"Bitirin şu Allahın belası savaşı"

It's Turkish, and it is the most direct and forceful headline you will ever see. "End this Goddamn War," it says. It appeared Sunday (10/6/08) in the Istanbul daily "Taraf," and the accompanying text was written by one of Turkey's most courageous liberal editors, Ahmet Altan. The Turkish Army, with all its vaunted prowess and NATO weapons, has suffered a major catastrophe this weekend in the mountains of Kurdistan. The PKK rebels are claiming 65 Turkish soldiers killed, including several officers, with a loss of 9 of their own fighters. The attack, they say, was recorded on video. The Army is claiming otherwise: 15 soldiers lost, 23 PKK killed. Anyway you look at it, it's a heavy toll. The government and press of Turkey are in an uproar, and access to pro-Kurdish websites has been blocked.

As I've said before, a rational government could end this war by negotiation in a month.

Read all about it at Rasti, the website of pro-PKK blogger Mizgin Yilmaz.

P.S. Unlike the CNN we get here, CNN International occasionally has stories that are of real interest. Recently one of their correspondents posted a story about the women fighters of the PKK. For a really depressing insight into the Turkish nationalist mind at work, check out the Comments.