Insanity Compounded by Insanity: Bush Offers to Bomb Iraqi Kurds

Bush can't find enough people to bomb. He keeps coming up with new targets.

I suppose its just a matter of time until the entire Mid-East is nothing but glass.

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.

Via AlterNet.

An aside

How the fuck does the Kurdish Workers Party translate into (PKK)?

And why no apostrophe?

Inquiring minds want to know.

And while were at it how can there be banana ketchup? There is you know.

Gates warns Turkey not to invade Iraq

What the hell is Turkey thinking? Jesus H Christ on a skateboard, only the US has the right to invade a foreign country.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Sunday cautioned Turkey against sending troops into northern Iraq, as it has threatened, to hunt down Kurdish rebels it accuses of carrying out terrorist raids inside Turkey.

(read more)