Get a load of this:

Tensions mounted along the Iraqi-Turkish border on Monday as the Turkish government sought parliamentary approval for authorizing military incursions into northern Iraq.

The vote in Parliament would permit Turkish armed forces to cross the border in pursuit of Kurdish rebels who launch raids into Turkish territory from Iraqi Kurdistan.

What are they thinking? What’s wrong with them?  Read more 

Turkey — and George W. Bush who relies on Asia Minor as a transportation hub in his war on logic — is up in arms about a pending Congressional vote declaring the massive, early 20th-century killings of Armenians a genocide.

“I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic mistake,” said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

How dare some foreigner ask the U.S. Congress to stop making historic mistakes in a time of war!  Read more 

Looks like the Turks might roll out a “new product” just before an election. Way go show ’em the way, there, Commander Guy! AP:

Sinan Ogan, head of the Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic Analysis, said one option was a limited air force operation, which would help the government deal with domestic demand for action. If ground forces do go in, he said, the military would want them to stay for at least six months to assess the impact of the mission.

“An operation before the elections will bring the ruling government more votes so they might be willing to allow such an operation,” he said. “A clash with several soldiers getting killed or a bombing at an important spot might be the spark for a military operation.”

And, best of all, it’s only going to take the Turks one Friedman Unit to get the job done and get out!  Read more 

If you think Iraq is a Clusterfuck now, just wait: Things can always get worse. AP, in a story I missed yesterday:

Turkey’s government and military have agreed on detailed plans for a possible cross-border operation against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, the foreign minister said Friday.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul urged the United States and Iraq, which oppose a Turkish military move into Iraq, to crack down on rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. But he said Turkey was ready to stage an offensive if necessary.

“We have decided how to act, everything is clear,” Gul told private NTV television. “We know what to do and when to do it,” he said without providing details.

Asked whether the government would discuss a possible cross-border offensive during a Cabinet meeting next week, Gul said: “Everything can happen in one day.”

Well, splendid.

Of course, when I said “things can always get worse,” I didn’t mean to imply that things would get worse for everybody:  Read more 

I hereby propose a rule to be known as Bush’s First Law: there is no geopolitical situation, no matter how bad already, that this nitwit and his fluffers cannot make indescribably worse. From Juan Cole today:

Before W. got into the White House and ruined the world, 56% of Turks had a favorable view of the United States and the country was a firm NATO ally. Last I knew, the favorability rating had fallen to 12%, largely because Turks are afraid Bush’s misadventure in Iraq will blow back on them. Now they think the US is a greater threat to them than the major terrorist organization that has menaced them for the past 30 years! It would be like the English public saying the US is a greater threat than the Irish Republican Army, or the French public saying the US is a greater threat than the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Armé).

This was Dr. Cole’s comment on the news story he had just cited, from a report by that radical IslamoCommie media outlet…um, Voice of America (oops.)  Read more 

200,000 Turks, God bless ’em, marched against the pending threat of a de-secularized government.

Like that jerkwater country situated between Canada and Mexico, Turkey is increasingly in the thrall of creationism.

I guess in place of “American exceptionalism” we can take pride in being a cautionary tale.  Read more 

Apt description from one Kossack.

I really don’t get why this hasn’t made the Democrats’ radar. It’s got it all: sex, drugs, treason, corruption by the Republican former Speaker…What we’re talking about is Republicans literally selling us out in the War on Terror, and squashing any whistleblower who makes noise about it, classic crime-and-coverup material. This is a total of three former FBI people trying to get some attention in all this. Pelosi? Reid? Where the hell are you people? “Large-scale drug deals and of selling classified military technologies to the highest bidder,” isn’t that worth some attention? The silence in all is this enough to make a girl wear foil.

No, this post is not mistitled.

n October, police raided a trailer home which doubled as a meth factory - and they stumbled across a treasure trove of nuclear secrets that had somehow escaped from Los Alamos. As CBS reported:

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I confess I haven’t followed this all too closely, but there are plenty of links for readers who want to know more:

here is an email that mike mejia wrote to Risen at the NYT, re sibel:

Dear Mr. Risen,

Since 2002, the New York Times has written several articles on the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. The substance of nearly all these articles has concerned the U.S. Justice Department’s actions to keep Ms. Edmonds’ allegations about security breaches at the FBI completely classified and top secret. Few of these articles have asked the important question, “Why is the government taking such extreme measures to keep Ms. Edmonds silent?”

Thanks to an article by Vanity Fair in 2005, we know have a good idea that the information the U.S. government is trying to suppress is, at least in part, a political bombshell- namely that the second in line to the Presidency, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, has taken several bribes from Turkey, dating back to the late 90s, in exchange for political favors. Of course, the Vanity Fair story was completely anonymously sourced, and thus was not picked up by the Times.

Now, Sibel Edmonds has two former FBI agents willing to go on the record confirming these allegations against Hastert.  Read more 

Mark has some really important reading about what’s going on in Iraq and Kurdistand. It’s important to try to keep this part of the war in mind, for all the reasons in the articles he mentions. But this is my favorite part:

 Read more