Genocide resolution should pass
By: JIM HORN - Commentary
*
A brouhaha is brewing regarding the proposed resolution ---- the timing is an issue ---- to recognize the Turkish genocide directed at Armenians ninety years ago when more than 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by Turks. During the two years I lived in Turkey, I got to know and understand the Turks and Armenians, as well as other downtrodden minority groups in that country.
The resolution is a Democratic initiative and President Bush is trying to block it, claiming the resolution will provoke the Turks to cut off routes used to supply our bases in Iraq.
The Turks are angry at Iraqi Kurds who harbor guerrillas who have been attacking Turks in support of Turkish Kurds who want independence from Turk oppression. The Turks are threatening to mount a significant incursion across the border into Iraq to attack the Kurds, the most successful of the three major Iraqi groups in self-government. In this attack, the Turks would cut those supply lines anyhow.
The resolution is driving the Turks batty because they want to control how we Americans manage our internal affairs. Their threatening to cut off routes through Turkey that we use to supply our bases ---- and Iraqi Kurds ---- if it passes is just an excuse they are using in support of their argument to attack Iraq.
While the Turks were a useful ally during the Cold War, the Cold War is over and that alliance means nothing now. The Turks needed us more than we needed them because Joe Stalin was ready to trounce them, and NATO gave the Turks protection.
The Turks sabotaged our pre-invasion plans in Iraq. They have been the most useless, costly and problematic NATO partner in the alliance, repeatedly in disputes with a more stalwart NATO partner, Greece.
If the Turks cut off our supply lines into Iraq or attack Iraq ---- the Iraqi Kurds ---- they should be booted out of NATO, and all American and European military assistance to Turkey should be cut off. They no longer need it. They are no longer threatened by the USSR.
A clarifying note: The so-called Turks garnered a reputation of incredible ferocity during the Korean war. The reality is that the "Turks" who fought so valiantly were in fact Kurdish conscripts, along with conscripted Christian Armenians, Assyrians, Bulgars and Greeks. The only contribution the Turks made was their officers and senior noncoms who stood behind the conscripts with machine guns at the ready to gun down any who faltered.
A congressional vote for the resolution would be well-deserved recognition for the significant contributions Armenian-Americans have made to America, a lot more than the Turks have contributed.
Jim Horn of Sun City is a retired U.S. diplomat.
*
-
U.S. Denial of the Armenian Genocide
Stephen Zunes | October 22, 2007
Editor: John Feffer
Foreign Policy In Focus
It continues to boggle the mind what the Democratic leadership in Congress will do whenever the Republicans raise the specter of labeling them “soft on terrorism.” They approve wiretapping without a court order. They allow for indefinite detention of suspects without charge. They authorize the invasion and occupation of a country on the far side of the world that was no threat to us and then provide unconditional funding for the bloody and unwinnable counter-insurgency war that inevitably followed.
Now, it appears, the Democrats are also willing to deny history, even when it involves genocide.
The non-binding resolution commemorating the Armenian genocide attracted 226 co-sponsors and won passage through the House Foreign Relations Committee. Nevertheless, it appears that as of this writing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – in response to pressure from the White House and Republican congressional leaders that it would harm the “Global War on Terrorism” – will prevent the resolution from coming up for vote in the full House.
Call It Genocide
Between 1915 and 1918, under orders of the leadership of the Ottoman Empire, an estimated two million Armenians were forcibly removed from their homes in a region that had been part of the Armenian nation for more than 2,500 years. Three-quarters of them died as a result of execution, starvation, and related reasons.
Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during that period, noted that, “When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact...” While issuing a “death warrant to a whole race” would normally be considered genocide by any definition, it apparently does not in the view of the current administration and Congress of the government he was representing.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, signed and ratified by the United States, officially defines genocide as any effort “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” Raphael Lemkin was the Polish Jewish lawyer who originally coined the term “genocide” in 1944. The earliest proponent of an international convention on its prevention and the punishment of its perpetrators, Lemkin identified the Armenian case as a definitive example.
Dozens of other governments – including Canada, France, Italy, and Russia – and several UN bodies have formally recognized the Armenian genocide, as have the governments of 40 U.S. states. Neither the Bush administration nor Congress appears willing to do so, however.
Ironically, Congress earlier this year overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for refusing to acknowledge the German genocide of the Jews. That same Congress, however, appears quite willing to refuse to acknowledge the Turkish genocide of the Armenians.
While awareness of anti-Semitism is fortunately widespread enough to dismiss those who refuse to acknowledge the Holocaust to the political fringe, it appears that tolerance for anti-Armenian bigotry is strong enough that it is still apparently politically acceptable to refuse to acknowledge their genocide.
The Turkey Factor
Opponents of the measure acknowledging the Armenian genocide claim argue that they are worried about harming relations with Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire and an important U.S. ally.
In reality, however, if the Bush administration and Congress were really concerned about hurting relations with Turkey, Bush would have never asked for and Congress would have never approved authorization for the United States to have invaded Iraq, which the Turks vehemently opposed. As a result of the U.S. war and occupation of Turkey’s southern neighbor, public opinion polls have shown that percentage of the Turkish population holding a positive view of the United States has declined from 52% to only 9%.
