US dollar-diplomacy may have paid off in Turkey vote (Israel next)

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06368741.htm

WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Turkey's approval of peacekeepers for Iraq has put a spotlight on a key component of Bush administration policy -- dollar-diplomacy.

President George W. Bush pledged $8.5 billion in loans to Turkey in an agreement signed just two weeks before Tuesday's vote in the Turkish parliament, which will help relieve pressure on U.S. troops in Iraq.

Administration officials say there is no direct connection but that the loan deal requires Ankara to cooperate with the United States in Iraq.

Similar aid packages have been put together for Jordan and Israel as well as Pakistan, which like Turkey has been under mounting pressure from Washington to send troops to Iraq.

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[bemildred]

1. These fuckers really know how to build a bonfire, don't they?

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. The Turkish troops will be initially deployed to kill the Kurds

in the north. Israeli troops, it appears, will be occupying Syria and Lebanon, although some may be ordered to Iran, or even into Iraq to establish settlements there, as is the wish of some of the ultra-conservative religious factions in Israel.

[damnraddem]

3. This will really go over well with our buddies, the Kurds.

You know the Kurds -- the ones who fought alongside American troops against the Baathists, in fact who'd fought the Baathists for decades, back when Saddam was our buddy. Dubya's thugs are messing up Iraq even further than they had before.