Thanks, Democrats! Oil price rises with US-Turk tensions
posted at 12:34 pm on October 16, 2007 by Bryan
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The facts of the Armenia genocide aren’t in dispute. President Reagan acknowledged the genocide in 1981, so it isn’t as though the US officially denies that it happened. The wisdom of passing a resolution about it, 90-some-odd years later, is very debatable. The whole thing reminds me of President Clinton’s 1998 apology tour of Africa, during which he apologized for the evils of the distant past while ignoring more recent evils like the 1994 Rwanda genocide, during which he stood by in full knowledge of what was going on but said and did nothing meaningful to stop it. The grandstanding over the past may have made Clinton personally feel better, but the Rwandan victims were no less dead. The Democrats may be trading a resolution over a past genocide for creating an environment that could lead to another genocide in the immediate future, by making the war in Iraq more difficult to win.
None of the above is likely to gain much traction with the voters, though. But rising oil prices might.
Oil prices hit a record high, spurred by rising tensions between Turkey and Iraq, and deteriorating relations between Turkey and the U.S.
Washington sent envoys on a surprise visit to Ankara this weekend, to urge restraint, as the Turks threaten to attack Kurdish separatists in Northern Iraq.
Democrat preening increases your pain at the pump.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s top general is warning that the resolution will strain US-Turkish military ties, ties which were already strained by Turkey’s failure to allow the 4th ID to enter Iraq via Turkey in 2003, then repaired somewhat by Turkey allowing Incirlik air base to become a major logistics artery to support the war, and kept strong by the Turkish military’s secular nature and the joint fight against terrorism. But Generalissimo Nancy Pelosi is still promising to push ahead with the resolution anyway.
For its part, the White House is not pressing Pelosi directly but is lobbying members of Congress individually. Perhaps the strategy there is to deal with members who aren’t as far to the left as Pelosi and aren’t as rigidly anti-Bush as she is either. Dealing directly with her would probably be counterproductive.
Gateway Pundit notes that moves like this one have made the Pelosi Congress as upopular abroad as it is at home. While I don’t mind annoying the Chinese over the Dalai Lama (a move that seems to have Richard Gere’s fingerprints all over it), it’s hard to reach any conclusion but this: The Democrats in charge of Congress just don’t know what they’re doing, on any subject or issue, and can’t help screwing up everything they touch.
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The lib dems are nothing but DISHONEST…ARROGANT…AND JUST PLAIN STUPID…they know nothing but hatred for GW…a great American…
areseaoh on October 16, 2007 at 12:37 PM
Good. Let’s just move to Kurdistan, which will further piss off the Turks. But that’s their fault too. Much of Kurdistan was taken from the Armenians and given to the Kurds for their help in the genocide.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 12:40 PM
The Christian genocide/ethnic cleansing has gone relatively unchecked in Iraq, though we’ve been there to prevent it.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 12:44 PM
Lets see…
who are we currently pissing off…
Russia: Radar sites…
China: Dali Lllama…
Turkey: Armenian genocide…
Israel: Saying they have to go to 67 borders…
Iraq: constantly in their face about internal politics…
All while fighting a multi front was which needs international help…
anyone else see a bit of a problem with this stategery?
Romeo13 on October 16, 2007 at 12:50 PM
Of course, the Dems will blame Bush.
Bigfoot on October 16, 2007 at 12:52 PM
more proof that the Democrats are not interested in helping the ‘poor and middle class’.
Of course with most of everyone, rumor is more important than reality. So the rumor that they care is much more significant than any fact that they don’t.
ThackerAgency on October 16, 2007 at 12:53 PM
Next on the Democrats’ agenda: pass a resolution condemning Saudi Arabia for its various domestic misdeeds. That will surely get the oil price bubbling a bit more as Saudi-US relations go in the tank.
What’s a higher oil price when we can pride ourselves on having taken the high road? Realpolitik is for pussies, I guess.
Seixon on October 16, 2007 at 12:56 PM
I guess the next round of leftist “Why do they hate us” soul-searching might have to include a little footnote on Pelosi.
