Bush Countdown II
WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush on Wednesday urged Turkey not to carry out cross-border strikes on Kurdish rebels in Iraq, advice shrugged off by lawmakers in Ankara who greenlighted such attacks.
"We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq," the embattled US president said, in a mild rebuke to a key US ally in the war-torn country. ......
Saladin.
But bucking angry Chinese objections, the US president staunchly defended his decision to meet with the Dalai Lama and lead an unprecedented official tribute to Tibet's spiritual leader at the US Capitol.
The US president urged China to open talks with the 1989 Nobel Peace laureate, whom Beijing considers a dangerous separatist seeking independence for Tibet.
Bush also downplayed a simmering disagreement with Russia over Iran's nuclear program, while saying that anyone "interested in avoiding World War III" must support efforts to keep Tehran from acquiring atomic weapons.
Bush said that while he and Russian President Vladimir Putin "don't agree on a lot of issues. We do agree on some -- Iran is one" and said he hoped to hear from Putin on his historic trip to Iran.
Bush declined to predict what Putin, who has suggested he may become prime minister after stepping down as president before elections next year, would do, saying he had "no idea" what the Russian leader would do.
The US president also declined to predict whether democratic reforms would survive in Moscow, saying it was difficult "to reprogram the kind of basic Russian DNA, which is a centralized authority."
Even as he spoke, Turkey's parliament brushed aside worries from Washington and Baghdad and overwhelmingly approved possible military strikes on Kurdish separatists like the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
The PKK, which has struck at targets in Turkey from its bases in northern Iraq, has waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives....
"There's a better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send ... massive additional troops into the country," said Bush, who noted that Turkey already has forces in Iraq to help US-led efforts.
Turkey says the PKK enjoys free movement in northern Iraq, is tolerated by local Kurdish leaders and obtains weapons and explosives there for attacks across the border in Turkey.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Geoff Morrell said Turkey had "not a great deal of appetite" for a military incursion in Iraq and insisted there was no "rush to war" in Ankara.
Asked why US forces in Iraq did not take on the PKK, which Washington has designated a terrorist organization, Morrell said "there is only so much we can do at one time," citing US efforts against other extremist groups.
Bush also said he was upbeat about a US-sponsored Middle East peace conference, saying that "now is the time" for Israelis and Palestinians to "lay out a vision of what a (Palestinian) state could look like."
1 comment:
Thanks for the thoughtful essay on JDW's statements. The single departure I have with your analysis is what to make of JDW's racist statement:
"He told the paper he hoped that everyone was equal,” but added: “people who have to deal with black employees find this not true."
This lamentable quote skewers JDW for how he thinks, or doesn’t think, when venturing beyond the laboratory he hasn't seriously occupied for many years. His biased utterance really competes quite well with just about every other anti-_____ statement recorded since the printing press was invented.
Perhaps you did the right thing though in just letting the quotation speak for itself.
Amazingly, JDW’s statement mirrors a major public misconception of how genetics works:namely that skin color and other easily recognizable external-trait genes are not necessarily closely linked to any of the
thousands of kinase, phosphatase, transcription factor, and other genes that affect neuronal development and function. And, that over the
many eons of human evolution, migration, and hybridization, the variant versions of all these genes are inherited quite independently -- albeit
still being subject to evolutionary selection.
This leads to the delightful mixture of human traits and societal behaviors that still exist on mother earth, until someone expressing
JDW's "those dumb ______'s" sentiments is used to convince groups of self-serving goons to exterminate or marginalize however many millions
of those ‘second class folks’ they can get away with.
It is sad that due to JDW’s Nobel fame his thoughtless statements degrade both ethnic groups and the value of scientific investigations into areas as complex as human neuronal function.
Steve Hauschka
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