The comments in response to my earlier post about the terrorists who bombed my neighborhood yesterday made me realize that most Americans just don’t know about the PKK.

I’d blame the media, but I am the media. So I guess it’s my fault. Let me make it up to you. I’m going to explain the PKK problem and tell you why you should care about it. I’ve just got to figure out a way to do it without boring you. It’s not a boring subject at all, believe me, especially when they’re operating in your neighborhood. It’s just a little complicated, and there are a lot of acronyms, which can be confusing. But really, give it a chance: Trying to figure out what’s going on here is like playing Risk, only with real people and real blood. So get yourself a cup of coffee, pull out a map of the Middle East and some pushpins, and play along.

This Skype chat I had today with a friend of mine is a good introduction to the game. He’s a mysterious private intelligence analyst who lives in an undisclosed location and goes by the name “Timothy Thompson.” A very smart guy. For hire, by the way. If you have any private intelligence requirements, I’ll put you in touch with him.

The chat begins with me wondering whether it could be true that the US and Israel are holding back intelligence from the Turks about PKK activity. I ask him whether he’s heard anything on the grapevine …

Timothy Thompson: No — it’s all the murky rumors that swirl around intelligence operations. The Turks have probably given a large bribe to Barzani, who issued a stinging denounciation of the PKK, but did little else.

Claire Berlinski: The thing is, the PKK was threatening to do this well before all of this happened. And they usually do have a summer bombing campaign. It’s like bringing out the swimwear collection for them. And it’s perfectly logically explained by the collapse of the Kurdish opening and Ocalan’s comments. You don’t need to invoke the US or Israel to explain why they’ve stepped things up. Attacks on Istanbul are hardly unprecedented.

Timothy Thompson: In terrorism and intelligence, everything is rumor and innuendo. Here’s the aspect that is being talked about in Intelligence Community chat rooms. Erdogan talked up the humanitarian aspect of the flotilla. What he conveniently left out is that the aid recipient, Hamas, is a listed terrorist organization. Erdogan openly supports Hamas while still thinking the world owes him assistance against the PKK. That attitude isn’t going to fly.

Claire Berlinski: The world doesn’t owe him assistance against the PKK. But they’re a terrorist organization, meaning, they target people — like me — at random. The world actually does owe me assistance against the PKK.

Timothy Thompson: The PKK may well have planned a summer bombing campaign months ago. The US and Israel would never assist in such planning. What has changed is that the US & Israel may have withdrawn intelligence support to the Turkish military and police.

Claire Berlinski: Anyone who knows they’re planning to attack Istanbul better f***** cough up the information, or they’re morally complicit.

Timothy Thompson: The rationale in planning circles is that Erdogan is steering Turkey on a course to war — with high casualties — and he must be slapped into reality now.

Claire Berlinski: There is simply no acceptable rationale for not sharing actionable information about a terrorist attack against civilians.

Timothy Thompson: I wrote weeks ago that while Turkey is threatening Israel, the Kurds and Armenians are quietly talking to Israel. The Kurds smell opportunity.

Claire Berlinski: They’re idiots if they think the PKK equals opportunity. Idiots on exactly the order of Hamas.

Timothy Thompson: For the first time in decades, the Kurds sense that American support of Ankara may be withdrawn, giving them a tiny opening to defeat the Turkish government and force a withdrawal from Kurdistan. They probably will pull out all the stops to get rid of the Turks now during this small window of opportunity.

Claire Berlinski: I’m no fan of the AKP these days, but spitting on the Kurdish opening was more or less analagous to walking out of Camp David in 2000.

Timothy Thompson: Hint: think less about logic and more about perceptions and emotions. Also — and this vital — think about oil.

Claire Berlinski: I would be genuinely morally outraged if I discovered that my government had intelligence about impending PKK attacks that it didn’t share. Absolutely nothing we say about terrorism would mean anything if that were so.

Timothy Thompson: The CIA does stuff routinely that is outrageous and immoral — that’s actually their job. Do it and don’t get caught. Even worse for Mossad. And, to distill this, what we are telling the world is that if you help the terrorist enemies of the US and Israel, neither country will lift a finger to help you against your own terrorists. Again, we just don’t know the facts — and we won’t ever know them.

Claire Berlinski: Look, this isn’t something I can prove — you can’t prove a negative — but Congress has made its feelings about the PKK quite clear; the Supreme Court just echoed it. If the CIA is sitting there thinking, “Well, we’ll just help the frisky little devils,” they’re opening themselves up to major backlash if it comes out. And the folks there are so risk-averse these days that I just don’t see it.

Timothy Thompson: It’s not a case of helping the PKK. It is a case of not helping the Ankara government fight the PKK.

Claire Berlinski: Same thing. People die. Same result. If I know a bomb is going to go off in your neighborhood and I don’t tell you — well, it’s perhaps not as bad as planting the bomb myself, but it’s not far off it.

Timothy Thompson: As for the US Congress, the mood there has sharply changed. The Armenian genocide bill looks likely to pass this year. And Congress members are declining invitations to Turkish-American events. The intel provided to Turkey is much less about a particular bomb and much more about the location of PKK bases in northern Iraq.

Claire Berlinski: You know, I don’t approve of that, either. Either the Armenian genocide happened or it didn’t. You can’t change history to punish Erdogan.