Turkish opposition was so strong that, despite the Bush administration offering Turkey $6 billion in grants and $20 billion in loan guarantees in return for allowing U.S. forces to use bases in Turkey to launch the invasion in 2003, the Turkish parliament refused to authorize the request. Soon thereafter, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, in an interview with CNN in Turkey, expressed his disappointment that the Turkish military had not taken its traditional “leadership role” in the matter, which – given its periodic military intervention in Turkish governance – many Turks took as advocacy for a military coup. Furthermore, in testimony on Capitol Hill, Wolfowitz further angered the Turks by claiming that the civilian government made a "big, big mistake” in failing to back U.S. military plans and claimed that the country’s democratically elected parliament “didn't quite know what it was doing.”
The United States has antagonized Turkey still further as a result of U.S. support for Kurdish nationalists in northern Iraq who, with the support of billions of dollars worth of U.S. aid and thousands of American troops, have created an autonomous enclave that has served as a based for KADEK (formerly known as the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK), which Turkey considers a terrorist group. KADEK forces, which had largely observed a cease fire prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the resulting consolidation of the quasi-independent Kurdish region, have since been emboldened to launch countless forays into Turkish territory at the cost of hundreds of lives.
Since almost all House members who oppose this non-binding resolution on the Armenian genocide were among the majority of Republicans and the minority of Democrats who voted to authorize the invasion, antagonizing Turkey is clearly not the real reason for their opposition. Anyone actually concerned about the future of U.S.-Turkish relations would never have rejected the Turkish government’s pleas for restraint and voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq nor would they vote to continue U.S. funding of the pro-KADEK separatist government in northern Iraq.
Why a Resolution Now?
Another bogus argument put forward by President Bush and his bipartisan supporters on Capitol Hill is that Congress should not bother passing resolutions regarding historical events. Yet these critics have not objected to other recent successful congressional resolutions on historic events: recognizing the 65th anniversary of the death of the Polish musician and political leader Ignacy Jan Paderewski, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the American Jewish Committee, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp in Poland, or commemorating the 150th anniversary of the first meeting of the Republican Party in Wisconsin, just to name a few.
These opponents of the resolution also claim that this is a “bad time” to upset the Turkish government, given that U.S. access to Turkish bases is part of the re-supply efforts to support the counter-insurgency war by U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. However, it was also considered a “bad time” when a similar resolution was put forward in 2000 because U.S. bases in Turkey were being used to patrol the “no fly zones” in northern Iraq. And it was also considered a “bad time” in 1985 and 1987 when similar resolutions were put forward because U.S. bases in Turkey were considered important listening posts for monitoring the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
For deniers of the Armenian genocide, it is always a “bad time.”
The Bush administration, like both Republican and Democratic administrations before it, has refused to acknowledge that the Armenian genocide even took place. For example, under the Reagan administration, the Bulletin of the Department of State claimed that, "Because the historical record of the 1915 events in Asia Minor is ambiguous, the Department of State does not endorse allegations that the Turkish Government committed genocide against the Armenian people."
Similarly, Paul Wolfowitz, who served as deputy secretary of defense in President Bush’s first term, stated in 2002 that “one of the things that impress me about Turkish history is the way Turkey treats its own minorities."
The operative clause of the resolution simply calls upon President Bush “to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian genocide, and for other purposes." Therefore, if President Bush really doesn’t want Congress to pass such a resolution, all he needs to do is make a statement acknowledging the genocide. Not surprisingly for someone with a notorious lack of knowledge of history, however, he has refused to do so. Bush has only gone as far as acknowledging that what happened to the Armenians was simply part of “a horrible tragedy” which reflects “a deep sorrow that continues to haunt them and their neighbors, the Turkish people,” even though Turkey has never expressed sorrow for their genocide.
Failure to pass a resolution calling on President Bush to acknowledge the genocide, then, amounts to an acceptance of his genocide denial.
Genocide Denial
Given the indisputable documentary record of the Armenian genocide, it would appear that at least some of those who refuse to go on record recognizing Turkey’s genocide of Armenians are, like those who refuse to recognize Germany’s genocide of European Jews, motivated by ignorance and bigotry. Claims that it would harm relations with Turkey or that the timing is wrong appear to be no more than desperate excuses to deny reality. If the Bush administration and members of Congress recognized that genocide took place, they should have no problem going on record saying so.
One problem may be that members of Congress, like President Bush, are themselves ignorant of history. For example, the Middle East scholar most often cited by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress as influencing their understanding of the region is the notorious genocide-denier Bernard Lewis, a fellow at Washington’s Institute of Turkish Studies. In France, where genocide denial is considered a criminal offense, he was convicted in 1996 following a statement in Le Monde in which the emeritus Princeton University professor dismissed the claim of genocide as nothing more than "the Armenian version of this story." The court noted how, typical of those who deny genocide, he reached his conclusion by “concealing elements contrary to his thesis” and “failed in his duties of objectivity and prudence.”
