Acknowledge The Genocide
October 12, 2007
Imagine a president opposing a congressional resolution condemning the Holocaust. Imagine today's Germany denying there was a Holocaust and warning of retaliation if Congress approved a nonbinding statement denouncing Nazi atrocities against Jews in World War II.
Such denial at the highest level of government would be unbelievable and grotesque. Yet it's happening today with the first genocide of the 20th century.
The Bush administration has denounced a resolution approved Wednesday by the House Foreign Affairs Committee that calls the massacre of Armenians in Turkey during World War I "genocide."
Turkey's government vehemently protests the claim that the Ottoman Empire adopted a policy of eradicating Christian Armenians beginning in 1915, before modern Turkey was born in 1923.
Armenians constituted one of the largest minorities in the empire at the time. Even bringing up the subject is considered a crime in Turkey punishable by a long prison sentence.
President Bush acknowledges the "immense suffering" of Armenians and supports "a full and fair accounting of the atrocities that befell as many as 1.5 million Armenians," but he opposes the House resolution.
The president of the United States fears that passage of such a statement in Congress would damage relations with Turkey, whose government has threatened unspecified retaliation. So much for the self-described "Decider" sticking to high principle.
Acknowledging genocide shouldn't be controversial, given the extensive State Department archives and voluminous news accounts during that dark period. President Theodore Roosevelt called the Armenian slaughter "the greatest crime of the war." President Ronald Reagan described the killings as "genocide."
Twenty countries and organizations, including the European Parliament and the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, recognize the Armenian genocide.
Modern Turkey's refusal to acknowledge the obvious reflects an insecurity that doesn't suit a nation that calls itself great. Why the Bush administration is being held hostage by the government in Ankara is worse than puzzling. It's immoral.
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