Jive Turkey

For a minute, I thought I had dreamed this BS. I thought I heard a report of Donald Rumsfeld blaming Turkey for the strength of the insrugency. Sure enough, he passed the buck again

"Asked if he had any regrets looking back at the US campaign of the past two years, Mr Rumsfeld said he wished US troops had not been 'blocked' from entering Iraq through Turkey, saying this had boosted the insurgency.

'Given the level of the insurgency today, two years later, clearly if we had been able to get the 4th Infantry Division in from the north, in through Turkey, more of the Iraqi, Saddam Hussein, Baathist regime would have been captured or killed,' Mr Rumsfeld said on Fox.

'The insurgency today would be less,' he said, adding that the resulting thrust of the US invasion through southern Iraq had enabled many insurgents to evade capture in the north.

Diplomatic tensions between the two NATO allies over Washington's desire to use Turkey as a launch pad for penetrating northern Iraq chilled after the Turkish parliament, dominated by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), refused the US permission to open a northern front in Iraq through southeast Turkey. "

Mr. Rumsfeld, Turkey is an Arab Democracy. You know, the kind of government that we are supposedly trying to help build in Iraq. Their parliament voted and decided it was against their interests to allow us to use their country as a front in the war. That is how democracies work - at least when they work. I cannot believe that two years later, you are blaming a democratic nation - who has specific strategic, political and security issues of their own - for your inability to adequately plan and predict key consequences of our invasion. It boggles the mind!

Further, and filed under "pot meet kettle," how can you form your mouth to say this?

"The important thing is that they be competent people. They have to be darned careful about making a lot of changes just to be putting in their friend or to be putting in someone else from their tribe or from their ethnic group."

What a turkey!

UPDATE: So glad I am not the only one who found Rumsfeld's comments about Turkey totally bizarre.