This is not to say that every single opponent of the resolution explicitly denies the genocide. Some have acknowledged that genocide indeed occurred, but have apparently been convinced that it is contrary to perceived U.S. national security interest to state this publicly. This is just as inexcusable, however. Such people are moral cowards who apparently would be just as willing to refuse to acknowledge the Holocaust if the Bush administration told them that it might also upset the German government enough to restrict access to U.S. bases.
Though it has been Democratic members of the House, led by California Congressman Adam Schiff, who have most vigorously led the effort this time to recognize the Armenian genocide, opposition to acknowledging history has been a bipartisan effort. In 2000, President Bill Clinton successfully persuaded House Speaker Dennis Hastert to suppress a similar bill after it passed the Republican-led Foreign Relations Committee by a vote of 40-7 and was on its way to easy passage before the full House. Currently, former Democratic House leader xxxx Gephardt has joined in lobbying his former colleagues on behalf of the Turkish government. And now, the current Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, despite having earlier promised to place it before a vote of the full House, appears ready to pull the bill from consideration.
Not only is this a tragic affront to the remaining genocide survivors and their descendents, it is also a disservice to the many Turks who opposed their government’s policies at that time and tried to stop the genocide, as well as to contemporary Turks who face jail by their U.S.-backed regime for daring to acknowledge it. If the world’s one remaining superpower refuses to acknowledge the genocide, there is little chance that justice will ever be served.
Adolf Hitler, responding to concerns about the legacy of his crimes, once asked, “Who, after all, is today speaking of the destruction of the Armenians?” Failure to pass this resolution would send a message to future tyrants that they can commit genocide and not even have it acknowledged by the world’s most powerful countries.
Indeed, refusing to recognize genocide and those responsible for it in a historical context makes it easier to deny genocide today. In 1994, the Clinton administration – which consistently refused to fully acknowledge Armenia’s tragedy – also refused to use the word “genocide” in the midst of the Rwandan government’s massacres of over half that country’s Tutsi population, a decision that delayed the deployment of international peacekeeping forces until after 800,000 people had been slaughtered.
As a result, the fate of the resolution on the Armenian genocide is not simply about commemorating a tragedy that took place 90 years ago. It is about where we stand as a nation in facing up to the most horrible of crimes. It is about whether we are willing to stand up for the truth in the face of lies. It is about whether we see our nation’s glory based on appeasing our strategic allies or in upholding our longstanding principles.
Stephen Zunes is Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus . He is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003.)Leave a comment:
-
EDITORIALS IT WON'T GO AWAY WHEN HISTORY CAN'T BE EVADED
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock)
October 16, 2007 Tuesday
"When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations
[of the Armenians], they were merely giving the death warrant to a
whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations
with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact. . . .
Practically all of them were atheists, with no more respect for
Mohammedanism than for Christianity, and with them the one motive
was cold-blooded, calculating state policy."
-Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, 1913-1916.
"For nothing is lost, nothing is ever lost."
-Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men
WHAT WAS it Mr. Faulkner said? The past is never dead. It's not even
past. The man was on to something. Because his words keep coming
to mind whenever somebody tries to ignore the darker episodes of
man's history.
Who's the latest to put on the blinders? Once again, it's Turkey,
whose leaders have been trying for nigh unto a century to minimize
the massacre of Armenians there during the First World War. This
time, the Turkish denial threatens to turn into an international
incident. With the United States on the other side.
It's always sad when man cannot or dare not face his past-whether
it's a person who can't admit the harm he's done or a whole country
that avoids owning up. In either case, the one who suffers most is
the denier. Without an admission of responsibility, there can be
no selfforgiveness. Instead, those in denial embark on an endless
series of explanations that don't explain, excuses that don't excuse,
or even outright falsehoods, which are soon enough exposed.
In the case of Turkey and the Armenians, by now most of the world
has recognized the terrible thing that happened there: As many as
1,500,000 Armenians, who found themselves an ethnic and religious
minority in the old Ottoman Empire, were systematically led to their
deaths under Turkish rule. Hundreds of thousands more were forcibly
deported. The massacres peaked in 1915-1917. In the pitiless glare
of history, the massacre of the Armenians is rightly regarded as the
first genocide of the 20th Century. Or at least one of the first. (It
wasn't exactly a bloodless century.) What the world knows, however,
and even knew at the time, the Turkish government has always denied.
Ankara insists that what was done to the Armenians was not genocide.
In the usual tradition of deniers, the Turks say the number of
Armenians who died has been inflated, that the deaths were the result
of civil war and unrest, that there was no deliberate government
policy behind the slaughter and degradation of the Armenians, that
it just happened . . . . Uh-huh. History says otherwise.
A FEW MONTHS ago, the French parliament voted to recognize what was
done to the Armenians as a genocide. France was only the latest
in a long series of countries to do so. Turkey took offense. In
a demonstration of how past events still affect the present, the
French vote raised tensions between Turkey and the European Union,
which Turkey wants to join.
In this country, a committee of the House of Representatives has
approved a bill labeling the Turkish actions against the Armenians
a genocide, sending it on to the full House. In response, Turkey has
recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations.
