Get Out Your Score Cards

The PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] is officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) by the United States. [...] NSA under both the Bush and Obama Administrations actively aided the Turkish military in targeting this group and has provided intelligence used to kill its members.

However, in yet another ironic twist to U.S. foreign policy in the region, this ostensible terrorist organization is now an important American partner in halting the expansion of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. The PKK today in part represent the “boots on the ground” in Syria that many observers have said are necessary to any serious campaign to reverse the spread of this group. In other words, the Bush administration’s terrorist group has become the Obama administration’s freedom fighters.

  The Intercept

And now, Turkey, who we are trying to claim as part of our Middle Eastern coalition against IS, has carried out airstrikes against the PKK.

The United States would surely prefer that Turkey not bomb the PKK right now, but how can it object to attacking a group that the U.S. itself designates as a terrorist organization?

It would likewise be hard for the U.S. to publicly protect other key entities willing and able to fight ISIS, including Al-Qaeda-connected militants like Jabhat al-Nusra, paramilitary groups such as Hezbollah, or countries such as Iran, which is both the the only state to show a commitment to fighting ISIS on the ground and an official state sponsor of terrorism in the eyes of the U.S. State Department.

The U.S. has shown no real resolve in turning such groups into a real anti-ISIS coalition. Whatever American politicians may say in public, official U.S. policy toward the conflict in Syria largely amounts to “everyone’s a terrorist”.

So, whoopee! More war profits!

Oh, and…

Washington and Moscow are renewing security cooperation, which ground to a halt amid the rift caused by the Ukrainian crisis. The two are back in business together to share intelligence on the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) militant group.

  RT

Here’s Ichabod Crane and the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Paris yesterday.

Ah, isn’t it nice to sit in a lovely park and decide where to send young men to be slaughtered and maimed?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.