Meanwhile ...

As we contemplate the Dear Leader's continuing grabs at power in the once splendid nation called America, while his poll numbers drop and people are distracted by the Libby trial, Barbaro, and antiwar demonstrations, we have this brewing.

Al-Jazeera reports that the Turks are starting to lose patience with the depredations of the Kurdish Worker's Party, or PKK. It seems that the PKK, listed by the Turks as a terrorist organization, keep crossing the border between Turkey and Iraq, raiding and then slipping back across the border where the Kurdish authorities in the largely autonomous area (and the Americans) seem content to let them be.

Needless to say, the Turks are irritated - and one need look no further than the Armenians to see what happens when the Turks get irritated.

The article goes on to say that trade and business is flowing freely between the two nations, and why not? Money's money, and you have to set up shop and deal with your neighbors. The PKK are a lot like any terrorist group, from the Stern Gang and Irgun all the way to the Silver Wolves, the "Real" IRA, and al Qaeda - a bunch of troublemakers.

The problem is whether we are so distracted elsewhere that we fail to stop the PKK before the Turks get irritated enough to send troops into northern Iraq.