Clark1 on October 16, 2007 at 1:03 PM
This is absolutely mind-boggling.
If the Turks get pissy enough, they’ll end our ability to stage from there, which I suspect is exactly what the Dhimmicrats want.
They are intentionally poisoning the well, and it is despicable.
Once again, Democrats strive to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
drjohn on October 16, 2007 at 1:06 PM
that should be on a GOP ad somewhere. Bryan, make sure you get your royalties.
liquidflorian on October 16, 2007 at 1:08 PM
More proof that liberals are the enemy within.
jdawg on October 16, 2007 at 1:13 PM
It’s nothing new. They talk down the economy in the best of times when they aren’t in power.
It’s basically about winning elections…party before country.
Asher on October 16, 2007 at 1:20 PM
So the dems have finally found a way to interrupt the logistical supplies to the troops in Iraq without directly seeming unpatriotic. Well played, well played indeed. Its Rovian in its simplicity.
BohicaTwentyTwo on October 16, 2007 at 1:21 PM
Ships are going to get stuff into Kurdistan…how?
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 1:24 PM
I call them Dumocrats because that is what they are! Ann Coulter’s book title says it all. If Dumocrats had ANY brains, they would be Republicans. Unfortunately they don’t have ANY brains and therefore hardly ever become Republicans. Once in a while, a Dumocrat opens his/her mind and actually begins to think for themselves. They then realize that they were fed a steady diet of lies and falsehoods about everything in history and current events in order to deceive people who don’t think for themselves. It’s pathetic that so many Americans are just plain IGNORANT! On the other hand, they have been brainwashed since they entered kindergarten in the public “re-education” facilities to believe that evolution and global warming are facts, not just unproven theories which are continually being revised to fit new scientific discoveries made by scientists who are surprised to find evidence which would seem to indicate that there are major problems with their current theories. However, in spite of the contrary evidence, they refused to examine other possible theories n order to stick with their religious-like faith in the theory of evolution and global warming.
In my opinion, it takes more faith to believe in the theory of evolution, than it does to believe in an All-Powerful Creator, because anyone who has two brain cells knows that without an outside force of some kind, it is impossible to get something from NOTHING. The question always goes back to where did the something(atoms, chemicals or whatever) come from in the first place. When they have a scientific answer for that which doesn’t just say we can’t say where it came from because it was before the “Big Bang”, then I will look at their theories again.
TruthToBeTold on October 16, 2007 at 1:51 PM
I tried to give the benefit of the doubt, but after the Reagan reminder…I have to think it is an out an out effort to kill our soldiers and innocent Iraqis. We have moved to an all new level in the fight for our country.
tomas on October 16, 2007 at 2:06 PM
Maybe congress will now pass a resolution condemning Japan. Japan’s atrocities (WWII - What they did to American and British and Australian prisoners and God only knows the vast number of Chinese and Koreans they murdered) are a lot more recent than the Ottoman Empire’s (which no longer exists) slaughter of Armenians.
And Japan has never really apologized either. In fact in their school books they pretty much white wash the whole thing.
MB4 on October 16, 2007 at 2:06 PM
This is a perfect example of footstomping w/Pelosi and
the dems. If we can’t end the war my way then I will take a back door and cripple it to extinction. This was very well thought out on their part.
xler8bmw on October 16, 2007 at 2:18 PM
In another twenty years when global warming raises ocean levels 100 feet, it should not be a problem.
- Al Gore (Proud winner of the Trifecta: an Oscar, an Emmy and the Nobel Peace Prize! And always remember I am the Goracle thy Oracle!
MB4 on October 16, 2007 at 2:18 PM
That’s the best case scenario. The worst case is that they DO know what they’re doing and they’re actively trying to make victory more difficult by possibly cutting off the main supply route to the war they oppose. That’s disgusting to think, but perhaps true…
Aren’t there the people who are always screaming about diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy???
