A New Christmas Tradition

You may recall that last year, Ethiopia launched a major invasion of Somalia timed for right around the Christmas holiday so that nobody would notice. Or else, you may not recall since Ethiopia timed it for right around the Christmas holiday and thus nobody noticed. With this story out of Kurdistan, I wonder if we're starting to see a new under the radar military action Christmas tradition:

Two Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq hit more than 200 targets and killed more than 150 rebels, the Turkish Army said Tuesday. [...] Turkish officials have not commented reports by the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq that two more airstrikes took place on Monday and early Tuesday. But Turkish surveillance planes were spotted early Tuesday flying over Cukurca in the Hakkari Province of Turkey’s far southeast, along the border with Iraq, and also above the Kanimasi region in northern Iraq, and shelling was heard, the semi-official Anatolian news agency reported.

Meanwhile, suicide bombing seems to be back in style in Iraq.

Comments

G8 summits are another favourite time for these invasions. Israel into Lebanon in 2006 and an earlier Turkish incursion into northern Iraq in 2008. They know how to catch our leaders at their most disengaged.

Posted by P O'Neill | December 25, 2007 2:13 PM

I had exactly the same thought when I read the news earlier today. Looks like Turkey is taking the Bush administration for a ride. What a surprise.

Incidentally, my Ashkenazi wife is planning a real Christmas dinner. The juggling one does in a mixed-faith household.

Posted by BryklynLibrul | December 25, 2007 2:37 PM

Hey, America invented Christmas bombing! Props to us!

Posted by DonBoy | December 25, 2007 3:40 PM

bush 1 ordered the invasion of panama just a couple of days before christmas.

Posted by upyernoz | December 25, 2007 4:13 PM

Speaking of Iraq, here's an editorial from the New Hampshire Union Leader about how that state's Congressional Reps refuse to acknowledge progress in Iraq.: "Heads in the sand: Shea-Porter, Hodes blind on Iraq".

This is another example of that cognitive dissonance we discussed on a recent thread: Dems (and Republicans like McCain, the editors of The Weekly Standard, etc.) demanded Bush change his policies and personnel on Iraq when things were going horribly there. So Bush cleaned house: got rid of Rumsfeld, replaced Casey with Petraeus, replaced the Afghan neocon with Crocker, etc. Bush let Petraeus switch from the old strategy of holing up in large bases to a classic counterinsurgency strategy with lots of small outposts to provide security for and gather intelligence from Iraqis.

Had Dems acknowledged these changes in strategy when they happened, and taken credit for pressuring Bush to make them, they would be in a position to share credit for the recent progress, including the dramatic decline in violence (today's suicide bombing notwithstanding). Instead, they pretend nothing has changed and they sound as stubborn and ignorant of the situation on the ground as Bush did when Dems were rightfully criticizing him for his "stay the course" rhetoric.

Posted by Fred | December 25, 2007 5:18 PM

We're not the only country that stages holiday attacks. The Yom Kippur War and the Tet Offensive come to mind.

Posted by Michael Bloom | December 25, 2007 5:22 PM

Fred, the point is that Bush didn't change strategy at all. What Petraeus is doing is essentially what we were doing in 2005, when National Review proclaimed that "we're winning" due to our mastery of counterinsurgency.

So violence is down to 2005 levels, allowing conservatives to deny the existence of a civil war and pretend that we can "win" just as they were doing in 2005. (Whereas in 2006 things got to the point that even conservatives couldn't pretend there wasn't a civil war.)

None of that changes the fact that Bush's strategy is the same as before: keep America in Iraq forever. And patriotic Americans call for an actual change in strategy, namely getting out and stop pretending that we can "win."

Posted by M.A. | December 25, 2007 7:49 PM

Actually the numbers are really back to Nov. 2003
but who's counting. In 2003-2005, the tribes realy believed the liberator talk from the Salafis; now not so much. It's funny how the Turkish army wasn't launching strikes of Ramadi
or Fallujah back in the period when the Wahhabi/
Salafis were waging war upon the Iraqi populace
but that's just water under the bridge.

Posted by narciso | December 25, 2007 9:12 PM

The US Army is winning the war in Iraq, and will still be winning the war in Iraq ten years from now.

Posted by brooksfoe | December 25, 2007 10:42 PM

Hey, America invented Christmas bombing! Props to us!

We've been doing it a lot longer than that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trenton

Posted by heckblazer | December 25, 2007 11:30 PM

We invaded and occupied another country, and now conspire with another ally in attacks on the occupied country? The Bush administration is truly breaking new ground in military-political history.

Posted by bob h | December 26, 2007 8:21 AM

M.A.,

We were using a different strategy in 2005, but it was achieving progress then. The problem was that we stuck with that strategy after the Golden Mosque bombing, which radically altered and worsened the situation on the ground.

"Actually the numbers are really back to Nov. 2003 but who's counting."

Apparently not you. iCasualties doesn't track monthly Iraqi military and civilian casualties prior to 2005, but it lists American fatalities in Iraq in November 2003 at 82. Month to date, there have been 16 American fatalities in Iraq.

Posted by Fred | December 26, 2007 8:53 AM

We were using a different strategy in 2005, but it was achieving progress then. The problem was that we stuck with that strategy after the Golden Mosque bombing, which radically altered and worsened the situation on the ground.

Fred, you've proved my point. The conservative talking point is that we were achieving "progress" in 2005-6 until the Golden Mosque ruined everything. The actual fact is that Iraq was a mess, unwinnable and in a civil war in 2005; the Samarra incident increased violence overall only a little, but just made it harder for conservatives to deny that there was a civil war.

Now we're back to 2005 status quo, where the war is unwinnable and conservatives get to pretend we're making "progress" when there is none.

Posted by M.A. | December 26, 2007 10:26 AM

The issue for the Turks here is strictly military tactics.

They waited too long to be able to do the invasion of Iraq - due to winter setting in - so now they're reduced to doing air bombardments.

Unless the PKK lay down their arms as they are currently promising, provided they get no jail time, the Turks will be invading next spring.

In other words, nothing has changed, it's just been postponed due to weather.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | December 26, 2007 8:34 PM