might not have a choice given their own domestic political calculus. Lastly, PKK fighters' cross-border attacks are seasonal; they slow during the winter when the mountainous border area where they operate becomes too difficult to negotiate. During the "off-season," they mover deeper into Iraqi Kurdistan, where the job of finding clean targets for airstrikes and/ or shelling becomes much more difficult. That means that if the U.S. did strike PKK camps, most of the fighters would likely to dissolve into the population and be ready to return next spring.

The Bush Administration is considering air strikes, including cruise missiles, against the Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq.

The move would be an attempt to stave off a Turkish invasion of that country to fight the rebels.

President George Bush spoke with Turkish President Abdullah Gul by phone yesterday in an effort to ease the crisis.

And Prime Minister John Howard says the tensions on the Turkey-Iraq border will not help the west's battle for democracy in Iraq.

Mr Howard said there was some recent evidence that US forces were making headway in their battle against al-Qaeda in Iraq following the US troop surge.

"There is some evidence in recent weeks that the surge has been more successful than many of its critics wanted it to be or believe it would be," Mr Howard told an army land warfare conference in Adelaide today.

But he hoped the temperature between Turkey and the Kurds was kept as low as possible.

"It is in a strategic sense a complicating factor at a time when evidence is emerging of slow but nonetheless some progress being made in improving the security position in Iraq," he said.

"The message I would give to Turkey and Iraq is, like everybody else, just keep it as cool and at a lower temperature as possible," Mr Howard said.

According to an official familiar with the conversation, Mr Bush assured the Turkish President that the US was seriously looking into options beyond diplomacy to stop the attacks coming from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

"It's not 'Kumbaya' time any more - just talking about trilateral talks is not going to be enough," the official said.

"Something has to be done."

more...

http://www.alternet.org/story/66115/?page=entire

Because that was Saddam "killing his own people."

Oh, wait.

Insanity Compounded by Insanity?

I prefer Imbecility compounded by Insanity. But I like yours, too.

The PKK have been pushing for an Independent Kurdish State based on a Socialist System, where the Oil would be Nationalized. The Oil Corps of the West definitely do not want that to ever happen.