On the bright side, our diplomatic relations with Armenia should improve!
krabbas on October 16, 2007 at 2:27 PM
Liberalism relies, in part, on being credited through intentions, rather than outcomes. Speak Pelosi is not going to be bothered by any real consequence by her condemnation of Turkey over the Armenian Genocide because it was her intentions that are to be noticed not any real world result from said intentions.
Rhetorical Question: If these are the kind of things we are getting from the first woman Speaker of the House, what sort of things are we going to expect from the first woman POTUS? :p
Weebork on October 16, 2007 at 2:33 PM
Through Israel. Kurds are pretty ok with the Jews. You’d have to fly it in, but so what? Kurdistan is perfectly positioned to harass all of our enemies in the region.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 2:40 PM
Only if the voters understand who’s causing the problem, which they won’t because the MSM carefully won’t tell them or guide them to that conclusion. I just saw a report on CNN about the problems our troops will face if Turkey closes its border to us. They were honest about the consequences to our troops and our efforts in Iraq. And they said it would happen if the House passes a resolution condemning Turkey for a genocide that happened around the turn of the century. But they did not once mention Democrats’ role in or motivation for this sudden need to condemn something that happened almost a century ago. I’ll grant it was implied, since Democrats are in control of both houses of Congress and must therefore be the ones who want this resolution, but the reporter and commenter deliberately and carefully de-emphasized anything that would encourage viewers to make such connections and/or leaps of logic. They didn’t even ask the obvious rhetorical question about why members of Congress are suddenly risking our relationship with Turkey over events that happened so long ago.
It’s obvious to a critical thinker of even minimal brain-power: The Dems can’t cut funding or precipitously pull our troops out of Iraq, so they’re trying to covertly sabotage our current success in Iraq by cutting off our own supply route. Despicable! And, as usual, aided and abetted by the MSM.
aero on October 16, 2007 at 2:40 PM
It’s going to get worse. The Dems are going to eff this country up as much as they can, so that their gal in the Senate can come riding in to fix everything.
But don’t question their Patriotism.
reaganaut on October 16, 2007 at 2:44 PM
I’m thinking that it might be a good idea for you to get a map out, dude. The logistics you recommend seem very unwieldy to me, and unnecessary. Leave well enough alone re the resolution, and we won’t have to find an alternative to Incirlik at all.
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 2:58 PM
Another “feel good” resolution from the party of females. Would they have passed a resolution during WWII condemning Stalin and Communism??? SCHMUCKS!
Andy in Agoura Hills on October 16, 2007 at 3:05 PM
What I’m saying (and Robert Spencer et al), is that in light of political trends in Turkey, and with the election of Abdullah Gul, Turkey is already lost as an ally, especially after the Bush administration foolishly threw its support behind the election results rather than the military.
The logistical support you’re thinking of is really unnecessary in the current conflict. There are Kurds in Syria and Iran that can be used to raise all kinds of hell for those countries in a 4GW sense, which requires little in the way of logistic support. Iran is a loosely-held together state that’s left over from the Persian empire. It could easily be destabilized if we were willing to use the same tactics against Iran that it uses against us in Iraq, and Kurdistan is the best country from which to do this, as the Kurds are already well practiced in these techniques. Somehow, they managed their own logistic support without access to the sea.
But I’m sure the deep thinkers in the Bush administration and in the Pentagon have already thought of that angle and ruled it out, for whatever reason.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 3:11 PM
It’s already too late to debate this, anyway: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/018479.php
Consider my proposal. Two can play at Turkey and Iran’s little game. Give money and small arms to the PKK. Foment ethnic Kurdish separatism in Iran. Do the same with the Azeris in Iran. Pretty soon, Iran comes apart. As Spengler put it, we can’t stop the chaos in the middle east, but we can direct it toward our advantage.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 3:16 PM
Probably because it would pretty much disrupt the entire world economy and spark a huge multi-sided war that can still be avoided and for which everyone would blame us. We may have to fight or at least attack Iran at some point. Do we really need Nancy Pelosi et al to make sure that we end up having to fight Turkey and everyone else over there too while we’re at it?