The delicate relationship between our two countries is crucial to
the joint war on terror. Turkey is a vital shipping point through
which we supply our troops in Iraq. The Turks' anger over the truth's
finally being recognized threatens to complicate our position in Iraq
even further.
William Faulkner wouldn't have been surprised at Turkey's reaction.
But its intensity might cause those who know little about the Armenian
massacres to wonder what all the fuss is about at this late date. Does
a vote by outsiders have any relevance today? Modern Turkey isn't
responsible for what happened 100 years ago, is it? Why burden an
important ally with the presumed guilt of long-ago crimes?
Who cares?
In the midst of his own genocidal career, Adolf Hitler cynically asked
who remembered the Armenians. The German dictator was wrong about a
lot of things. It's no surprise he was wrong about the Armenians,
too. Long after Adolf Hitler met his end, the world does remember
the Armenians. With good cause: justice. It demands that what was
done to them be recognized, not covered up.
When the injustice is on such an historic scale, the need to
recognize it is all the greater. The crimes against the Armenians
aren't forgotten because they cannot be forgotten. Truth is its
own justification, and until the truth is recognized, justice isn't
possible.
Some in Congress and the administration would buckle to Turkey's
huffing-andpuffing. Mere truth, they seem to be saying, isn't worth
harming "our national interest," as if this republic's deepest
interest could ever be served by denying the truth. It's instructive
that those in Congress who oppose this congressional resolution,
this long delayed act of simple decency, don't deny the truth of the
Armenian massacres. They prefer to say that now is not the right time
to do the right thing, which is what they've been saying for decades.
The nature of the world is such that there will never be a time
when recognizing this truth is convenient, not as long as Turkey is
determined to deny its responsibility for this monumental crime. As
usual, there is no better time than now to do the right thing. Why?
Because recognizing injustice cleanses the soul. It restores peace.
It makes reconciliation possible. That's what happened in South
Africa, where truth-and-reconciliation committees heard the stories
of the atrocities that were committed during the dark reign of
apartheid. The hearings allowed the guilty and their victims to find
some peace. Notice the connection: Truth and reconciliation. They go
together. Just as justice is thwarted by denial, so reconciliation is
impossible without a full accounting of the wrongs committed.COMING
to terms with the past isn't always agreeable work. Against all the
evidence, Iran's fiery president still questions the truth of the
Holocaust. Japan has yet to fully accept its responsibility for the
brutalities carried out by the Japanese empire in the Thirties and
Forties. Did modern Japan commit those war crimes? No. But by refusing
to acknowledge them, the descendants of the criminals take on part of
the guilt that should have been laid to rest with their ancestors. And
so the sins of the fathers are visited on later generations.
All of this remains relevant today. Genocide isn't just some artifact
of the 20th Century. A genocide is happening right now in Darfur,
where the Sudanese government is as touchy about that damning word
as Turkey remains.
History is one thing, facts are another. History is the way we
arrange the facts, and our perspective constantly changes. As time
goes by, our sense of the past shifts. Each generation interprets it
differently. What doesn't change are the facts. We may learn more
of them over the years, for our knowledge of the past can never be
complete. The past is too complicated for that. But to attempt to
change the facts themselves is not just another interpretation of
history. It is a crime against human memory.
When we try to deny the plain facts, we cheat ourselves. Because,
let us have faith, the facts will always have the final say. There
will always be someone, some historian or memoirist or survivor or
just plain conscientious observer, who will speak out-and the force
of the facts will make the world listen.
In the end, nations need to work through their history, not evade it,
even for political reasons that seem so important at the moment. What
we ignore in our past will come back to haunt us, as Americans should
well know by now. We're still working on our own past. And until we
acknowledge what's been done, the ghosts will linger. Forget the fate
of the Armenians? Impossible. The wound remains raw. It needs to be
recognized, and allowed to heal. Ignored, it festers.Leave a comment:
-
Mr. Bush has never been concerned with Wrong or Right. The fact is, the man is a lapdog. (Funny that Blair should be that lapdog's poodle, eh?) There's solid evidence that the invasion of Iraq was on the boards long before 9/11. All Bush cares about is vindicating the hundreds of thousands of lives lost there (theirs and ours) by "winning" in Iraq.
That Turkey could even utter something sounding like "Terrorist" after what they pulled on us, the Greeks, those in Cypress, etc., is all the more proof of their lack of conscience.
Perhaps that's why Bush and Turkey get along so well.Leave a comment:
-
ARMENIAN "GENOCIDE" DEBATE
Rodney Coates Commentary
WMUB, OH
Oct 16 2007
OXFORD, OH (2007-10-16) A recent U-S House of Representatives
resolution, recognizing the deaths of 1-point-5 million Armenians
nearly a century ago as genocide, is drawing criticism from the Bush
Administration. Commentator Rodney Coates says he simply doesn't
understand that line of thinking.
President Bush on Wednesday utilized what little political and moral
clout that remains to encourage Congress not to pass legislation
that would declare the Turkey's killing of millions of Armenians as
genocide. His reason -It would cause great harm' to relations with
Turkey, a key ally in the Iraq War. The problem is that most of the
world powers to date including England, France, and Germany have
concluded that the Armenian Genocide did occur. According to a 2006
PBS documentary Turkey between 1915 and 1920 orchestrated a pogrom
consisting of expulsion, rape, and murder led to the ultimate deaths
of an estimated 1.5 million ethnic Armenians.
