1115.org

Let’s play a little old-fashioned Q and A.

Q: Who’s in charge in Iraq right now?

A: Depends. If you want a politically correct answer, we’re forced to say it is the government of Nouri al-Maliki, duly elected Prime Minister of the sovereign nation of Iraq. Of course, that answer does great violence to the facts on the ground, which are that command control is wielded by the government of George Bush, who may or may not be the duly elected President of these here United States, but he sure as hell is running things anyway.

Q: What is George Bush’s most famous statement about fighting terrorists (or not)?

A: “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.”

Q: Who or what is the the government of George Bush harboring or providing safe haven to in northern Iraq?

A: Why, a terrorist group known as the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK. That is to say, they are officially classified as a terrorist group by no less an authority than the leading warrior in TWAT, George Bush himself: “In January 2004 the US Government announced that Kurdistan Workers Party and its aliases, the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress and the Kurdistan People’s Congress were terrorist organizations that were designated as such under US law.”

So here’s the deal. We get properly righteous and moralistic about terrorism with other countries when it suits our purposes. But our own actions (or inactions) belie our condescending rhetoric.

We run Iraq, no question about it. We especially run every aspect of security in Iraq. We are the self-appointed foremost fighters of terror in the world (terrorism and terrorists too, presumably?). Yet we have chosen to ignore this officially-certified terrorist organization, because that is what was politically expedient. We are having quite enough trouble with Sunnis and Shia, without riling up the Kurds too. So we chose to continue ignoring this Kurdish terrorist organization even as they launched terrorist attacks on a NATO ally. We chose to continuously ignore Turkey’s complaints and protests.

So Turkey finally turns around and says, okay, so you’re not with us, fine, we’ll just fight them ourselves then (over there, if you don’t mind, so we don’t have to fight them over here). And suddenly, like magic, or like Rip Van Winkle, the government of George Bush wakes up to the fact that there seems to be some kind of problem with Kurdish terrorists in northern Iraq. And the government of George Bush, true to type, proceeds to trip over its own feet, unable to figure out if they are supposed to cajole or denounce this rogue ally who insists on fighting terrorists the old-fashioned way, by going in and hitting them wherever they have been given refuge.

Meanwhile, the whole world is looking on to see how the anti-terror government of George Bush is going to handle this rogue nation, U.S.A., which continues to harbor the PKK, in much the same way that Pakistan continues to harbor al Qaeda.

It sure looks like all this Global War on Terror stuff is just empty rhetoric, doesn’t it? Just a political slogan, for home consumption. Didn’t somebody say that not too long ago?