Home Sick

I'm going to be nursing this chest infection instead of blogging but this story just earned Condi 1,000 points:

Rice, in the Iraqi capital to tout security gains and what she calls an emerging political consensus, said al-Sadr is content to issue threats and edicts from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. Al-Sadr heads an unruly militia that was the main target of an Iraqi government assault in the oil-rich city of Basra last month, and his future role as a spoiler is an open question.

"I know he's sitting in Iran," Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr's latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. "I guess it's all-out war for anybody but him," Rice said. "I guess that's the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he's in Iran."

Oh, snap! Sadr just got served!

By a woman. A black woman! Tight.

She hasn't been the best Secretary of State but this reminds me she's had a few shining moments.

Ultimate Spin

How's this for a fucked up, backwards headline:

Iraq Group May Attack Outside Nation, McConnell Says

Which Iraq group is this? Resurgent Baathists? Shi'a militants? Republican Guard holdouts?

No:

The terrorist group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq may try to attack targets around the world in response to U.S.-led efforts to clamp down on it, the top U.S. intelligence official said.

Wow. Anything to make this look like 'blowback' I guess.

Fucktards.

HyperboLefties

Once again, a screeching leftist demonstrates their inability to remember or acknowledge any events preceding the Clinton Presidency:

Let me reassert the obvious here: The war in Iraq has been a disaster, the stupidest foreign policy decision ever made by an American President.

Really? The stupidest foreign policy decision ever? That is a very bold statement considering the competition 230 years of history has provided. Before I list some candidates for Stupidest Foreign Policy Decision Evar™ let me remind you that these wild claims about Bush and Iraq are not intended to be factual or informative but to engender terror in the average American's heart. They have to be made to see just how bad things have become. Joe Klein is not stupid and knows full well that Iraq is a blip of an error(if you believe it to be an error at all) compared to some of the true foot-up-the-ass policy choices that have been made in our history.

Now, without further ado, my list of Stupidest U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions:

• Reagan's Retreat From Lebanon - I think it has become pretty clear over the last 24 years just how stupid this decision was. Terrorist leaders started to build their 'paper tiger' argument about the U.S. on October 23, 1983. I'd rank Carter's dealing with Iran as stupider but it is hard to call his behavior a 'decision.' More like the opposite.
  
  See also: Carter and Iran, Clinton in Somalia, Bush I in Iraq



• Spanish American War - Now, this one turned out okay but at the time had to have been one of the stupider ideas America had ever had. Trump up an explosion in Cuba in order to declare war on a major naval power for the purpose of empire building. This was obviously a great plan because we could really toss our weight around with an empire of tiny islands spread all over the globe. Brilliant.
  
  See also: Mexican-American War (Not so much stupid as just mean!)



• War of 1812 - After just barely escaping the Revolutionary War with our freedom, we decide we need to kick the hornet's nest a bit more and invade Canada. Who wouldn't want to engage the world's largest navy and army in a war? Well, most everyone except us, it seems. As you might expect, we got kicked around pretty well and our capital was burned. While we didn't lose I would be very hesitant to call this a win. Let's call it a tie.



• Johnson's Expansion of the Vietnam War - Not so stupid deciding to expand it as the stupidity of doing so without any desire to actually, you know, win the damned thing. By the time Nixon had the reins, it was clear the country was done with Vietnam and no effort of his would win the war without destroying the Republican Party. Oh well, only millions of people died when we retreated.

Have a better one? Leave them in the comments. I definitely left some room for ideas relating to our dealings with the Soviets. There were too many to choose from.

(h/t: Instapundit)

The Turkey Problem

Well, it looks like I've got the resolution I'm looking for:

Turkish troops on the Turkish-Iraqi border "killed more than 30 terrorists" preparing an attack, the military said on its Web site Thursday.

1 of 3 The incident, which happened late Tuesday, occurred near a military post in Turkey's Hakkari province. Turkey has been fighting rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who have been operating on both sides of the mountainous, rugged region bordering Turkey and Iraq.

"This terrorist group was fired upon heavily by tanks, cannons and other artillery," the Turkish military said in a statement.