What is the good served by a resolution that re-iterates what Reagan said 26 years ago and irritates our allies? I’ve made the negative case against it. You make the positive case for it: Why do we need to take this step right now?
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 3:17 PM
and greater Syria.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 3:17 PM
Good thing you don’t need to consult any military logisticians or anything. Guess I can sit this one out, then.
James on October 16, 2007 at 3:21 PM
It wouldn’t start a large-scale war. It would be a low-intensity conflict. Sure, it would get bloody at the end, but we wouldn’t spend a drop of American blood, and a small pittance of American treasure.
Why now? Because it’s time for Turkey and Iran to reap what they’ve sown, and the conditions are too deliciously in our favor if we choose to do it this way. Are we really going to let Kurdistan go under? They’re the only state that deserves to be one over their outside of Israel.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 3:21 PM
I’m sorry, I just think that’s insane. At a time when Iraq is finally showing signs of progress and stabilization, we’re going to unnecessarily irritate Turkey in a way that could lead to cutting off our supply lines into Iraq from the north and set the table so that our ally hitches up with our enemy to dismember Iraq (which is between them) in order to put down the Kurds. We’ll find ourselves surrounded and cut off while our allies catch the next chopper airlift out.
Insane.
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 3:27 PM
We don’t have to show any overt support for the Kurds. We can do the same thing with them we did with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
We already have the problem with Iran. I’ve tried to show that we already have the problem with Turkey, because of Bush’s fumbling of the opportunity for another military coup in Turkey. We can certainly fight a proxy war with Iran and Syria using the Kurds. We don’t actually have to base ourselves there, and we can supply them through the Gulf. If we play our cards right, we can cause the Persian imperialists a multi-front problem as well because of their Azeri population.
I would urge the Spengler/Fitzgerald/Spencer approach. It seems much more grounded in the ethnic realities over there. The Kurds want to be rid of the Arabs. Why should we try to shackle them to one another? I promise you that Turkey is going to take action against the Kurds at some point anyway, regardless of this frivolous genocide resolution. Do they deserve ethnic cleansing because of our alliance with Turkey?
Read the Spengler post. I’m interested in your take.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 3:36 PM
You and I suppose Spengler are missing one big fact that’s different from the old Afghan war: We have thousands of troops who are there in the midst of the region right now and they will need to be supplied or evacuated.
Why don’t we at least get them out of the way before we touch off a whole new war with a stupid House resolution, hm? Is that too much to ask? But of course, if we get them out of the way of this new war, we end up losing the one we’re fighting in Iraq right now.
As for whether the Kurds deserve ethnic cleansing, obviously not. But that’s what they’re going to get out of a Turk-Iranian alliance such as the one that’s developing right now. How can we re-supply them when they’re landlocked and our bases are cut off from us? Your prescription is going to make Darfur look like a friendly game of paintball.
I have given up on thinking that doing anything in that part of the world is easy or will go according to the most optimistic plans and schemes. And I still think your prescription is totally insane.
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 3:52 PM
I stopped reading Spengler’s column right there. No one in the US government is claiming that the genocide wasn’t a genocide. No one. The US itself acknowledged it in 1981, at the very top of the government in a statement by President Reagan. If Spengler can’t get that fact right and work around it to make his point, I’m not going to take him seriously on the other things he has to say in it.
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 3:56 PM
To abandon the Kurds now would be unforgivable. That is what would be the Vietnam redux. As far as I’m concerned the rest of Iraq can work out who was Mohammed’s rightful successor, Umar or Ali, for themselves for all I care. Congress passing their grand standing resolution was a pointless slap at the Turks, but if the Turks were to launch a large scale attack on Kurdistan then I would consider that to be an act of war against the United States.
As far as military resupply into Kurdistan, which is pretty self sufficient otherwise, there is at least one large American Air base there at Bashur. Not too many flight miles from Kurdistan.