Genocide, the willful attempt to exterminate a racial, ethnic,
national, or religious group goes against human, international,
and U.S. law. It would not be only a betrayal to those millions of
ethnic Armenians that died, but immoral to continue to dismiss their
suffering. For several years Armenian Americans have lobbied to have
this crime recognized and Turkey condemned. Last year the House of
Representatives' International Relations Committee endorsed two
separate resolutions declaring the atrocities genocide. In both
instances, a House dominated by Republicans cut off debate and
prevented the bill from coming before the full house.
The reason Mr. Bush seems to want Congress not to pass this bill is
that he is afraid that the U.S. will lose a valuable ally' in the
war on terrorisms. I would have hoped that the President's reason
were more honorable, and that he had concluded that Turkey was not
instrumental in the genocide. But no, he is concerned that his war'
does not get derailed by such a little thing as a genocide' which
may' have happened almost 80 years ago. I guess morality, honor,
and truth are less important, then the reality of today's terrorist.
I really don't get it! In our bid to make the world safe for democracy'
and to cleanse it of the axis of evil' , how can we ignore such
an atrocity as the first act of terrorism and genocide of the
last century? Mr. Bush, you are wrong, we cannot expect for any to
have faith in our stance as a Nation which abhors evil, and fights
for freedom, justice, and equality while hiding behind convenient
historical amnesia, misinformation, or just plain lies. While I know
that war makes strange bedfellows, war must yet be fought on honorable
terms. If, in order to win we must make a deal with the devil, then
we need to find another player or play another game.
Now is the time to take a stand. We as a Nation must stand on the side
of justice, and in that stand we must declare that Turkey practiced
Genocide and should therefore be condemned.
Leave a comment:
-
GENOCIDE? WHAT GENOCIDE?
By Mark Krikorian
National Review Online , NY
Oct 16 2007
Critics are right that Congress has no business weighing in on
historical controversies. But there is no controversy here.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee has passed a non-binding resolution
recognizing the Armenian Genocide, and Turkey is in a tizzy. A few
thoughts.
First of all, it is simply inarguable that the Ottoman Empire tried
to eradicate the Armenian people under the cover of World War I.
Despite the Turkish government's efforts to purchase a different
historical narrative (by, for instance, using government funds to
endow chairs in Turkish Studies at American universities), genocide
denial is finding an increasingly small audience. As the International
Association of Genocide Scholars has put it, "to deny its factual
and moral reality as genocide is not to engage in scholarship but
in propaganda."
But that, of course, doesn't give House members much direction in
considering whether to vote for the actual resolution that will soon
reach the House floor. It wouldn't matter much one way or the other if
Congress were voting on whether to condemn the Mongols' extermination
of 90 percent of Persia's population in the 13th century, for instance,
because that doesn't have much political saliency. But, for whatever
reason, the modern Turkish Republic has adopted a monomaniacal
position of genocide denial, similar to the ChiComs' insistence on
the fiction of "One China," or the Greeks' obsession with FYROM,
or the Arabs' demand that we pretend Jerusalem is not the capital of
Israel. This is despite the fact that the genocide was the policy of a
long-defunct state and its architects were actually condemned to death
in absentia by Turkish military courts specifically for committing
the genocide. The smart thing would be to simply acknowledge the
crimes of the ancien regime, and move on.
Nonetheless, Turkey will brook no argument. Simply asserting the
existence of the Armenian Genocide there is a criminal offense,
and just yesterday two Turkish-Armenian journalists were convicted
on such charges, including the son of another journalist murdered
earlier this year for asserting the reality of the genocide.
As a result of the House committee vote, Turkey has temporarily
recalled its ambassador and Washington fears that if the genocide
measure passes the full House, Turkey will limit our use of an air
base in southern Turkey used to supply troops in Iraq. They may well
make good on their threat, though the Turkish government's pique is
likely to be short-lived, since they need us more than we need them.
And we've coped just fine with earlier efforts at Turkish obstruction
of our efforts in Iraq; in 2003, Turkey refused to allow U.S. troops to
pass through on their way to overthrow Saddam. What's more, Turkey is
moving toward sending its own troops to invade Kurdistan, the only part
of Iraq that isn't at war, in order to flush out separatist guerrillas.
The context for Turkey's reaction to the House resolution is the fact
that Turks are the most anti-American people on Earth. A 47-nation
Pew survey earlier this year showed that ordinary Turks had the
least favorable view of the United States, more negative than even
the Palestinians or Pakistanis. Mein Kampf is a bestseller there,
and the luridly anti-American and anti-Semitic film Valley of the
Wolves - Iraq drew record audiences and thumbs-ups from Turkey's
political leadership. The Turkish people's deep-seated hatred of
America obviously wouldn't get any better because of passage of the
genocide resolution, but it couldn't get any worse.