It continued that the firepower forced the fighters to flee to Iraq, "and they were followed with bombardment by Turkish forces." Information from local sources and intelligence determined that more than 30 "terrorists" were killed, it added.

The Associated Press reported military sources as saying that 64 rebels have now been killed since Sunday.

They're bringing the noise, baby!

By resolution, I don't mean that this is over. Not by a long shot. What I'm saying is, the decision is made and all that will result from it is self-evident. There will be a low-level incursion by Turkish forces into Kurdish-Iraqi territory for the next several weeks during which many breathless, face-saving protestations will be made by both the Kurdish and American leadership but nothing will actually be done to stop it.

Why? Because it is in our interest that Turkey be appeased on this matter and any further antagonism will only serve to threaten a strategic relationship we desperately need. Turkey's military will go on their adventure and will most likely kill quite a lot of the PKK. We and our allies will be secretly glad they killed the rabble-rousing scum and we'll have all forgotten about it in a month.

Honestly, I wish the Turks well. Nothing makes me happy like suicide bombing cowards getting blasted to chunky salsa.

You Can't Make This Up

Who said this?

Turkey has a legitimate right to stage a cross-border offensive against Kurdish rebels based in Iraq.

Would you believe Syria's Assad? Believe it.

If that is the case, then Lebanon and Israel and Iraq should all have a legitimate right to stage cross-border offensives against Syria right? After all, there are untold thousands of terrorists pouring out of that country on a daily basis.

I'll remember this next time Israel needs to smack Syria down.

Turkey vs. PKK

I started following this story a couple of weeks ago and it appears it is starting to have some very serious implications:

Concern that Turkey may attack Kurdish militants in Iraq and disrupt petroleum shipments pushed crude oil to a record price Tuesday, nudging $88 a barrel and extending a rally that has added $8 in a week.

But wait, it gets better:

The Turkish military has stepped up attacks against what it says are Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, bases in northern Iraq. The shelling comes just ahead of a vote in the Turkish Parliament on a bill authorizing a ground incursion against Kurdish fighters in Iraq. The military has reportedly amassed 60,000 troops along its border with Iraq. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Turkey to refrain from any major military operation. But Washington's influence over Turkey appears to be waning.

Turkey's top general warned this weekend that US-Turkey relations would "never be the same again" if the United States House votes to declare the World War I-era mass killings of 1.5 million Armenians a genocide. Despite President Bush's plea, the House Foreign Affairs committee voted 27-21 Wednesday to call the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks "systematic," "deliberate," and amounting to "genocide." Turkey recalled its ambassador to Washington last week.

And there's this too:

For the Bush administration the stakes of alienating Turkey are high. Turkey is a major cargo hub for U.S. and allied military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo and one-third of the fuel headed for Iraq goes through Turkey.

It has been suggested that they will remove our access to the critical Incirlik Air Base located in southern Turkey near the Syrian border.

Why has the Democratic congress decided to press the Armenian issue now, when tensions with Turkey are the highest in decades and the stakes even higher?

It is hard to escape the impression that they are trying to set back the good news from Iraq and counter the great successes of the last several months. Certainly, Bush will only benefit from lower gas prices and a successful Iraq. Can't have that in an election year.

Turks Fight PKK In Turkish Town

I've been following this as it develops and it is looking less good by the minute:

Turkish troops and Kurdish fighters have exchanged gunfire in the Turkish town of Unuderi close to the Turkey-Iraq border.

Fox News is flooding the airwaves with video from the town. Another story states that Turkey has moved as many as 60,000 soldiers to the Iraqi border in anticipation of a large anti-terrorist operation.

We are in a precarious position here. Turkey has a very legitimate right to pursue these murdering bastards wherever they hide. Even if they didn't it certainly wouldn't be the U.S. that told them so. The problem is that Kurdistan is the most peaceful and successful region in Iraq and the nationalist elements generally support the goals if not the tactics of the PKK. Our best bet is to get the Kurds themselves to hunt down these terrorists. Certainly they can understand the horrible consequences should they not.

