President Barack Obama has announced the US will begin a complete withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, to be completed at the end of the year. This, of course, is another major accomplishment for the Obama administration, and we can all be glad that our troops are finally coming home.
Meanwhile, Turkey has just launched a major invasion of its own into Iraq, where it continues to battle Kurdish rebels seeking an independent homeland based in northern Iraq and eastern Turkey. The current Turkish Prime Minister has promised that Kurdish rebels will "drown in their own blood".
Fortunately, then, anti-war and anti-occupation groups can simply refocus their ire on Turkey, which is invading another sovereign country in an explicit bid to maintain political dominance over a disenfranchised minority group that simply wishes to express national self-determination. That is what will happen, right?
Showing posts with label Kurds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kurds. Show all posts
Friday, October 21, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Sunday Punch Roundup
A bit of a rough weekend here, and unfortunately Jill is out of town.
* * *
Melissa Harris-Perry on why (some) White liberals are turning on Obama.
An interesting retrospective by the participants in the notorious "Stanford Prison Experiment."
After a Palestinian stone-thrower apparently caused a car accident which killed a Jewish settler and his infant child, settler militants are vowing revenge, with one extremist Rabbi proclaiming "There are no innocents in war."
Convicts told: Go to church or go to jail. It's not an Establishment Clause violation, the police chief argues, because you've got a choice!
The Marine Times cover on the repeal of DADT is, indeed, fantastic.
I thought the Herman Cain fad had passed, but apparently nobody thought to tell Florida.
This is from a few days back, but the new Union of Jewish Students (UK) campaign for a two state solution respecting the rights and dignity of Israelis and Palestinians alike looks very cool. I'm dubious that it will have any impact on campus radicals, but hopefully it can make a dent on the middle.
US gives high-powered military equipment to Mid-East ally fighting terrorist organization which seeks an independent homeland for a stateless, oppressed people.
Looks like Congressional Republicans have been reading my Comment.
* * *
Melissa Harris-Perry on why (some) White liberals are turning on Obama.
An interesting retrospective by the participants in the notorious "Stanford Prison Experiment."
After a Palestinian stone-thrower apparently caused a car accident which killed a Jewish settler and his infant child, settler militants are vowing revenge, with one extremist Rabbi proclaiming "There are no innocents in war."
Convicts told: Go to church or go to jail. It's not an Establishment Clause violation, the police chief argues, because you've got a choice!
The Marine Times cover on the repeal of DADT is, indeed, fantastic.
I thought the Herman Cain fad had passed, but apparently nobody thought to tell Florida.
This is from a few days back, but the new Union of Jewish Students (UK) campaign for a two state solution respecting the rights and dignity of Israelis and Palestinians alike looks very cool. I'm dubious that it will have any impact on campus radicals, but hopefully it can make a dent on the middle.
US gives high-powered military equipment to Mid-East ally fighting terrorist organization which seeks an independent homeland for a stateless, oppressed people.
Looks like Congressional Republicans have been reading my Comment.
Friday, September 09, 2011
Retaliatory Measures
The Israeli foreign ministry is contemplating various retaliatory measures against Turkey after the latter expelled the Israeli ambassador, cut military ties, and is threatening to provide military escort to any new flotilla seeking to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. It's typical Lieberman fare: pugnacious, probably counterproductive, and forcing the Prime Minister's office to distance itself. The main highlights are beginning cooperation with the PKK (a Kurdish terrorist organization working to establish an independent Kurdish state in Southeast Turkey), including potential weapons sales, and flooding the UN with complaints about Turkey's treatment of minorities (such as the Kurds).
I'm obviously not wild about supplying weapons to a recognized terrorist organization. But I will admit to finding ironically appealing sending a convey to southeast Turkey filled with Kurdish-language instruction books and other educational materials geared towards the Kurdish people. Totally non-violent "solidarity" measures, but I guarantee Turkey would flip out (Kurdish language and culture is heavily suppressed by the Turkish government). And hey, if we're talking about supporting national self-determination for local populations under the heel of another power, well, what's good for the goose....
As for the human rights complaints, both Israel and Turkey long have a habit of using such proclamations as proxies for diplomatic conflicts (see, e.g., declarations regarding the Armenia genocide). Still, it's not as if there aren't serious points of concern that deserve public airing: For example, the Turkish prime minister threatened to expel 100,000 undocumented ethnic Armenians if resolutions regarding said genocide were passed (ironic, no?).
On the other hand, there is no reason to think that UN human rights bodies will give Turkey anything but a clean bill of health no matter how serious its violations are. After all, countries in the UNHRC's good graces can get away with quite a bit: Sri Lanka earned laudations for its actions against the Tamils in the midst of killing up to 1,000 civilians a day. There is no reason to think that the UN holds any particular interest in holding Turkey accountable for wrongdoing, and it will be particularly resistant to doing so when it seen as acting on Israel's instigation, so it is not clear what any Israeli complaints would accomplish.
I'm obviously not wild about supplying weapons to a recognized terrorist organization. But I will admit to finding ironically appealing sending a convey to southeast Turkey filled with Kurdish-language instruction books and other educational materials geared towards the Kurdish people. Totally non-violent "solidarity" measures, but I guarantee Turkey would flip out (Kurdish language and culture is heavily suppressed by the Turkish government). And hey, if we're talking about supporting national self-determination for local populations under the heel of another power, well, what's good for the goose....
As for the human rights complaints, both Israel and Turkey long have a habit of using such proclamations as proxies for diplomatic conflicts (see, e.g., declarations regarding the Armenia genocide). Still, it's not as if there aren't serious points of concern that deserve public airing: For example, the Turkish prime minister threatened to expel 100,000 undocumented ethnic Armenians if resolutions regarding said genocide were passed (ironic, no?).
On the other hand, there is no reason to think that UN human rights bodies will give Turkey anything but a clean bill of health no matter how serious its violations are. After all, countries in the UNHRC's good graces can get away with quite a bit: Sri Lanka earned laudations for its actions against the Tamils in the midst of killing up to 1,000 civilians a day. There is no reason to think that the UN holds any particular interest in holding Turkey accountable for wrongdoing, and it will be particularly resistant to doing so when it seen as acting on Israel's instigation, so it is not clear what any Israeli complaints would accomplish.
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