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What Could Possibly Go Wrong? - Seven Worst-Case Scenarios in the Battle with the Islamic State

Peter Van Buren TomDispatch
President Obama speaking at the Air Force Academy in 2012, told the assembled cadets that they should "never bet against the United States of America... [because] the United States has been, and will always be, the one indispensable nation in world affairs." On that basis, he suggested, the twenty-first century, like the twentieth, would be an American one. You get idea. We are... go ahead, chant it: indispensable! (Tom Engelhardt)

Tidbits - October 16, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Karen Lewis starts recovery; Philadelphia Students Support Teachers; Towards a Socialist America; War on the Islamic State; Arming Rebels Does Not Work; Silicon Valley and Organized Labor; New Voters in Ferguson; Investing in Junk Armies; Gaza Reconstruction; Doomed Without a Wealth Tax; Rosenberg Sons' Statement; Announcements - New York and Chicago events; Palestine solidarity

Kurds Accuse the Turkish Military Of Supporting DAESH

Hassane Zerrouky L'Humanité
The involvement of Turkey -- NATO's second largest military force -- in support of Syrian and other Islamist forces is of long-standing. One part of Turkish territory along Syria's border has served for the past two years as a fallback zone for DASEH (ISIS) Islamists as well as to Al Qaeda. However, neither the US or French governments have asked Turkish authorities to stop helping the Jihadists.

The Kurds: Opportunity & Peril

Conn Hallinan Dispatches From the Edge
Twenty-nine years ago the Turkish government was burning Kurdish villages and scattering refugees throughout the region. Some 45,000 people—mostly Kurds— lost their lives in that long-running conflict. Today, Turkey is negotiating with its traditional nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and trying to cut a peace deal that would deliver Kurdish support to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s push to amend Turkey’s constitution and prolong his rule.
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