Back home, it's particularly amusing to see opposition to the genocide
resolution from those who want to use American foreign policy to
promote human rights abroad. If you're going to stick your nose
in other people's business, and tell Burma's junta how to behave,
and pass judgment on every nation's commitment to religious freedom,
etc., this is what you're going to be stuck with. In other words, once
you start moving along the spectrum toward foreign-policy Idealism,
don't be surprised when this sort of thing happens.
If there's any real problem with the genocide resolution it's
precisely that it feeds into an excessively idealist view of foreign
policy. While its many findings are largely restatements of facts
in the public record, its "Declaration of Policy" states that "The
House of Representatives - (1) calls upon the President to ensure
that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate
understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human
rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States
record relating to the Armenian Genocide and the consequences of the
failure to realize a just resolution." Our foreign policy is already
reflects inordinate "sensitivity concerning issues related to human
rights" - we hardly need more of it.
None of this would have happened if subsequent presidents had simply
followed Ronald Reagan's lead in commemorating the Armenian Genocide
along with the Holocaust, without lots of specific "findings,"
without declarations of policy, without even mentioning Turkey or
the Ottomans. Our policy toward modern Turkey should have nothing
whatsoever to do with acknowledgement of the Armenian Genocide. But
caving to Turkish pressure never to use "Armenian" and "genocide" in
the same sentence is what has given the current resolution its impetus.
Critics are right that Congress has no business weighing in on
historical controversies. But there is no controversy here. This
isn't even a matter of the polite fictions necessary to international
diplomacy. Denying the Armenian Genocide is simply a lie, and a lie
propagated at the behest of a foreign power. It's unworthy of us.
- Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration
Studies.
Leave a comment:
-
TURKEY MUST TURN RESOLUTION INTO OPPORTUNITY
Ali Ettexxxh
Washington Post
Oct 15 2007
Tehran, Iran
Few subjects set off explosions of national rage in Turkey like the
fate of one and a half million Armenians in the darkest days of the
First World War. First, some background: Armenians insist they were
victims of the first mass genocide of the 20th century, driven from
their homes in eastern Anatolia; only a few hundred thousand made it
to Syria and Mesopotamia, today's Iraq. Turks, while acknowledging
that many Armenians died in 1915-17, have always denied the genocide,
despite widely reported evidence of massacres.
The issue burst into an international row - and possibly worse - as
the U.S. Congress is demanding that Turkey officially recognize the
genocide as fact. Turkey's newly elected Islamist president and his
party member prime minister are threatening "serious consequences,"
including cancelling arms deals and closing the Incirlik air base,
which is a vital transport hub to US military manuevers in Iraq.
Turkey's large international debt also looms in the background and
it could complicate matters for both sides. And this hard talk is on
top of Turkey's imminent invasion of Kurdish Iraq to sort out PKK
terrorists or "rescue" Kirkuk and its Turkomen minority and check
on recent oil deals in Kurdish Iraq-and to pacify the army's enigma
about an Islamist president in Cankaya Palace.
Very reluctantly and in small steps, Ankara has moved toward admitting
that Armenians, once one of the two favored Christian minorities
under the Ottoman Empire, perished of starvation and thirst as the
Russians advanced. Nevertheless, and always off the record, Turkish
nationalists say that the Ottomans had proof that Armenian nationalists
were pro-Russian militia and guerrilla groups and thus they "deserved"
it. As always, a bargain can be struck in the Turkish political
bazaar-namely, EU membership in exchange for a political whitewash.
This remains a baffling situation because the acts in question were
carried out by a different government than the "new, modern" Turkish
Republic. However, the vast Ottoman archives remain under strict seal
since 1923 and requests for access to such records, even by Turkish
researchers and historians, are summarily rejected. One reason is that
those records are in the old Arabic script of the Turkish language,
before Kemal Ataturk changed the national alphabet. So there hardly
any Turkish nationals who can read these materials, nor any government
specialists that can edit them. As such, hearsay, nationalist spin
and oversized newspaper headlines conveniently generate denials and
dismissal of facts. Eyewitnesses and historians, including Gertrude
Bell (the English Arabist who helped set up modern Iraq) reported in
their diaries of Armenian prisoners and refugees being butchered.
We ought to recall that Turkey, with its army of half a million
soldiers, was merely an American ally of convenience during the Cold
War. In this new era of confused world order, American policy is
influenced by many powerful lobbies, and the Armenian lobby is one
of the most successful exile groups in the world. It has a powerful
presence in California, Europe, Lebanon, Jerusalem and now its own
pro-Moscow state of Armenia in the Caucasus. The Armenian lobby also
managed a similar resolution by the French parliament, and that has
proved to be a convenient tool for the assertive anti-Turkish views
of President Sarkozy.
As I wrote about Turkey's trouble with its minorities, murder and
denial are not the most realistic way forward. A democratic society
must solve problems with courage and realistic engagement.
Turkey must engage this American resolution, and the rest of the
world, as a welcomed opportunity for a wholesale review of all
regional events during the 20th century. That includes all issues that
have roots during the ill-crafted breakup of the Ottoman Empire and
subsequent fabrication of new, and now failed or deadlocked, states
(Iraq, Syria and Israel come to mind).
