Turks Shut Out US Troops
I was surprised to read that the Turkish ruling party has lost a parliamentary motion to let US troops use its territory as a staging post for an Iraq invasion. This is a big shock. Apparently, around a quarter of their representatives defied the whip and the Speaker declared the vote null.
Coincidentally, that’s around the same percentage as deserted Tony Blair, whose war motion was only carried with the help of the feckless Tory rump and who now is reduced to appealing to future historians to like him. I guess the US should have bugged the Turks’ representatives as thoroughly as the NSA has bugged the UN Security Council representatives.
I note that earlier reports announced that the Turks had voted to allow the troops in, but the online news wires were quickly revised to make them not look like such arses. Not to worry though, as befits the Democratic Process, the Turkish government will keep browbeating its parliament until they vote the way they are expected and the Kurds are still suspicious as hell about Turkish motives. Perhaps with no US troops in the northern advance against Iraq, it would be easier for Turkish troops to stray into Kurdish territories?
UPDATE: The Pentagon is not about to let the errant votes of a few towel heads spoil what could bea beautiful war…
Apparently, they are hoping to airlift stuff straight into some of the US-aligned Kurdish areas, probably from The Airstrip Formerly Known As Kuwait. The Pentagon is also preparing to fight the Kurds, if they get uppity.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/02/wshiel02.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/03/02/ixnewstop.html
Almost all of the first British “human shields” to go to Iraq were on their way home last night after deciding that their much-heralded task was now too dangerous.
Two red double-decker buses, which symbolised the hopes of anti-war activists when they arrived to a fanfare of publicity a fortnight ago, slipped quietly out of Baghdad on the long journey back to Britain.
Nine of the original 11 activists decided to pull out after being given an ultimatum by Iraqi officials to station themselves at targets likely to be bombed in a war or leave the country. Among those departing last night was 68-year-old Godfrey Meynell, a former High Sheriff of Derbyshire, who admitted that he was leaving out of “cold fear”. He had been summoned, along with 200 other shields from all over the world, to a meeting at a Baghdad hotel yesterday morning.
Abdul Hashimi, the head of the Friendship, Peace and Solidarity organisation that is hosting the protesters, told the shields to choose between nine so-called “strategic sites” by today or quit the country.
NETSCAPE SAYS: “BOMB IRAQ!”
Politically, while he doesn’t identify with the Republican Party, Andreessen said he has become more disillusioned with the Democrats, especially those leading the opposition to an invasion of Iraq. He said he supports the Bush administration’s bid to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
“You look at the people protesting the war and you think, ‘I gotta be on the other side,’ ” he said. “There are people out there who actually want to kill us, and the appropriate response to that is to kill them. Bombs away.”
75% of Brish support war against Iraq (if UN aproval given)
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003101096,00.html