MB4 on October 16, 2007 at 3:59 PM
I don’t agree. Why will our troops need to be evacuated if the Kurds in Iran and greater Syria attempt something?
I think you’re thinking of a war in the conventional sense. I am not. I’m thinking of an unconventional one-we need to give Iran and Syria something to react to, for a change, to set them off balance as they’ve done to us.
It’s not easy to get people out of the mountains. The Kurds are well entrenched up there, and I think you’re overestimating Turkey’s ability. Have we been able to roust out Al-Qa’ida and the remaining Taliban? No. Has anyone in history ever gotten the Pashtuns out of the mountains? Has Turkey been able to defeat the PKK in the past 30 years? Obviously, the Kurds aren’t foolish enough to go against conventional Turkish forces in a conventional war. The Peshmerga aren’t stupid.
The PKK have kept themselves supplied thus far. I don’t think we need to worry that much about it.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. A bunch of his points are good.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 4:12 PM
The only way this could happen is if we hamstring the Kurds and prevent them from defending themselves.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 4:13 PM
Hey Bryan! I’ve been eavesdropping on your conversation with PRCalDude. While I agree with your position on this House resolution, I think you are misunderstanding Spengler’s statement in that article. He doesn’t say in that line that he doesn’t believe a genocide took place. In fact he states the opposite. Granted, I only looked at the quote and haven’t read the article yet, but he doesn’t appear to deny a genocide took place.
However, if the Middle East is going to open up into a full-blown war which is very possible with all of the outside interference going on over there (I fear this is what’s going to happen regardless of what we do) we may as well put ourselves into a position where we will be able to wage war and minimize US casualties. If this means letting them do most of the killing to each other, then this is what we should do.
It may be unpopular abroad, but if you haven’t noticed, we aren’t exactly winning any brownie points with our so-called “Allies”.
Americans come first!
Scorched_Earth on October 16, 2007 at 4:20 PM
Here’s a good map of the Kurdish region. Notice how much is in Iran? Proxy wars work both ways.
The Turks have a breathtaking sense of right and wrong because, of course, their Muslims. The Ottomans have no business in Anatolia whatsoever. They belong in central Asia. If they didn’t want a problem with the Kurds, Ataturk should have thought of that before he used them against the Armenians.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 4:26 PM
From Wikipedia, with appropriate disclaimer:
Sounds like another group we know of, doesn’t it?
The PKK: since 1978 and still going.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 4:32 PM
The whole Spengler column turns on that statement, and he got it wrong. That’s enough to toss the whole thing out. He can do better, and I don’t know why he didn’t. I suppose he did it because like many other facts on the ground in the real world, he found that one to be inconvenient to his thesis, so he changed it.
Well, as I keep saying over and over again, supply lines. Our military needs a lot — a lot — of materiel to sustain itself, every single day. You can’t fly all of that in to the Baghdad airport or even from Israel; much of it has to come in by ship, and go overland into the combat zone. That’s what we’re doing now from Turkey, that awful ally that you want to intentionally destabilize by condemning the Ottoman genocide against the Armenians. We’re supplying the Iraq war from Turkey because a) it works and b) they let us. If they cut us off, sure, we have other allies in the area like Israel. But unfortunately, Israel isn’t next to Iraq and doesn’t really have great harbors to work with. We’re already using Kuwait and could push some more supplies in through there, but then we’re dependent on a single supply route, through Shia territory. How long will the Iranians let that go without attacking it? And don’t forget, Pelosi wants to deal with Iranian meddling only in Iraq. Who do you think she and the Democrats and most of the world will blame when things go south as a result of the destabilization of Turkey?
You don’t seem to be taking into account the effect that the destabilization of one of our strongest regional allies will have far outside Kurdistan, among all of our allies over there. One thing you can count on in the Middle East is the law of unintended consequences. There is no A causes B over there — it’s A causes B,C,D,E and F and most of those are negative even if B is positive and A was downright brilliant. The other thing you can count on is the brutality of the Turks and the Iranians. They won’t care about the rules of engagement that we limit ourselves to, and there won’t be an ACLU to hound them for every move they make. The Kurds will be slaughtered unless we defend them, and we can’t defend them without solid supply lines. The third thing you can count on is the fecklessness of the West, especially on the left. Put those known knowns together and what you’re proposing to touch off with this resolution has a very great chance of causing a huge number of problems far outside the zone that you know will be affected, and for years if not decades to come.