We can't protect them from themselves.

Sunni/Shia

Here is a neat interactive map illustrating which Middle Eastern countries are Shia and which are Sunni:

Click To Use

Iraqi Justice

A new dispatch from Bill Ardolino:

"The next step in the criminal justice system is broken; the judicial system is compromised,” said former PiTT Commander Major Brian Lippo in January. “You've got judges here who are afraid to take criminal cases because of threats to their lives. You don't even have a local prison to hold them; if (the Iraqi Police) wanted to make more arrests, they have nowhere to hold these guys.”

“They were doing mass roll-ups,” said current PiTT Commander Major Anthony Sermarini. “Even in 2004, they were saying there might have been 2,000 insurgents in the city. That’s certainly not the case even at the beginning of this year, things weren’t that good, no, but there was not a brigade of insurgents running around. They started doing mass roll-ups, and a minute percentage of the people they were rolling up might have been bad guys. So what they were doing was flooding a system that, first of all, was stopped. Now the problem was, at least as far back as maybe last summer: for a good three to four months before I got here, there were no judges working at all, so the judicial process stopped at the jail.”

As usual, on-the-ground private reporters are telling the stories the NYT won't tell you. If you appreciate their work, put your money where your mouth is.

PKK Strikes Turkey

In the largest raid in years, the PKK (a violent Kurdish separatist group based in Northern Iraq) killed thirteen Turkish soldiers:

The Turkish cabinet met today amid heightened pressure to hit back at Kurdish separatists in Iraq after 13 soldiers were killed in an ambush yesterday, and two more today.
Three others were wounded today in the separate attacks in south-eastern Turkey, which followed yesterday's death toll, the worst the Turkish military has suffered at the hands of Kurdish forces in years.

The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said today's cabinet meeting would take up the issue of the long-running campaign against the Kurdistan Workers' party, or PKK, and would be followed by an anti-terrorism meeting, made up of officials in charge of security.

The heartening descriptions of success in Kurdish Iraq tend to overshadow what could in time become a major diplomatic problem for the Turkish government. Every time the Turkish people request action and don't receive it due to American interference, the pressure on an already beleagured government increases. It is clear that it is in our best interest that Turkey stays out of Iraq entirely but we must support that policy by taking steps to dismantle the PKK ourselves. Unfortunately, that action would be very unpopular in Kurdistan and strain the best relations we have in the country.

The balancing act continues.

Shiite Happens

Well, I hope this means something:

Two of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders agreed on Saturday to end a bitter rivalry in a bid to end months of armed clashes and assassinations in the oil-rich south that have threatened to spread into a wider conflict.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, promised to stop the bloodshed and enhance cooperation between their two movements.

An official in al-Sadr's office in the holy city of Najaf called the agreement a "fresh start."

Internal rivalries have been rising in recent months, particularly in the southern Shiite heartland where factions have been vying for power as the British military has pulled back to a base at the Basra airport.

The three-point agreement appeared to be aimed at reining in rival militants loyal to al-Sadr and al-Hakim before the fighting erupts into a full-fledged conflict that could shatter the relative unity of the Shiite-led governing apparatus.

It also comes as mainstream politicians from Iraq's majority sect have been trying to bring al-Sadr back into the fold after his loyalists pulled out of the main Shiite bloc last month.

The Sadrists' pullout left the United Iraqi Alliance, which includes al-Hakim's SIIC, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party and some independents, with only 85 seats—a dramatic drop for an alliance that once held 130 seats in the 275-member parliament.

Sadrist lawmaker Nassar al-Rubaie said the agreement did not change the movement's political opposition to al-Maliki's beleaguered government but was aimed at "preventing clashes between the two groups and reducing the violence hitting the country."

"We have agreed to from joint committees to investigate any friction and to determine the reasons and the people behind it," he said, stressing the need for dialogue. "The success of this agreement will mean less bloodshed."

There is nothing wonderful about the Shiites pulling out of the government but without the militias and resultant threat of violence, this is just politics. Nobody freaks out when a coalition breaks apart in Germany and this should eventually reach the same place.

Here's hoping.