This might be an opportunity for the religious democrats of the Turkish
Republic to adopt a transparent policy and distance themselves from
the Ottoman religious radicals. The contrast of the Federal Republic
of Germany against the Third Reich might serve as a useful example. As
such, Turkey ought to submit to cold facts and, when necessary, prove
to the world that it is a sober republic and a stable Muslim democratic
society-- one that is able to face reality as an adult. Otherwise,
Turkey will continue as the longest emerging market and the perpetual
EU aspirant, in the waiting lounge of two large Christian clubs of
NATO and EU for an invitation.
Dr. Ali Ettexxxh serves as a director of Highmore Global Corporation,
an investment company in emerging markets of Eastern Europe, CIS,
and the Middle EastLeave a comment:
-
PEOPLE DIED AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION LIED
by The Stiletto
Blogger News Network
Oct 15 2007
More than 60 years ago, Polish-Jewish scholar Ralph Lemkin coined
the term "genocide" precisely to describe the scale and brutality of
the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Christian Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks.
The assertions Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Defense Secretary
Robert Gates made arguing against Congress passing HR 106/SR 106,
which calls on our government to recognize the historical truth of the
Armenian Genocide, are outright lies: That loss of access to Turkish
land and air supply routes will imperil coalition forces in Iraq,
and that that Turkey is an indispensable ally.
Unfortunately, these lies were enough to sway one co-sponsor of the
bill, Jane Harman (D-CA), to withdraw her support.
The truth: Turkey is irresolute as an Iraq War ally and irrelevant
as a NATO ally.
If Turkey makes good on its threats to deny the U.S. access to Incirlik
Air Base - through which 70 percent of military cargo sent to Iraq
is flown - and closes the Turkish-Iraq border to trucks that deliver
30 percent of the fuel used by the U.S. military, there is a Plan
B. "Turkey has been a tremendous hub for us, and if we didn't have
it that would increase time lines and distances. But it would be a
short-term impact," a senior military officer involved in logistical
planning and operations tells The New York Times. Armored vehicles
and other equipment flown to Iraq over Turkish airspace can also be
rerouted, if necessary.
The day the Berlin Wall fell was the day Turkey ceased to matter as
a NATO member. Here, highlights of a "Note to the Turkish government"
Hugh Fitzgerald posted on Dhimmi Watch that are germane to the focus
of this post:
The Cold War, or at least the First Cold War, is over. It is no
longer 1950, or 1960. There is no longer a need for Turkey's help in
confronting Russia, which, while it has reverted to unpleasantness
and despotism, is not the menace it once was. And Turkey is not quite
so important a place for listening-posts and other bases. ...
Turkey has not fulfilled, as it seems to think, its duties to its
American "ally." It did not permit the use of Incirlik airbase. Three
rather than four divisions, therefore, had to take over Iraq. There
was no invasion force from the north that might have made a difference
in Anbar. ...
Turkey is a member of NATO. The Turks apparently think they will remain
in NATO no matter how outrageously they behave. But why should NATO
continue to tolerate an Islamic country? What conceivable good can come
of having privy to NATO circles a government like that now in power in
Istanbul, given that the great threat to the other countries of NATO,
and to the Western alliance, comes now from the forces of Jihad? ...
It may be that Bush thinks that the large-scale murders of Christian
Armenians by Muslim Turks began in 1915, when it began twenty years
before, with no "wartime conditions" to blame ... [Emphasis, The
Stiletto's.]
[T]he E.U. does not need Turkey, does not want Turkey. ... NATO, and
the Americans, do not need Turkey, a recalcitrant Turkey, a difficult
Turkey, a Turkey that makes demands for the rewriting or the ignoring
of history. ... [T]he Turkish army will not be ordered to collaborate
with Infidels against other Muslims - and it will not be, not by the
current government - then what good is Turkey to NATO?
Fitzgerald's piece also details what a back-stabbing "friend" Turkey
has been to the U.S. and punctures Turkey's denialist claims, parroted
by our government - as well as by John Fund and Turkey's other shills
at The Wall Street Journal.
Here's what's really going on: Turkey is using HR 106 as a pretext
to carry out its long-planned excursion into Northern Iraq to kill as
many Kurds as possible - along with any ambitions they might have of
joining their brethren on the Turkish side of the border to form an
independent country. The real prize is the potentially huge untapped
oil reserves now under the control of the Kurdish Regional Government.
The "insult" of passing the Armenian Genocide Resolution gives Turkey
the cover it needs to further it's geopolitical interests and to
undermine the U.S. mission in Iraq once again - just as a "neutral"
Turkey undermined the Allies in WWII by secretly supplying Hitler
with chromite. (Another historical truth that Shimon Peres and Abe
Foxman must deny along with the Armenian Genocide so that Israel can
maintain its "friendship" with Turkey.)
Conservatives who argue that the Armenian Genocide happened, but it's
"inconvenient" to say so right now, should know better than anyone
that doing the right thing is never "convenient." It's convenient to
steal a car, not to save up money to buy one; to rape a woman a man
is sexually attracted to, not to woo and marry her; and to abort a
baby, not to feed, clothe and raise him. But in each of these cases
- as with passing the Armenian Genocide Resolution - the convenient
thing is not the right thing.
