Damn! I hate reporting from an active war zone! I always end up spilling a martini or two in the foxhole, and it’s so much harder to get my groove on with gunfire ringing out in the background.Plus, I just don’t feel as sexy in a plaid flak jacket…but I digress as usual.So where the hell am I? Well, I heard that you folks were flabbergasted by some strange events in the US Congress which may result in Turkish forces invading Iraq? Huh? Does that sound as confusing to you as it does to me? Indeed! So I came here to the Turkish/Iraqi border to witness the events as they unfold…and to fill you in on all the fuss and furor….
So what the hell is Turkey so pissed about? And what is this potential genocide business? And why is the White House really reallyreally concerned about it? And how could a simple committee vote in the US on a 100 year old slaughter lead to Turkish troops invading Iraq in the next 100 hours?Damn! That’s a lot of questions, which demand a lot of answers my plaid friends! But despite the appearance of complication, these issues are all actually fairly easy to relate to each other…and easy for us to figure out what’s going on.The only damn confusing part of this whole story is why this snowball of shit has started rolling down the hill in the first place…..but first, to the facts of things we can follow…
For this excursion, we have to get Sherman to set the ‘way-back’ machine for over 90 years ago, in what is now the sovereign state of Turkey. Back then it was a center of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, an old-school imperial power that at its height controlled most of the Arabian peninsula, North Africa, and even southeast Europe.But by the time World War One gets started, this empire is a disaster! Internally corrupt, stagnate, weak, and technologically backwards, the Ottomans as a ruling line were already on their deathbed…in fact, a group of secularist named ‘the Young Turks’ (what a sweet ass nickname!) had already taken over the government in an attempt to reform and strengthen the failing state.
But it was too little too late. Turkey entered WW1 on the side of the Central Powers, and decided to hasten the process of their own demise by starting a land war with Russia in the Caucuses region of western Turkey. Unfortunately for the Young Turks, their team sucked, and the Russian war was a disaster.Why is all this shit important for today’s stories? Because there were about 2 million ethnic Armenian folks hanging out in western Turkey at the time, and some of them were agitating for a separate state for themselves (everyone knew the Ottomans were crumbling). And the Young Turks accused those Armenians of assisting the Russians during the war in order to secure their own independence….which severely pissed off the Turks! Subsequently, the Young Turks organized a horrific campaign of disaster against those Armenians as retribution for their acts of aiding and abetting the Ruskies.
Now let’s stop the boat for a minute and answer a few questions. Were some Armenians agitating for independence? Yep, as were a shitload of other ethnic groups under the Ottoman umbrella. Did some of those Armenians assist the Russians? Surely some of them did, but how many is anybody’s guess. Did the Young Turks burn, loot, pillage, torture, maim, deport, and outright kill about 1-1.5 million Armenians in 1915-17? Absolutely; no one is disputing that fact, not even the current Turkish government. So why are these events suddenly in the news, with a variety of huge repercussions for global events? Ah…that will take some more explaining…
As referenced in the above stories, a US House of Representatives committee just voted on a bill to recognize this Ottoman event as a genocide. Genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, religious or national group. Damn, that’s a word that pisses people off every time its uttered. And this time its Turkey‘s turn to be pissed about it.And my friends they are fucking hot and bothered beyond belief!
As soon as the White House caught wind of this bill, President Bush issued a very heavy handed warning to the folks on the committee.Heavy. Like, “hey don’t do this shit, please, this is more grief than we want to deal with right now!”But the bill passed anyway after much debate—this is just a committee bill by the way; it still has to go to the entire House floor for a vote, maybe as early as this week.Bill or law, the shit hit the fan anyway. Turkey called back its US ambassador, there have been protests outside the US embassy in Turkey, as well as protests in DC, and the Turkish leadership has hinted at various retaliatory measures that are being considered.
Retaliatory measures? What retaliatory measures? What the hell could Turkey do to the US? Oh, you would be surprised my friends! It is well understood by the White House and by the US military that without Turkish help and support there would be no supply lines fueling US forces in Iraq. On top of that, Turkey is a NATO member, which means it is also the refueling and re-supplying launching pad for US forces in Afghanistan, which is a NATO campaign. Long story short, if Turkey gets pissed enough at the US, it can totally screw-up all current military operations in the Middle East. And I mean totally screw-up.
Due to its strategic location, it is the only participating country that truly wields the power to utterly alter the US game plan in both of those conflicts. You dig what I’m saying? If Poland decides to pull out of Iraq; the US loses troop support. If Great Britain decides to pull out; then the US loses troop and material support. If Australia decides to pull out; the US loses the trained bomb-sniffing dingo unit. But if Turkey pulls out? Ouch! All major supply lines have to be re-routed. Most military and supply flights lift off out of US airbases in Turkey, so all those would be gone. And it would be a tremendous blow to morale to lose the only participating Muslim country in what is otherwise a big ‘Christian’/‘West’ campaign in the Middle East.Are you starting to see why President Bush and Condoleezza Rice are really upset about this shit?
