US Helps Turkey Hit Kurds In Iraq

Washington Post:

The United States is providing Turkey with real-time intelligence that has helped the Turkish military target a series of attacks this month against Kurdish separatists holed up in northern Iraq, including a large airstrike on Sunday, according to Pentagon officials.

U.S. military personnel have set up a center for sharing intelligence in Ankara, the Turkish capital, providing imagery and other immediate information gathered from U.S. aircraft and unmanned drones flying over the separatists' mountain redoubts, the officials said. A senior administration official said the goal of the U.S. program is to identify the movements and activities of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which is fighting to create an autonomous enclave in Turkey.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[iswearington]

01:25 AM on 12/19/2007

so the good ole usa helped bomb the only muslims on earth that were our friends. sshheeesh!is everyone in the bush criminal gang retarded?

[Tellmethetruth]

01:11 AM on 12/19/2007

"WASHINGTON - A bill including Sen. Joe Biden’s plan for a political solution in Iraq will now go before President Bush for his signature after passing both houses of Congress.

Biden’s nonbinding bipartisan resolution, stating the United States should support a federalist form of government in Iraq that’s based on the Iraqi constitution, was an amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act, which passed the Senate Friday.


By promoting federalism, the resolution supports the creation of strong regions under a limited central government. It also calls for more international involvement in helping Iraqis reach an agreement on a comprehensive political settlement.

“It’s time for this president to listen,” Biden said in a statement. “We now have both sides of the aisle, both sides of the U.S. Capitol, saying to the president: abandon this flawed strategy of yours and change course.”

White House spokesman Alex Conant has said previously that the administration was “fine” with the amendment because it was a nonbinding resolution that said “let the Iraqis decide.”

The 75-23 approval of Biden’s amendment in September led to misunderstandings among some Iraqi leaders, who thought the Senate was promoting the division of Iraq and intruding on Iraqi affairs.

Biden later clarified in a conference call with reporters that the measure calls for “keeping Iraq together” and for “helping the Iraqis implement their own constitution.”

The final version of the resolution strengthens language emphasizing that the decision is up to the Iraqi people. It now states that the United States will support a federalist system of government based on the Iraqi constitution “if the Iraqi people support” it.

Language was also added stating that nothing in the Act should “imply that the United States wishes to impose a political settlement in Iraq based on federalism if such a political settlement is contrary to the wishes of the Iraqi people.”

Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said the changes are nothing new and that the Biden plan has always emphasized U.S. support of the Iraqi people."

[ajax2]

10:36 PM on 12/18/2007

PKK terrorist branch chief visited the WH in 2005.

Huffpost,
"Now, the absurdity of the situation lies in the fact that while the US classifies the PKK a terrorist organization, it doesn't classify the PJAK as terrorists, because of the fact that it wages war on Iran. In fact, as the article notes, PJAK commanders boast of having significant contacts and consultation with American military officials. Astonishingly, the leader of the PJAK, which it should be emphasized again, is an off-shoot of a terrorist group, was actually allowed to visit Washington last summer."

Bush is deeply involved with terrorism. on both sides.

[marleysghost]

09:31 PM on 12/18/2007

Let's see...Rummy and Cheney supplied Saddam with chemical weapons to gas the Kurds in the 1980's. Then we asked the Kurds to fight against Saddam and hung them out to dry. Then we protected them with no fly zones so they would feel secure. Now we help the Turks bomb the shit out of them. Clever. Now tell me again why people in the Middle-East hate America. I'll give you the short form: We betray our allies when it is not convenient to defend them.

[wolf58]

06:17 PM on 12/18/2007

Once again wrong way George strikes again. The one place in Iraq where US troops were not targets every waking moment was where the Kurds are. Now not only do we tell the Turks where the PPK are located but they make it public knowledge which will once again put targets on the backs of our troops. I am so sick of these idiots playing with the lives of our military sevice members but hey why should they care it's not like they have love ones over there in battle. Bush and the rest of these asswipes are nothing but traitors. I'll bet are forefathers are spinning in their graves.

[A Meat Beetle]

03:31 PM on 12/18/2007

The Kurds are our allies. The Turks are our allies.Now the US will have to choose a side. Why couldn't they just send Condi Rice to talk to the two parties and work somethng out? Oh yeah--because she's an incompetent idiot who can't do anything right. In other words, a member of the Bush administration.

[ajax2]

01:58 PM on 12/18/2007

Kirkuk (oil) might be the reason that the U.S. allowed an incursion into Kurdistan.

[letsgetsmart]

01:42 PM on 12/18/2007

Not surprising. I have been saying right along that Bush has not been trying to bring peace to the people of Iraq, he is inflaming the situation every chance he gets. Now he is going to visit Israel. More salt in the wound to Muslims. On other posts people have been talking about this person or that as the anti christ. With Bush around, who needs another? Old man Bush should ask his wife who she was sleeping with. Or is this the result of killing all of those brain cells with booze and drugs?

[LorettaSingbiel]

01:42 PM on 12/18/2007

persistent attacks in Turkey by PKK rebels...

U.S. military, which controls Iraqi airspace, allows Turkish warplanes to cross the border...

airstrikes provoke outrage in Baghdad. Kurdish members of the country's leadership call the attack "a violation of Iraq's sovereignty"...

alienates Iraq's Kurdish minority, whose leaders strongly supported the U.S. troop presence in Iraq...

Ahhh...a strange turn of events?

So the FREEDOM FIGHTERS (the Kurds), are now FIGHTING FREEDOM (the USA)???

I must say...OUR "War On Terrorism" is GROWING quite confusing!!!

Oh well...Sometimes the best laid plans go awry.

So WHO'S next on OUR "terrorist" watch? Stay tuned for blow-by-blow updates.

Stay safe, healthy and happy,
Love, Loretta

[revko]

12:54 PM on 12/18/2007

Yoohoo... All you dick heads that insisted that we needed to blow up Iraq because "Saddam was a gassin' his own people" those were the Kurds you were talking about. We (the U.S.) used to call them "Marxist Kurds" from "Marxist Kurdistan" that's what made patriotic Americans feel it was OK to supply the gas.

Here we go again

[ez14livin]

12:51 PM on 12/18/2007

so tell me again...

are we for one iraq, or multi states?

is dick cheney really the 'chief' from get smart, and this is the old: the enemy of my enemy is my enemy (but only if they were friends with my other friend, who is now my enemy) strategy of pre-emptive unified separation?

[sgtjiggs]

12:49 PM on 12/18/2007

The Kurds are turds and Bush is the bomb
We must not wait to attack I-ron.
The Middle East is like a fresh water pearl
Because is has a lot of earl

Amen.

[forpeace]

12:49 PM on 12/18/2007

*

Why is US helping Turkey Hit Kurds In Iraq Surprising??!!

The "Fascism Turkey Army" has been getting help from the "Democracy Exporter USA" for a long time now, this is not new.

Shame on our Government!

*

[postedby]

12:47 PM on 12/18/2007

"Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK)"

You cannot trust any organization with "Worker" in it, especially if it's capitalized.

[Richterscale]

12:46 PM on 12/18/2007

From the WaPo story...
Sunday's airstrikes provoked outrage in Baghdad, particularly among Kurdish members of the country's leadership. Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, which administers three northern Iraqi provinces, called the attack "a violation of Iraq's sovereignty."

Sorry, but the sovereignty ship left port years ago.