And that’s if you get the war that you say you want. If you get that war, you’ll probably get it and two or three others along with it.
I also want to put the Iranians on the defensive. Destabilizing Turkey doesn’t strike me as a wise way to go about doing that.
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 4:33 PM
Ok. We’re partially talking past one another here.
We’re not destabilizing Turkey one iota with this resolution. Turkey knows full well that our government is a democracy and it’s not monolithic. It knows that Bush does not support the resolution, nor do the Republicans, likely. It would do what it’s doing anyway.
The logistic support of our troops is admittedly a problem, but we don’t need to throw any support behind the PKK. I was just using them to show that the Kurds can take care of themselves and that they’re likely not going to be wiped out if we don’t prevent them from defending themselves.
What we do need is an ethnic Kurdish separatist movement in Iran and greater Syria, which would likely take a lot of pressure off of us in Iraq, as Iran will have no choice but to react. You need Iran off balance, period. I don’t see another good way of doing that, and this is easy.
The logistic support of our troops is admittedly a problem, but not insurmountable. We still have the Sunni Gulf ports. They’d like a less powerful Iran just as much as we do.
I deny that. This is the crux of his argument:
This is another good point you ignored:
So we could play Turkey off of Iran as well.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 4:47 PM
And that’s where the destabilization of Turkey comes in, kemosabe. You don’t get what you want without getting independence movements in all the Kurd territories, including Turkey. That’s why Turkey is contemplating moving into Iraqi Kurdistan even as we speak. You can’t hermetically seal off one Kurdish independence movement from the rest.
And how do we do that if we go around intentionally irritating them when they keep warning us not to. They’re allying themselves with Iran, right now, over this issue along with the PKK issue. That resolution is driving them away from us and toward Iran. How do we get from this point to “playing Turkey off of Iran?”
Nothing ever works out as cleanly as Spengler is making out — Oh, we’ll just swap this territory for that, etc. Spengler is being a fantasist.
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 4:56 PM
Trying to negotiate with Pelosi or work through her would help her maintain and improve her status. It does seem better to try to break off pieces of Pelosi’s faction; she seems likely to respond by trying to punish Democrats who disobey her, and to do it so vindictively that she makes angers her own people.
Kralizec on October 16, 2007 at 4:58 PM
It’s too late to debate all that. We should have thought of that before we went into Iraq. The PKK, as Totten put it, doesn’t necessarily have the support of the rest of the Kurds. But the Kurdish issue should have been debated before we even went in. Too late now.
They can’t warn us not to do anything. They’re not powerful enough. What we need to do is show some backbone. We need to remind them how weak Iran is and the fact that they have much more to gain by leaving Kurdistan alone and perhaps ceding part of it to the Kurdish republic in an effort to divy up Iran. This would also give Turkey access to Caspian oil. Besides, the Azeris would much rather move closer to Europe than the Orient.
Hardly. He’s being a pragmatist. Nothing ever works according to plan, but we do need to get rid of the Iranian mullahs and their nukes. Do you think another conventional war is going to do that?
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 5:03 PM
We’re in the middle of the war, right now, and contemplating a move that may start more wars, but it’s “too late to debate all that?” That’s where I get off this train, I guess.
It’s too late to debate something that hasn’t happened yet, but might happen if we make the wrong move. But it’s not too late to pass a resolution over something that we’ve already acknowledged 26 years ago and that happened 90 years ago. Ooook.
