Just before Christmas,
Turkish warplanes (F-16s
made in the USA) and
helicopter gunships
bombed 200 Kurdish
targets in northern
Iraq, killing 150
people, after dozens of
Turkish soldiers were
blown up by a large
contingent of Kurdish
terrorists.
There are reports that
some 60,000 Turkish
troops are massing on
the border for a land
invasion of "Kurdistan".
The bombings continue
today.
It is a thorny dilemma,
emblematic of what is so
schizophrenic up about
our policy in the Middle
East. In the 1980s, the
US gave Saddam chemical
weapons to gas the
Kurds. Then we gave the
Kurds arms and money to
rise up against Saddam;
now the Bush
administration is giving
the Turks military
intelligence, money and
arms to blast the Kurds.
Ironically, the Turks
and the Kurds are the
only people in the
Middle East who seem to
be able to tolerate
Americans and now they
are in a slowly
escalating war with each
other.
Bill Clinton, in
prescient talks to 50
wealthy supporters at a
fundraiser last summer,
off limits to the press,
said:
"The two
wrinkles in her policy
that some of the purists
won't like, but I think
she is absolutely right,
are that she would leave
some troops in the
Kurdish area in the
north because they have
reconciled with each
other and they enjoy
relative peace and
security...And if we
leave them...not only
might they be gone into
a long civil war...the
Turks might be tempted
to attack them because
they don't like the fact
that the PKK guerrillas
sometimes come across
into northern Iraq and
hide after staging
attacks in Turkey."
"We don't want that,"
the former President
went on to say.
Last June, in answering
questions at a
leadership conference,
Hillary Clinton made
headlines in the largest
newspaper in Turkey with
her mildest of answers
about the Kurds, calling
them close US allies.
None of this was
reported in the US
press.
But Bill Clinton, in his
"off the record"
remarks, carried
Hillary's statement much
further and will cause
much consternation in
Turkish ruling circles.
The Turks, our most
loyal Muslim allies
(most of the arms and
weapons that the US
needed for our invasion
and occupation in Iraq
came overland through
Turkey) have been
worried about this
flip-flopping American
policy for some time.
Opposition to an
independent Kurdish
state has been a
longtime linchpin of
American policy in the
region, going back to
the Clinton era, because
of fears that it would
threaten Turkey, a major
regional ally, which has
a large Kurdish minority
of more than 10 million
who seek independence.
In March of 1995, 35,000
Turkish troops invaded
northern Iraq using the
US imposed "No Fly Zone"
as protection for its
own jet fighters, a move
which annihilated dozens
of Kurdish villages and
killed tens of thousands
of Kurds.
Not surprisingly, Turkey
used Pentagon supplied
weapons to attack the
Kurds in this latest
foray and the Kurdish
rebels used US bombs and
other US weapons to blow
up the Turkish military
convoy. America is
supplying arms to two
"friendly nations" at
the same time
to fight each other!
This is nothing new.
America in recent
decades has a zany
history of arming third
world countries and then
of sitting back and
watching their arms be
used against each other
and us. Let us not
forget that the Taliban
weapons used against
American troops were
largely manufactured in
the United States to
help defeat the Soviet
occupation. Many of
Saddam's weapons were
originally supplied by
the US to help Iraq in
its war against Iran.
George Bush is in a
tricky position.
According to a headline
in the Washington Post,
the US, "HELPS TURKEY
HIT KURDS IN IRAQ" by
providing real time
intelligence to the
Turkish military.
Previously, the US
warned Turkey not to
invade Iraq, as this
would interfere with our
invasion of Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Kurds -
with large oil reserves
now pledged to US
companies - have a
history of divided
loyalty. One large
faction was allied and
close with Saddam
Hussein; another sizably
large group was allied
with Iran and still
another group was allied
with the Kurdistan
Workers' Party. During
the invasion, the US
could not figure out
which group to back and,
ironically, ended up
supporting the Iranian
faction to rebel against
Hussein.
Naturally, as the Arab
proverb says, "the enemy
of my enemy is my
friend." But the
conundrum is: which of
my friends do I support
if they start fighting
each other and will I
lose my one friend if I
support my other friend?
It's awfully messy out
there. And watch the
price of oil skyrocket.
jfleetwood@aol.com
