Reciprocity

It's a good word, and a better concept. It also seems its about time that Bush and the Boys learned it.

The Bush Administration actually had the nutz to question Turkey's right to "unilateral" action against the PKK forces operating out of Iraq. This, according to the WSJ, happened yesterday. Does this strike anyone else as staggeringly myopic?

The authors of the "pre-emptive" doctrine of national security have ISSUES with an ally doing whatever it takes to stop terrorist attacks from across an international boundary? Didn't Cheney DEFEND the Israeli attacks on Lebanon as unfortunate but justified? What is the difference here? I am forced to assume it is ONLY different in that the US did not have 160,000 troops in Lebanon at the time, and such attacks might make their job even more unsafe and immeasurably harder to accomplish. Wasn't it just this kind of "action" that brought about the March '03 invasion? A perceived threat of terrorist nature by a hostile regime? Hadn't it been determined that negotiations HADN'T worked?

If the Iraqi's can't stop the PKK, and the US military won't... then I say the Turks have EVERY RIGHT to storm across that border and secure their own safety and security. I am fully aware that this will place US troops in even greater danger... and I cannot stress enough how unfortunate I find that situation to be... but I really feel this is disaster of Bush's own design. The Kurdish independence issue isn't new, and should have been an expected side effect of the liberation of Iraq. It is the single greatest reason why Turkey refused to support us in the '03 invasion, when they had been so supportive of the efforts in Afghanistan... they didn't want to stir up the Kurds.

Well, the Kurds are stirred up, and Turkish citizens and soldiers are being kidnapped and murdered... and if we won't stop them, and the Iraqi's can't stop them, then I hope the Turks do.
The lack of planning and foresight in this debacle staggers the imagination... it really does!