You seem to want this resolution because you want it to start some new war with Iran somehow, er, by alienating Turkey. I don’t because I’d like to finish the one in Iraq at some point and we’re supplying that war through Turkey. If we fight Iran, chances are we’ll need the Turkey supply lines for that too. If we’re talking past each other, it’s because you keep targeting the wrong country. If you want this Armenia resolution because it’ll touch off a war with Iran, well, I think that’s an insane way to go about doing that. Here’s a thought: Why not maintain the Turkey alliance and use it against Iran? They have more to lose if the Iranians become a nuclear hegemon than we do.
On the domestic side, what do you think Pelosi et al intend this resolution to do? Do you think they have any idea what the potential consequences are? Do you think they’ll do anything helpful when the bad things start happening after they pass it? Will they rally ’round the flag or just keep acting like the ignorant fools that we know they in fact are? They evidently don’t have a clue, though I do suspect that the resolution might be a back door way of screwing up the progress that’s being made in Iraq. If that’s right, and if they get what they want, how do you see the war that results from all of this progressing? Have you factored the Democrats’ likely response into Spengler’s dreams?
The best thing that can happen right now is either for the House to kill this resolution or for it to fail, and for Pelosi to take the hit for that. Passing it will go down as a serious mistake.
Bryan on October 16, 2007 at 5:23 PM
You seem to have it all figured out, Bryan. Kurdistan has been essentially independent since we’ve been enforcing the no-fly zone, but Turkey was kept out by Saddam. Now that he’s gone, Turkey’s going to do something one way or the other.
Bryan, you’ve got a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of war in the modern era, I believe. We won’t fight Iran. We’ll let the various ethnic groups do the fighting, not us. We’ll give them the money and whatever other support they require. They do the fighting.
Turkey’s targeting us.
This is a somewhat puzzling statement. Turkey, who has been all to eager to ally itself with IRan, is going to suddenly reverse course and help us fight Iran, (provided we drop the resolution passed by only Senate Dems), because we want to fight them? After they caused problems for us before the Iraq war?
No, they’ll simply align themselves with Iran against us. As they’re doing anyway.
That’s the great thing about this idea. We don’t rely on the sub-morons in Washington to wage war. We give money to other people so they can wage war the way they see fit. The Kurds are not dumb.
Worst case scenario, they side with Iran. They may do that when Bush leaves office anyway. They’ve shown every intention of doing so. This could take things out of their hands.
PRCalDude on October 16, 2007 at 5:38 PM
We know that Turkey assisted Israel’s strike on the Syrian nuclear processing plant in September.
Syria is a client state that answers to Iran.
My question is:
how is Turkey currently aligning itself with Iran? It seems to me that Turkey is currently aligning itself with Israel against Iran?
Where am I mistaken here?
ColtsFan on October 16, 2007 at 6:42 PM
The Democrats in charge of Congress just don’t know what they’re doing, on any subject or issue, and can’t help screwing up everything they touch
Want to bet ? Of course they know exactly what they are doing. The rising gas price and falling markets suit their purposes very well, thank you !
SIJ6141 on October 16, 2007 at 7:14 PM
Of course the rising gas price and falling markets is just a byproduct. Their main goal is to inluence the war in Iraq !
SIJ6141 on October 16, 2007 at 8:38 PM
PRCalDude -
Just as an aside, you have an awful lot of confidence that poking ancient ethnic conflicts and starting brush wars will have predictable results to go around snarkily accusing others of “having it all figured out.”
I guess fighting proxy wars by favoring some parties over others in the Middle East has always worked so swimmingly in the past that it’s worth giving it another go, eh?
I did notice a complete lack of content in your “it’s time to reap what they so” post. I mean, “they deserve it” isn’t a reason, it’s an assertion unbacked by a reason. As far as the conditions being in our favor, it seems that others here aren’t so sure that cutting off a portion of our supply lines and opening more guerrilla fronts in this war is quite so delicious.
Merovign on October 16, 2007 at 8:48 PM
Bryan,
I have to strongly disagree with you on the whole premise of your argument, and I think it will come back to haunt you. It was the turks who committed the genocide, and it is the turks who have consistently engaged in not only denial of that fact, but the repression of those who seek to point out the truth of it.
