The Iraqi Border With Africa

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlargeWith all the news about the elections and the financial meltdown in the economy and the Strait of Hormuz propaganda and the million other things that get dumped on us, some things have gotten little or no coverage even though they are important news stories. Even Keith Olbermann has a segment on Countdown called "Bushed" - covering the numerous scandals in the Bush Administration that get glossed over. There is one story that made little or no news here in America and that was the Turkish bombing of Iraq. This whole mess started with Bush, of course, and the Pentagon's lack of control of the Iraqi border. This has allowed Kurdish Guerrillas known as the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) to cross the border into Turkey and bomb populated areas. Some in the tin foil crowd (they tend to be right on these things lately) think that our slack border security with Turkey is payback because Turkey did not allow US troops to enter Iraq from their border. Either way, the Turks are conducting strikes within Iraq and it seems the Bush Administration is allowing this to occur. From December 24: U.S. President George W. Bush promised Monday to continue helping Turkey fight separatist Kurdish rebels, after the third air attack in a week inside Iraq by the U.S.'s NATO ally, a Turkish official said. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan talked with Bush by telephone Monday after Turkey's latest attack on rebel bases in northern Iraq and the two men agreed to continue sharing intelligence about the rebels, said an official from the prime minister's office who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to journalists. Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said the leaders discussed the "importance of the United States, Turkey and Iraq working together to confront" the rebels. I think it is obvious why the US is not mopping up the PKK. We have most of our troops sitting in Baghdad's Green Zone doing the surge thing, and even with heaps of Blackwater mercenaries, we still do not have enough troops to take care of the Kurdish rebels. I might add, there was a ceasefire of sorts until the US invaded Iraq - then it all went to Hell. But nobody cares in our glossy MSM world. I am sure CBS has a package set to run tonight about a dog that can predict the outcome of the South Carolina primary. Iraq is quickly sliding to a place with the US populace that is on the same level of Africa. You know Africa? It is right there beside Iraq.

Bush Creating the Second Ottoman Empire?

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing click to enlarge I read Booman's story on Bush's new secret plan to fight Iraqis from Turkey. Turkey is all bent out of shape over the 4000 members of Kurdistan Workers Party militia that are staging attacks against Turks. Bush prefers this instead of using the regular Kurdistan army that numbers about a quarter of a million troops. After finishing Booman's post on this, it sounded a whole lot like the Mongols and the Silk Road. From Wikipedia... The Mongol expansion throughout the Asian continent from around 1215 to 1360 helped bring political stability and re-establish the Silk Road vis-à-vis Karakorum. With rare exceptions such as Marco Polo or Christian missionaries such as William of Rubruck, few Europeans traveled the entire length of the Silk Road. Instead traders moved products much like a bucket brigade, with luxury goods being traded from one middleman to another, from China to the West, and resulting in extravagant prices for the trade goods. The disintegration of the Mongol Empire led to the collapse of the Silk Road's political unity. Also falling victim were the cultural and economic aspects of its unity. Turkic tribes seized the western end of the Silk Road from the decaying Byzantine Empire, and sowed the seeds of a Turkic culture that would later crystallize into the Ottoman Empire under the Sunni faith. Turkic-Mongol military bands in Iran, after some years of chaos were united under the Saffavid tribe, under whom the modern Iranian nation took shape under the Shiite faith. Meanwhile Mongol princes in Central Asia were content with Sunni orthodoxy with decentralized princedoms of the Chagatay, Timurid and Uzbek houses. In the Kypchak-Tatar zone, Mongol khanates all but crumbled under the assaults of the Black Death and the rising power of Muscovy. In the east end, the Chinese Ming Dynasty overthrew the Mongol yoke and pursued a policy of economic isolationism. Yet another force, the Kalmyk-Oyrats pushed out of the Baikal area in central Siberia, but failed to deliver much impact beyond Turkestan. Some Kalmyk tribes did manage to migrate into the Volga-North Caucasus region, but their impact was limited. The parallels are spectacular. Just swap the silk with oil and you have Operation Enduring Freedom minus another Chinese revolution. But it could happen, it is only Monday and Bush is still in office.