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2015-08-30 The Grand Turk

PKK claims 42 fighters, 417 Turkish forces, killed in recent clashes

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Posted by trailing wife 2015-08-30 00:00|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Divide Kurdish reports of Turk casualties by a factor of 4 or so. Divide Turkish reports of Kurdish casualties by 10.

Posted by OldSpook 2015-08-30 11:44|| 2015-08-30 11:44|| Front Page Top

#2 One other thing to note:

a three-decade conflict in which some 40,000 people have been killed.

80% or more of which are Kurdish civilians.

Posted by OldSpook 2015-08-30 11:45|| 2015-08-30 11:45|| Front Page Top

#3 Thank you for that useful perspective, OldSpook.

Posted by trailing wife 2015-08-30 12:42|| 2015-08-30 12:42|| Front Page Top

#4 One other thing to add - of those civilians, the majority were killed by Turks. But the PKK did some as well - prior to Ocalan's change of heart, they were typical bloody Marxists, not above killing their own to generate controversy that they could then exploit. The PKK arent choirboys - some of them are tustworthy, but you really need to put in the leg work to find out which ones are. Since OIF, we abandoned a lot of the covert stuff in the Kurdish region -- due to politics to retain a central Iraq government at first, and now to keep from offending the Turks and Iranians who have significant Kurdish majority areas contiguous to defacto Kurdistan (Iraq).

That was a mistake, because we no longer have the field operations in place, nor the people, nor the leadership that is capable of developing the area. Just look at those pathetic attempts to make a "Syrian Opposition" as an example.

Blame for this goes to both Bush and Obama - but mainly Erdogan and his pressure and backstab during OIF-I.

Posted by OldSpook 2015-08-30 15:15|| 2015-08-30 15:15|| Front Page Top

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