"It may now be argued that, in order to shorten the period of hostilities with Saddam Hussein and minimize casualties, the Iraqi border should be secured from all directions. But the Turks do not propose to help guarantee this border or to protect those who live within it. Rather, they propose to cross the frontier for no better reason than to aggrandize themselves and to prolong the subjection of their own Kurdish population. This doesn't just disgrace the regime-change strategy. It actually destabilizes it. And it's humiliating to see the president begging and bribing the Turks to do the wrong thing and to see them in return reject his offer. He should take their ugly egotism and selfishness as a compliment to his policy, cut off their aid, leave them to put their own case to the European Union, and tell them to get out of Cyprus into the bargain. Then we could be surer that we were really 'remaking' the region."
<http://slate.msn.com/id/2079633/>
Now, I'm not one to look down upon critiques of the Turkish state, primarily its military, but Hitch's timing seems, um, non-coincidental. During the bombing of Serbia, I asked him how he could support Turkish pilots who were taking a breather from slaughtering Kurds to pound Serbs, given that Turkey's ethnic cleansing was far worse than Milosevic's. He muttered something about the European Union having a say, and that the important thing was to "get the job done." Now, ho ho, out comes the laundry list of Turkish crimes. He might have mentioned Turkey's growing military alliance with Israel (Israel gets a cameo in this column), but that could smear our loyal anti-terror ally Sharon. And unless Israel begs off Bush's war, such won't be coming from our humble correspondent.
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