It appears, fair readers, that the Bush administration may have overestimated dissatisfaction with Saddam in Iraq. They've forgotten the old maxim about sticking with the devil you know; people prefer to be ruled badly by their own than even well by others. Just ask the people on the streets of any US territory (St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, Guam) and you'll find resentment alongside prosperity; and we've “owned” those places for a long time now.

We seem to have forgotten the real lessons of Vietnam, among them:

1) When you need to distinguish between friendly civilians and hostile militia mingled with civilians to accomplish your mission, you're already hosed.

2) When you have secured an area, don't forget to tell the enemy.

I think it's safe to say that the national interests of Turkey no longer align with those professed by the Bush administration to be America's national interests. I suspect it won't be long before our NATO allies are on the wrong end of the barrel of weapons provided by the US to the Kurds, or even weapons handled by US special forces.

It would be a historic twist appropriate for this stupid little war; that it turns into World War I redux. After my visit to Turkey in 1987, I often wondered if it would ever come to that; the military wields a great deal of political power in Turkey, a democracy by most counts. The military has been a secularizing force, but also an anti-liberal force; debtor's prisons existed in the 80's, and I saw a man grovel at another's feet in fear when he learned the person with me was a Turkish army officer and not an American sailor.

The Turkish govt. feel threatened by the Kurd minority in their own country, even though most Turks have forgotten the Kurdish guerilla (or terrorist–depends on who you are) attacks of years ago. But Kurds with money and resources…that could be bad for Turkey's efforts to keep its Kurds down. So they prepare to send in troops.

Intramural hostility isn't unheard of; think Cyprus. Think what would happen when an army we equipped and trained aces an army we're equipping and training. Hmmm.