It is not just the non-Kurdish part of Iraq destabilizing, or even just Iraq. It is not only the US military that is committing atrocities in Iraq.
As the article "Slog comments prove GWOT to be only a scam". click here
describes; "It has been bandied about before, but the US' military dominance makes us less safe against terrorism, and W's (GWOT) tactics run counter to the accepted reality that never in history has a super-power won an "asymmetric warfare" battle by use of military might solely.
Presidential Decision Directive 62, issued in 1998, says, "America's unrivaled military superiority means that potential enemies (whether nations or terrorist groups) that choose to attack us will be more likely to resort to terror instead of conventional military assault."
war, a war against another state that is fought by the simple application of firepower to targets. History shows that W's (GWOT) will fail, and understandably alienate the world, particularly the Islamic segment against us, but what are history or reality to these GOP goons who believe that Rove can spin any set of cold, hard facts, to GOP partisan advantage.
When Russia attacked Afghanistan the Soviets dealt with the Herat guerrillas by bombing 75% of the city into rubble. That still failed to stop the urban guerrilla tactics. See any relationship to Fallujah and Baghdad? Fallujah was decimated but the insurgents survived. McCain alluded to this in his "whack a mole" comments."
Every time W is spouting off that he is winning in "the everlasting war against terrorism"-which has been changed to "those who are against us", "GWOT" and "Islamofascism" you must realize that never in "history has a super-power won an asymmetric warfare battle by use of military might solely."
Whatever W calls it won't change history and aren't we supposed to learn from the mistakes of the past or else we'll just be repeating past mistakes?
This article also notes George Will, a noted conservative lackey, stated "The London plot against civil aviation confirmed that better law enforcement, which probably could have prevented Sept. 11, is central to combating terrorism. F-16s are not useful tools against terrorism that issues from places such as Hamburg and High Wycombe, England." Will, a stalwart Republican, went further:
"Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement has validated John Kerry's belief expressed in one of the 2004 presidential debates that although the war on terror will be 'occasionally military,' it is 'primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation."
When you think about Iraq you worry about the Sunni against Shiite and Sunni against Sunni in al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Shiites against other Shiites, but not the Kurdish part of Iraq.
The article "PKK rebels say heading into Turkey from Iraq" at http://article.wn.com/view/2007/10/12/PKK_rebels_say_heading_into_Turkey_from_Iraq_f
states "Kurdish separatist rebels said on Friday they were
crossing back into Turkey to target politicians and police after Ankara said it was preparing to attack them in the mountains of northern Iraq.
A statement by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) could further increase domestic pressure on Ankara to launch a major offensive that Washington fears could destabilize a relatively peaceful area of Iraq and have ramifications through the region."
Not only that but, as The article "Tensions Rise in Turkey on Two Fronts" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101101276.html
states "The Turkish government warned Thursday that a congressional committee vote labeling the mass killings of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire as genocide would "endanger relations" with the United States, and it summoned its ambassador from Washington for emergency consultations.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee vote on the Armenian deaths -- one of the most sensitive issues in Turkish politics and society -- came as Turkish officials said they were preparing to seek parliamentary authority to launch a military assault across the border in Kurdish northern Iraq in retribution for Kurdish rebel attacks that have killed 29 Turkish soldiers, police and civilians in the past two weeks."
Turkey slaughtered all of those Armenians during the Ottoman Empire and now they are ignoring the demands of the sovereign state of Iraq as "Defense Minister
Vecdi Gonul told reporters, "There is no need for parliamentary authorization for a hot-pursuit operation" to chase suspected PKK guerrillas.
However, Iraq has denied Turkey permission to conduct such raids."
You have to wonder why the Democrats in the House have to draw attention to an ages old Turkish crime against Armenians. The Turkish will just use it against the US and the Iraqis also.
The "bubble boy" should have followed his Secretary of State's "Powell Doctrine" before starting his Iraq theater of GWOT. Let's see--not enough troops, and of the meager number of them all were ill prepared and equipped, possessing no plans for the occupation, and no exit strategy-that about sums it up. All of those points were failures from the point of the man who tried to dummy it down for the "intellectually incurious" dummy W with the "Pottery Barn" phrase of "You break it. You own it" being a clear prognostication of what would inevitably ensue.
Just how atrocious is "Mission Accomplished"! The article "U.N. Report on Iraq Details An 'Ever-Deepening' Crisis" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/11/AR2007101102138.html
states "A U.N. report issued Thursday outlined an "ever-deepening humanitarian crisis" in Iraq, with thousands of people driven from their homes each month, ongoing indiscriminate killings and "routine torture" in Iraqi
prisons....
The assessment by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, which covered a three-month period ending June 30, found that civilians were suffering "devastating consequences" from violence across the country. It documented more
than 100 civilians allegedly killed by U.S.-led forces during airstrikes or raids.
The report described Iraq in more dire terms than last month's congressional testimony from top U.S. military and embassy officials, which stressed improvements in the security situation.
"The killings are still taking place, the torture is still being reported, the due process issues are still unresolved," said Ivana Vuco, a U.N. human rights officer in Baghdad.
The first draft of the U.N. report was completed in August, but release of the final version was delayed for more than a month following a request by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker, according to a confidential account by a senior U.N. official. Crocker insisted that Iraq be given time to respond to the
allegations, according to the account. The United States then prepared critical assessments of the U.N. investigation that were included in the final report.
U.N. officials in Baghdad said the report was not intended to challenge the U.S. military's assertion that this year's troop escalation helped reduce violence in much of Iraq. The reporting period ended before the time in which the U.S. military has described the sharpest drops in violence. The U.N. agency said it was again unable to persuade the Iraqi government to release civilian casualty figures.
Vuco said her organization was not trying to determine whether the situation in Iraq had improved or deteriorated. "As long as there are human rights violations, there are still concerns," she said.
Among the most serious issues raised in the report is the treatment of detainees. The U.N. agency found that as of June, 44,325 detainees were in Iraqi or U.S. custody, an increase of nearly 4,000 people since April. Many of them, it said, remained in detention for months without having their cases reviewed or with limited access to legal counsel. The report also expressed concerns about overcrowding and poor hygiene in detention centers, particularly pretrial holding cells run by the Interior Ministry in Baghdad. The agency said it "remained gravely concerned at continuing reports of the widespread and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees."...
An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said the ministry "totally rejects this report." Khalaf said politicians, journalists and human rights workers have visited ministry facilities, and "they didn't witness any kind of abuse."
The UN was intimidated into delaying the release of the report, but facts are facts.
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