TURKEY ONCE AGAIN SCREWS US BIGTIME

They did it in 2003 when they denied us the right to use Turkey as a base for troops entering Iraq.

They are doing it now: IHT/AP:

ISTANBUL, Turkey: Parliament has authorized the government to send troops into northern Iraq to root out Kurdish rebels who have been conducting raids into Turkey. The vote removed the last legal obstacle to an offensive, but there was no sign of imminent action as the United States urged restraint.

Turkish leaders, under pressure from Washington and Baghdad, have signaled they would not immediately give the order to send in 60,000 soldiers, armor and attack helicopters into a region that has largely escaped the chaos of the Iraq war.

The crisis along the border, where the Turkish troops have massed since summer, has driven up oil prices along with tensions between Turkey and its longtime NATO ally, the United States.

• Erdogan and Gul and their comrades are islamists who should not be trusted.

• We should move our bases out of Turkey. (Bezmer can be built up, and we can deploy other in new bases in Iraq,)
  

• We should kick Turkey out of NATO - this will allow us to support the Kurds and Iraq in the event of war.

• We should assist Sarkozy's efforts to keep them out of the EU.

EITHER FOLKS ARE WITH US OR THEY ARE WITH THE ENEMY. AND TURKEY STANDS WITH ASSAD.

ASIDE: I have been virtually alone in the blogosphere in calling for this. WAKE UP! Berlinski is wrong; she's in denial because she likes the life she leads in Istanbul; Turkey IS on the other side.