Timothy Thompson: Covert action and spycraft is dirty business. Erdogan had plenty of warnings to steer clear of Hamas and he ignored all of them. He is discovering the price of turning his back on America and Israel. He is also hearing about now that the price of his active support of Iran during a strike will be lives of himself and his family — and probably the existence of the AKP. This message probably will get through his thick skull. Certainly it isn’t lost on him that he now must worry about his own military. A message is also being sent to the Turkish people. It’s a subtle one and it will take a while to permeate. “If you want to live like Arab Muslims, here’s your chance. Daily terrorist bombings. Boastful, threatening leaders. No visas for travel to the West. Massive military budgets and conscription. Unelected Muslim religious figures influencing every aspect of daily life. Saudi and Gulf oil money buying influence everywhere. This is your new reality.”

Claire Berlinski: It won’t penetrate and will backfire.

Timothy Thompson: Claire, you seem rebelling against a fact. This a dirty business. The stakes are enormous.

Claire Berlinski: The whole message is absolutely appropriate, true and condign. But there are moral ways to deliver it and wicked ones. Not to mention effective ones and ways that will backfire completely.

Timothy Thompson: Something to remember. For Israel, the threat is existential.

Claire Berlinski: I do remember that.

Timothy Thompson: Israel will do anything and everything necessary to knock Turkey out of the coming war as a Muslim combatant nation.

Claire Berlinski: Tell me how well it would work to knock America out of a conflict by supporting al Qaeda.

Timothy Thompson: And if Erdogan does send the Turkish military after Israel, Israel will carve a new Kurdistan out of Turkey.

Timothy Thompson: Better analogy — crippling the USA by supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Kurds have a functioning, pro-American government and state.

Claire Berlinski: Let’s distinguish between the Kurds and the PKK, shall we?

Timothy Thompson: Yes. The US and Israel, again, are not likely to help the PKK.

Claire Berlinski: We go back, again, to my point: If you have intelligence about an impending attack and don’t share it, you are helping them.

Timothy Thompson: Even if the street talk is “The Jews are helping the PKK!” — that just isn’t true.

Claire Berlinski: My gut says neither are true — I don’t think the US is withholding information about this; I don’t think Israel is. I just think the PKK are doing what the PKK does. But of course I don’t know.

Timothy Thompson: You and the various intel agencies see things differently.

Claire Berlinski: How do we know how they see things? By definition, they ain’t talking.

Timothy Thompson: Intel agencies. Imagine an invisible boat in the water of a calm lake. You can’t see the boat. All you can see is its wake.

Claire Berlinski: Unfortunately, you also see the wake of 6,000 other powerful forces, so you can’t tell which boat left them.

Timothy Thompson: If you observe the Turks becoming ineffective against the PKK, you can safely assume that it is for a lack of intelligence –specifically, satellite targeting data. There is another indicator to watch. Turkey keeps military forces in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. If those forces are either attacked or expelled (with Iraqi Army and/or US assistance), the tide is turning against Turkey. This may not happen — it is just something to watch. Erdogan has stumbled into a legal minefield as well. Erdogan is effectively challenging Israel’s sovereignty. What he overlooked is that Turkey’s borders are legally in doubt as well.

Claire Berlinski: There are other issues that might be at play, too. The rise of urban PKK militias versus rural units, for example. A consequence of immigration — a long term trend.

Timothy Thompson: Turkey challenged through a civil war the establishment of Kurdistan by the Versailles Conference. When it did so, it was a losing combatant in WWI and violated he terms of the Ottoman Empire’s armistice treaty. The War of Indepence was clearly illegal under international law. The Israelis are just playing turnabout with him. But the danger to modern Turkey is very, very clear: dismemberment. This was unthinkable a few years ago — now people are counting it as a real (if unlikely) possibility. And this is 100% Erdogan’s doing.

Claire Berlinski: Yes, I agree. But going back to your point — why the uptick in PKK attacks? I can think of many plausible reasons other than the machinations of regional intel services …

Timothy Thompson: There are dozens of plausible explanations for increased PKK activity.

Claire Berlinski: Frankly, most simple explanation: The military is too busy focusing on Israel to take care of the home front. Limited resources, spread too thin.

Timothy Thompson: That’s one. Increased revenues from criminal activities is another. Increased Kurdish militancy in urban Istanbul is another.

Claire Berlinski: Exactly.

Timothy Thompson: PKK is almost 3 separate groups.

Claire Berlinski: TAK claimed responsibility for today’s attacks.

Timothy Thompson: There is the PKK you can see in the mountains of southern Turkey and northern Iraq. There is the covert, deeply-hidden urban PKK — aka the TAK. Then there is the vast criminal PKK gang in Europe. Nominally, the fund-raising arm of the PKK, it operates more like a strictly self-serving gang paying a small franchise fee to the insurgency. The black market activities in Istanbul are where the three intersect.

Claire Berlinski: Yep. And stole my great-granny’s wedding ring.

Timothy Thompson: Many of the handguns sold in the Kurdish black markets come from Iraq these days. The trade in stolen luxury goods links the PKK criminal gangs with TAK foot soldiers. The PKK army helps supply both the handguns and drugs for the PKK operations in Istanbul & Europe. In writing about the PKK, it is always helpful to distinguish between these three aspects.

Claire Berlinski: Indeed. Well, this has been a most interesting conversation … would you like me to post it, noting that you’re for hire?

Timothy Thompson: Yes, please, I am for hire. Have gun. Will travel.

Keep in mind two things: First, the PKK are Maoists. Not Islamists, Maoists. And they are seeking to create an “ethnically pure” Kurdish state. We all know what that means, right? Second, 40,000 people have died here since the war with the PKK began.

So interesting though this is, it’s actually not a game at all.