: re: Turkish Airstrike Hits Kurds, Complicating Fight Against Islamic State

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 6:20 PM
Subject: re: Turkish Airstrike Hits Kurds, Complicating Fight Against Islamic State
To: "letters@nytimes.com"

To the Editor:

   Turkey's president Erdogan seems eager to maneuver president Obama into striking his enemies the way (it is widely believed) that PM Netanyahu tricked president George W. Bush into taking out Saddam Hussein.  But Erdogan is not an ally we can back in good conscience while he makes war on his own citizens.  Whatever the sunk cost in our airbases at Incirlik and Batman, they are liabilities--not assets--if we can't walk away from them when it's time. The Soviet Union is dead. Turkey is not our only ally. Our efforts and resources are better spent on the Kurds who are actually fighting ISIS than on the Turks who are consumed in their own byzantine maneuverings.

Barry Haskell Levine

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/world/europe/turkey-airstrike-kurds-isis.html