But Turkey can do even more to frustrate the US right now…and they are getting ready to actually do it! As referenced in the stories above, Turkey is about to launch a force of Turkish troops into northern Iraq for reasons that have nothing to do with the current US war. The Turks are talking about sending in forces to try and nab a bunch of radical Kurdish terrorist named the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) who are operating out of Iraq, and who recently blew up some shit and killed 30 people in Turkey.
Now I don’t want to get into the particulars of that mess in this forum today, but I do want you to understand this: before that genocide vote last week, the US probably could have talked the Turks out of doing this—but now all bets are off! The Turks are so pissed that they currently don’t give a shit what the US wants…and thus are probably going to go forward with their invasion, I’m guessing this week!Ha! And watch for this: the Turks will probably invade on the same day that the Armenian genocide bill goes up for the vote on the House floor! Talk about rubbing salt in the wound!
So the US administration is flustered, flabbergasted, and frustrated by this congressional gesture to label the Armenian massacre as a genocide. Almost as much as the Turks are. The US does not want Turkey invading northern Iraq…the last thing anybody wants is yet another entity blowing up shit in this basket-case Iraq catastrophe. What’s worse, the US is deathly afraid of losing Turkish support for conducting war.And what’s even worse than that is the possibility of ‘the West’ losing Turkey as a strategic ally altogether. Damn! That would totally suck for the ‘West’ Why?
As alluded to already, Turkey has been a staunch US ally in NATO ever since the organization was formed in 1949. They have played a major part in every NATO operation, and have supporting virtually every US endeavor within NATO and even most US policies outside of the NATO sphere. Turkey is the most ‘westward’ leaning Muslim state…doing most of its business with the ‘West’ and even petitioning for entry into the EU. Most importantly, Turkey is the best example of a fully secular, fully democratic, AND fully Muslim state in the world.Hell, it’s the ONLY one of its kind anywhere near the Middle East.Turley is the state that the ‘West’ would like all the other Middle Eastern states to emulate and copy.So if ‘the West’ loses Turkey…..hell, I don’t know…it don’t look good…the US, ‘the West’, and democracy won’t have too many friends in the neighborhood anymore. You see what I’m saying?
To finish this rant, why would this Armenian genocide deal have come up at this particular time anyway? That does appear to be the $25,000 dollar question. I have no real idea why it is happening right this second in the US. The current government of Turkey is historically ‘unrelated’ to the Young Turks that committed the heinous acts of 1915-17. To my knowledge, there is no requests for punishment of anybody (they are all dead) or for any type of reparations or fees to survivors (they are all dead too).But I can tell you this little piece of insider’s info: its not the first country to go through this Armenian debate.22 countries have officially recognized the incident as genocide, and 40 of the 50 states in the US have as well.
Of particular note, I want to mention just a few of these: Austria, Cyprus, and most importantly France. France even passed a law making it a crime to openly deny the event as a genocide. Why would I point this out? Only to make the not-so-obvious connection that these European states (especially France) are extremely opposed to allowing Turkey into the EU.Starting to get the picture here?For the Frenchies, its an overt ploy to de-rail the Turkish/EU negotiations.
But for the US and the Middle East, how pissed off Turkey gets over this issue may very well have severe repercussions for the events of this week…of this year….and the long-term future of the region, and the world.
Hmmmm…Strange…..How bizarre is it that big, global-shaping events hinge on the use—or failure to use—a single word to describe a century-old catastrophe.
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Damn! I hate reporting from an active war zone! I always end up spilling a martini or two in the foxhole, and it’s so much harder to get my groove on with gunfire ringing out in the background. Plus, I just don’t feel as sexy in a plaid flak jacket…but I digress as usual. So where the hell am I? Well, I heard that you folks were flabbergasted by some strange events in the US Congress which may result in Turkish forces invading 
So what the hell is 
Empire, an old-school imperial power that at its height controlled most of the Arabian peninsula, North Africa, and even southeast 
region of western 
for independence? Yep, as were a shitload of other ethnic groups under the Ottoman umbrella. Did some of those Armenians assist the Russians? Surely some of them did, but how many is anybody’s guess. Did the Young Turks burn, loot, pillage, torture, maim, deport, and outright kill about 1-1.5 million Armenians in 1915-17? Absolutely; no one is disputing that fact, not even the current Turkish government. So why are these events suddenly in the news, with a variety of huge repercussions for global events? Ah…that will take some more explaining…
warning to the folks on the committee. Heavy. Like, “hey don’t do this shit, please, this is more grief than we want to deal with right now!” But the bill passed anyway after much debate—this is just a committee bill by the way; it still has to go to the entire House floor for a vote, maybe as early as this week. Bill or law, the shit hit the fan anyway. 
out of 
do it! As referenced in the stories above, 