On "Fox News Sunday," Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told Brit Hume that he
supported the U.S. government's official recognition of the Armenian
Genocide for 25 years - and that there never seemed to be "a right
time" as far as the Turks were concerned:
Hume: ... Just on the strength of the committee action, the Turks
recalled their ambassador, which is a - you know, it's more than
a mild form of protest about this. If it's that sensitive at this
moment, why do it now?
Hoyer: OK, Brit. That's a good question. I've been in the Congress 26
years. I've been for this resolution for 25 years. I've talked to the
Turkish ambassadors, Turkish government, Turkish parliamentarians,
over a quarter of a century. Never once in that quarter of a century
has anybody in the Turkish government said to me, "OK, this is the
right time." In other words, there would be no right time. ...
Hume: I mean, do you think it's an urgent issue, something that
happened between Turks and Armenians in World War I?
Hoyer: Brit, do I think it's an urgent issue? I think the issue of
genocide is a very urgent and present issue. It's happening in Darfur
now. It happened in Bosnia not too long ago. And the world sat by
and watched. Yes, I think it's an urgent issue.
Hume: Well, but nobody's arguing that it wasn't a mass killing or
even a massacre.
Hoyer: No, it was a genocide. And I understand some people are arguing
that well, let historians look at it. Historians have looked at
it. Nobel writers have looked at it. And there is a conclusion that,
in fact, this was a conscious effort to eliminate a race of people.
Hume: ... [D]o you think it's worth making this expression of this at
this time, all these years later, at the expense of souring relations
with a country who has helped us, is vital in the Mideast and in Iraq
in particular?
Hoyer: Well, I think Turkey's help to us is vital. More vital is the
United States' help to Turkey, Brit. Over the last half a century,
the relationship between the United States and Turkey has far more
advantage to Turkey than it has the United States. Are we both
advantageous to one another? We are. [Emphasis, The Stiletto's.]
It's an added irony that some of the very same conservatives who
decry the harassment of Christians in this country by the ACLU, the
killings of Christians in Muslim countries and in communist China
and the twin threats of Sharia-creep and Islamofascism are siding
with Turkey against Armenians, who were victims of the first Muslim
jihad against Christians in modern times.
As with the furor over the Danish cartoons and the flying Imams,
Turkey's hysterical reaction to a historical fact is yet another case
of manufactured Muslim outrage.
Unlike some Christians who advocate worshipping Allah (hey, what's the
diff?), HR 106/SR 106 gives Christians a way to express our outrage
over the centuries of dhimmitude that continue to this day in Turkey
and throughout the Middle East; to express our outrage over the
Ottoman Turks not only annihilating the Armenians but replicating
their murderous MO to drive out and slaughter Christians in the
Assyrian and Greek communities; and to express our outrage that the
price two-timing Turkey is extracting for its toxic friendship is that
Americans dirty our hands with the blood of Christian martyrs, instead
of cleansing our souls by belatedly joining the 22 other civilized
nations worldwide that have acknowledged the Armenian Genocide.
Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The
Stiletto Blog.Leave a comment:
-
WHY THE RELUCTANCE OVER ARMENIAN ISSUE
Alberto Michel Chahoud UAE
7DAYS, United Arab Emirates
Oct 16 2007
When French philosopher Roger Garaudy published "The Founding Myths of
Modern Israel" in 1996, he faced serious charges by French courts,
as his book contested the existence of gas chambers in Hitler's
Germany, as well as the number of Jewish population eliminated in
concentration camps.
Back then, the "democratic world" backed the charges against Garaudy,
as they found the author's "allegations" offensive to human rights
and mainly to Jews' sentiments, as some governments claimed.
It is so weird how those same governments, so eager to defend human
rights, still cannot feel the urgency to defend the rights of the
Armenian population slaughtered during the First World War by Ottoman
Turks, where more than 1.5 million Armenians were systematically
eliminated and a million others deported. Today, 92 years after the
Armenian genocide Ankara is still denying the crime, despite thousands
of pictures, films, testimonials and other irrefutable proofs that
have been publicly available to the entire world.
Today, Turkey is angry! It is infuriated at the potential resolution
by the American Congress, labeling the Armenian killing by Turkey
as genocide. Of course Turkey is angry; not only will this new
development shed more light on the Ottomans' shameful butchery against
Armenians, but it might also hamper Ankara's efforts to secure an EU
membership. Whatever the case, hats off to the American Congress,
despite the lengthy delay in taking such an action. While this new
resolution might sound firm, it should be considered as an invitation
to the world to stop living in denial and start admitting the mistakes
and atrocities committed throughout the history of humanity.
Leave a comment:
-
By CARL HULSE
Published: October 17, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution supported by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago.
Almost a dozen lawmakers had shifted against the measure over the last 24 hours, accelerating a sudden exodus that has cast deep doubt over the measure's prospects. Some representatives made clear that they were heeding warnings from the White House, which has called the measure dangerously provocative, and from the Turkish government, which has said House passage would prompt Turkey to reconsider its ties to the United States, including logistical support for the Iraq war.Leave a comment:
Leave a comment: