Bush Pledges To Help Turkey Fight Kurds

President Tries To Forestall Incursion Into Iraq In Talks With Turkish Prime Minister

(CBS/AP)  President George W. Bush on Monday pledged fresh help to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in fighting Kurdish rebels, declaring them "an enemy of Turkey, a free Iraq and the United States."

In an Oval Office session, Bush offered intelligence sharing to help combat the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Bush also said top military figures from the United States and Turkey would be in more regular contact in an effort to track the movement of the guerrilla fighters.

"I made it very clear to the prime minister that we want to work in a close way to deal with this problem," Bush told reporters.

With Turkish troops massed on the border of his country, Erdogan is weighing a major cross-border attack against PKK rebels in northern Iraq. The guerrillas have killed more than 40 Turks in the past month in cross-border raids, and pressure is growing on Erdogan to hit back.

The White House worries a Turkish incursion into Iraq could bring instability to what has been the calmest part of Iraq, and could set a precedent for other countries, such as Iran, that have conflicts with Kurdish rebels.

Yet when asked about the possibility of Turkey attacking Iraq, Bush dismissed the question as hypothetical.

He tried instead to assure Turkey that the United States is providing support.

"It's fine to speculate about what may or may not happen," Bush said. "But nothing can happen until you get good intelligence. We need to know where people are hiding, and we need to know what they're doing."

It is widely thought that the bulk of the PKK forces, which traditionally halts operations in the winter because of supply and logistical difficulties, had scattered as far as southern Iraq, as well as melting into the populations of large cities in the north.

Erdogan said in advance of meeting Bush that he was expecting it to result in "solid steps" from the United States. Their meeting came a day after the PKK released eight soldiers it had been holding for two weeks since their capture in an ambush inside Turkey along the Iraqi border.

Bush noted that Erdogan's government had consulted the United States about getting the soldiers released.

"There is at least one effective measure for people in Turkey to see, that when we work together, we can accomplish important objectives," Bush said.

During a trip to Turkey last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice promised to redouble efforts against the PKK. But her Turkish counterpart, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, made clear his government was not satisfied.

"We are at the point where words have been exhausted and where there is need for action," Babacan said Friday.

Turkish leaders have signaled that a decision on what to do about the rebels may hinge on what Erdogan can bring back from Washington to a Turkish public that favors military action in Iraq.

"Rice's visit only raised expectations in Turkey," said Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "If President Bush does not make clear that he is willing to take direct action against the PKK or make the Iraqi Kurds take such action, Erdogan may not be able to resist a military operation."

The PKK, which has fought for autonomy for Turkish Kurds since 1984, is labeled a terrorist group by Europe and the United States. Turkey has complained for years that the United States has not done enough to end PKK activity Iraq's autonomous Kurdish north. The issue has enraged Turks and moved public opinion against the United States.

Mark Parris, a U.S. ambassador to Turkey in the Clinton administration and now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that Monday's meeting would be the last chance for the Bush administration to repair strained relations with Ankara.

"If Erdogan hears something relatively reasonable and concrete you can put this relationship back together," Parris said. "If not, that effort might have to wait for a new administration."

The Bush administration worries that a cross-border incursion would bring instability to what has been the calmest part of Iraq, and could set a precedent for other countries, such as Iran, that have conflicts with Kurdish rebels. For weeks, the Bush administration has stressed the need for a diplomatic solution between Turkey and Iraq.

[gaye5]

It was the Crusaders%u2019 task to defeat and defend against them the Muslim invasions.

The Church of Christ has often apologized for the wrongs of the pass, for the Crusades, the Inquisitions... I would like to see apologies of Islam for the wrong doings of the pass, for the 1001 battles with millions dead, for the 800 years of conquest and blood shed in Spain, for those 600 years in Portugal, Greece 500 years, Sicily 300 years, Serbia 400 years, Bulgaria 500 years, Rumania 400 years, Hungary 150 years... for the bloody conquests in Africa and Asia for hundreds of years... for the atrocities now going on in Sudan, with already 2 million people dead for the only crime of being a Christian...

The founder of the Christian faith (Jesus)wanted love and peace to be the distinguishing characteristic of his followers.
But the founder of Islam wanted slaughter, torture and horrors to be the distinguishing characteristics of his followers and promised virgins in paradise if they did, and he carried out many of these raids and slaughter himself...but we prefer to follow our own way. so unlike the Quran it is not the bible that is to blame for wars etc MyIDonCBS it is greed, hate envy etc.

[gaye5]

In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been peacefully Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.
That is what gave birth to the Crusades.

They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights as some would try to make us believe, but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defence.
Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Of course, they were not opposed to capturing booty if it could be had. But the truth is that some of the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder, just as Muslims did. A few people got rich, but the vast majority did not plunder and returned with nothing.

[gaye5]

MyIDonCBS read The Real History of the Crusades...
Yes the Crusaders did much wrong, but we have to look at the whole and not excuse the slaughter of many thousands of people every year by the Muslins and the Muslim take over under the excuse that the Crusaders did it.
The Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression%u2014an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.
Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword, Allah was a moon god, who was the god of agriculture, the sword and war. Muslims divide the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity%u2014and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion%u2014has no abode. In traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion.
With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed%u2019s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt%u2014once the most heavily Christian areas in the world%u2014quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain.

[kjvprophet]

I support Ron Paul and his non-interventionist foreign policy. Hitlery wants to continue our illegal police action in Iraq until at least 2013, and she does not rule out a preemptive (nuclear) first strike against Iran. Ron Paul voted against our (undeclared) war in Iraq, which was sold to us with lies. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies--the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. The war in Iraq has cost more than 3,400 American lives and almost a trillion dollars. We need a leader in the White House who will ensure this never happens again. Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Today, we have 750 foreign bases and troops in 130 countries. We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America. And now, there are new calls for a draft. We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus on securing our borders against illegal aliens who are invading our country from the South. No war should ever be fought without a Declaration of War voted upon by the Congress, as required by The Constitution. Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations. Too often, we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised. Then, we too become despised.

[gaye5]

LAProphet , you are dead right, every normal person should be able to own a gun. There should be more restrictions on who can own a rifle, and a test should be done by a Dr to see if the person is fit be able to have one..
I live in Australia, and although we are told that crime is down and they produce records to prove it, it appears that crime is far, far worse... and there are many other records also show that crime has increased..
Anyone with half a brain knows that criminals are not going to give up their guns and the crim now know that they have will have no resistance when they break into homes, so now home invasions are high..and there are still just as many murders or more..

[cozzicon]

Golly!

First the Kurds were gassed, and they are our friends (Get Saddam!)... Then they fight something, and we''re going to help fight them...

Excuse me while my head spins.

Perhaps, someone, somewhere, needs to ask the Kurds why they are fighting, what they want, and how the US and Turkey can help?

How about some diplomacy? Bullets are not working.

[kjvprophet]

What we need is a President who will show us the way. Not the old way. Not the same way, but a NEW WAY. Think about this for a minute. What if we pulled all of our troops out of South Korea? They''ve been there for 50+ years. What if we quit worrying about Iran, but instead, realized that its having a nuclear weapon will not mean the end of the world? What if we pulled all of our troops out of the Middle-East, and brought them all home? What if we realistically addressed the National Debt, and paid attention to REALLY DOING SOMETHING about stopping illegal immigration? These are the ideas of Republican Presidential candidate, Dr. Ron Paul. He''s a ten term Congressman and a physician who has delivered over 4,000 babies. He''s an intellectual who''s published four books, three of which are devoted entirely to sound economics and one to foreign policy. He was raised on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania as a pious Lutheran, but now he attends a Baptist church. Paul is given to mulling things over morally. Whenever he recollects the helicopter pilots he treated as an Air Force Flight Surgeon (Captain) during the Vietnam War, a war which he now says was "totally unnecessary and illegal," he laments, "They were gung-ho. I''ve often thought about how many of those people never came back." Candidates with the high level of personal integrity and proven track record of adherance to The Constitution, Congressman Paul has always demonstrated only come around once in a lifetime, if we''re lucky.

[kjvprophet]

I support Ron Paul and his non-interventionist foreign policy. Hitlery wants to continue our illegal police action in Iraq until at least 2013, and she does not rule out a preemptive (nuclear) first strike against Iran. Ron Paul voted against our (undeclared) war in Iraq, which was sold to us with lies. The area is more dangerous now than when we entered it. We destroyed a regime hated by our direct enemies--the jihadists, and created thousands of new recruits for them. The war in Iraq has cost more than 3,400 American lives and almost a trillion dollars. We need a leader in the White House who will ensure this never happens again. Both Jefferson and Washington warned us about entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Today, we have 750 foreign bases and troops in 130 countries. We are spread so thin that we have too few troops defending America. And now, there are new calls for a draft. We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus on securing our borders against illegal aliens who are invading our country from the South. No war should ever be fought without a Declaration of War voted upon by the Congress, as required by The Constitution. Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations. Too often, we give foreign aid and intervene on behalf of governments that are despised. Then, we too become despised.

[kjvprophet]

RON PAUL SETS NEW GOP FUNDRAISING RECORD
Freedom is apparently popular, folks. I''m glad it is. In just the last 24 hours (Nov 5, 2007), he raised over $4,200,000 in grass roots donations from his supporters nationwide, beating Mitt Romney''s previous one-day (Republican) record of 3.1 million Dollars. Do the math, folks. Ron Paul certainly isn''t getting any money from the bankers or the military industrial complex like all the sold-out NWO candidates both on the left and the right who pretend to be his equal. He''s getting support from millions of REAL people who share in his Hope For America:

-- No more meddling in other country''s political affairs
-- No more aggressive military actions overseas
-- No more pseudo-wars like the "War on Drugs"
-- No more IRS and unconstitutional income taxes
-- No more Federal Reserve (the group of private banks which owns our government)
-- No more abortion
-- No more U.N. participation
-- No more federal Laws which are not authorized by The Constitution
-- No more federal erosion of State sovereignty
-- No more all-powerful federal government

They don''t call him "Dr. No" for no reason. The Doctor is in! Join us in this 21st Century political revolution at ronpaul2008.com

Remember, folks. Freedom isn''t free.

Thanks to everyone for your support!

[brianbwb-2009]

Hey people, why not let the Ron Paul fans have the discussions to themselves for a while?

Maybe when CBS notices that no one else is posting to their topics, they will contact Dr. Paul and tell him to call off the PR dogs.