The notion that we ought to play along with evil because our values and virtues are for sale every time we need an airbase, is abhorrent to everything America stands for. It is no different than news organizations who propagandize on behalf of dictators in order to ensure access. Why is it wrong for CNN to keep quiet about Saddam in the 90s, but it is not wrong for the US to keep quiet about the turkish genocide of armenians now? In both cases, you are talking about one party compromising its integrity in exchange for a bribe: access to either interviews or military bases.
I think you are criticizing this merely because the democrats have done it. Had the republicans condemned the genocide, I believe your post would have been different. I am extremely conservative, but I have to say the democrats were right on this one. We are not ar Turkey’s mercy, and you need to stop acting like we are dependent on them logistically. We aren’t. We conducted Iraqi Freedom despite Turkey having cut us off. We have other allies with coast-lines, like Israel and (you forgot this MAJOR one) KUWAIT. We have air bases in nations like Qatar. THAT is how we have kept the logistics in place.
Pandering to Turkey is not going to help our relations with them. Our relations have worsened because of the erosion of Turkey’s secularism, and because Turkey feels that oppression of the Kurds, LIKE THE ARMENIANS BEFORE THEM, are its right, and US forces have stopped them from doing this, which culminated in the humiliation of Turkish special forces which were on an assassination mission.
So we need to play this from a position of strength instead of kowtowing to the Turks. You USED to understand that Bryan.
kaltes on October 16, 2007 at 9:49 PM
But why do it now? Shouldn’t we have done it 90 years ago? Didn’t Reagan already do it in the 80’s? What exactly is the point of doing it now? It’s not about kowtowing to the Turks, it’s about doing something idiotic at a time we can’t afford to. Why is congress wasting time and taxpayer money doing something that could hurt the US, aren’t there more important things for them to do? I see this as no different then their condemning of the Betray Us ad or Rush Limbaugh, all wastes of time and money which do nothing to get the work of the people done, just redirect attention away from what they should be doing. In fact this is even worse.
Gianni on October 16, 2007 at 11:17 PM
I don’t think I was the one who began the snark, but that’s neither here nor there. Bryan knows I respect his opinion regardless, things just get heated sometimes.
Plenty of world powers have played around in the middle east, but that’s just the nature of the Middle East. Middle Eastern countries themselves are constantly doing this. Why can’t we?
The assertion that, “It’s time they reap what they sow” needs no backing to anyone familiar with Iran’s proxy wars in Lebanon and Iraq, or Turkey’s extermination of the Greeks and Armenians, or simply with Islam. Little has changed in Turkish thinking since the days of the Ottoman empire, and Iran will soon be at war with somebody, either the Sunnis or Israel, or us through the terrorists they have in the U.S.
As somebody said above, anytime we need to intervene in the middle east, are we really sure we want to rely on Abdullah Gul and his ilk to keep some of our supply lines open? We put a man on the moon, but we can’t find a work-around for Turkey?
PRCalDude on October 17, 2007 at 12:32 AM
A sure marker of a liberal: do something that makes a statement about yourself. Drive a Prius, condemn past/ancient bad deeds, become a vegetarian, take a “strong” stand in a manner that can’t possibly make a difference.
The danger in this philosophy (if it can be called that) is that these “statement” libs will likely vote for Hillary just because “it’s about time we had a woman running things.” And “I like what it says about me, that I’m brave enough to vote for a woman.” Without seroius consideration of the person, the idealogy, the policies she’ll promote, and the catastrophic repercussions.
Save me from those pale green pants with nobody inside them!
Wingo on October 17, 2007 at 1:26 AM
The US military is looking for a second route to supply troops in Iraq in case Turkey shuts its borders in reprisal for possible adoption of a resolution on genocide in Armenia, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.
“There is planning going on,” a Pentagon official said privately. “It’s just looking at what other options are available because there are serious operational impacts” if the Turks deny passage of US military supplies bound for Iraq.
MB4 on October 17, 2007 at 3:47 AM