Your tax dollars at work.

[Rick Lee]

Only in America.


The House's Ottoman Agenda

By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 5, 2007; A15


Can a nonbinding congressional resolution really matter? Most are ignored by everyone except the special interests they are usually directed at. Even the House's recent resolution on Iraq was dismissed by both President Bush and Democratic antiwar leader John Murtha. Yet a vote expected next month on a nonbinding House resolution describing a "genocide" in the Ottoman Empire beginning in 1915 has the potential to explode U.S. relations with Turkey, sway the outcome of upcoming Turkish elections and spill over into several other strategic American interests, including Iraq and Iran.

So, yes: The Armenian Genocide Resolution sponsored by Rep. Adam Schiff does matter, logically or not. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul spent several days in Washington last month lobbying against it, though the Turkish-American agenda is chockablock with seemingly more important issues. Friends of Turkey in Washington, from American Jewish organizations to foreign policy satraps, are working the Hill; so is the Bush team. On the other side is the well-organized and affluent Armenian American community, 1.4 million strong, and some powerful friends -- including the new House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.

Here is a debate that could occur only in Washington -- a bizarre mix of frivolity and moral seriousness, of constituent pandering, far-flung history and front-line foreign policy. And that's just on the American side; in Turkey there is the painful struggle of a deeply nationalist society to come to terms with its past, and in the process become more of the Western democracy it wants to be.

Start with the pandering: Schiff, a Democrat from Los Angeles, cheerfully concedes that there are 70,000 to 80,000 ethnic Armenians in his district, for whom the slaughter of Armenians by the Young Turk regime during World War I is "anything but ancient history." Local politics also explains why a resolution that has failed numerous times in the past 20 years is suddenly looking like a juggernaut: Pelosi, of San Francisco, also has many Armenian supporters.

"There's a sense of momentum now about the resolution that we haven't had before," Schiff told me. "The votes are there in the committee. The votes are there on the floor." If Pelosi allows the resolution to be brought up, as she has reportedly pledged to do, it will probably pass. Its language is almost comically heavy-handed: It begins by declaring that the House "finds" a series of 30 paragraphs of facts about the genocide, ranging from the number killed (1.5 million) to the assertion that "the failure . . . to punish those responsible" helps explain subsequent atrocities, including the Holocaust.

Imagine the 435 members of the House, many of whom still don't know the difference between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis, solemnly weighing whether Schiff's version of events 92 years ago in northeastern Turkey deserves congressional endorsement. But the consequences of passage could be deadly serious: To begin with, Turkey's powerful military has been hinting that U.S. access to the Incirlik air base, which plays a key role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, could be restricted. Gul warned that a nationalist tidal wave could sweep Turkey and force the government to downgrade its cooperation with the United States, which needs Turkey's help this year to stabilize Iraq and contain Iran. Candidates in upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections could compete in their anti-American reactions.

No wonder the Bush administration as well as even Democratic-leaning foreign policy experts, such as Clinton-era ambassador Mark Parris, are trying to stop the resolution. Yet theirs, too, is a contorted campaign. After all, historians outside of Turkey are pretty much unanimous in agreeing that atrocities against Armenians worthy of the term genocide did occur. Though Congress may look silly with its "findings," the continuing inability of the Turkish political class to come to terms with history, and temper its nationalism, may be the country's single most serious political problem. Prominent Turkish intellectuals, including a Nobel Prize winner, have been prosecuted in recent years under laws criminalizing "insults" to Turkey -- such as accurate accounts of the genocide. In January a prominent ethnic Armenian journalist was murdered by an ultranationalist teenager.

Maybe Congress has no business debating Turkish history, maybe it is doing so for the wrong reasons. Yet if Turkey is to become the stable, Western-oriented democracy that it aspires to be, its politicians will have to learn, at least, to react the way everyone else does to nonbinding House resolutions: that is, with a shrug.

[kach22i]

Originally posted by Rick Lee

Imagine the 435 members of the House, many of whom still don't know the difference between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis, solemnly weighing whether Schiff's version of events 92 years ago in northeastern Turkey deserves congressional endorsement. But the consequences of passage could be deadly serious:

I think a strong message needs to be sent to the Turkish military and the parliament they control.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/85808B77-58B8-4C00-866C-7F38FEB253A7.htm
UPDATED ON:
FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2007
13:55 MECCA TIME, 10:55 GMT

Turkey's parliament went into secret session this week to debate sending troops to invade and occupy northern Iraq for security purposes.

Now is the time for the Armenian Genocide Resolution to be passed, not after history repeats.

[Rick Lee]

Kach, you don't really think a non-binding resolution passed by the US House is gonna stop genocide from recurring, do you?

That sounds like the 2000 election when Dems said Dick Cheney, while in the House, voted to keep Nelson Mandela in prison. As if anyone in the US House had that power.

[fastpat]

There is no statute of limitations on genocide under international law, it's about time the US government brought the Turks to account for their murderous behavior.

And, since Bush and the Bush'ists are guilty of similar crimes in Iraq, I can see where this will hopefully lead.

I wonder if there's enough lampposts in the D.C.?

[Moses]

I've often wondered how the Turks have escaped international condemnation for the Armenian slaughter. Even Hitler was known to remark; "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

I think the Turks fear that if they validate the Armenian genocide the next step will be to return the parts of Armenia they seized.

[Rick Lee]

Originally posted by fastpat
There is no statute of limitations on genocide under international law, it's about time the US government brought the Turks to account for their murderous behavior.

And, since Bush and the Bush'ists are guilty of similar crimes in Iraq, I can see where this will hopefully lead.

I wonder if there's enough lampposts in the D.C.?

Fine Pat. But no one who participate in that genocide is alive today and no non-binding resolution by the US House is gonna do anything to anyone except take time away from getting things done that really could benefit someone.

[Moses]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
... and no non-binding resolution by the US House is gonna do anything to anyone ...

The USSR provided for the protection of Armenians from their aggressive neighbors. Armenia sits between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Flanked by secular but Islamic Azerbajan and Turkey who attempted Armenian genocide.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Armenians have felt they were in danger of another religious persecution. They are the worlds first Christian nation. Most Armenians feel that if the first attempt at Armenian genocide is officially condemned, it will make a second less likely. Hard to fault their thinking.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Moses
I've often wondered how the Turks have escaped international condemnation for the Armenian slaughter. Even Hitler was known to remark; "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

I think the Turks fear that if they validate the Armenian genocide the next step will be to return the parts of Armenia they seized.

Which they should have to do, then the Greek parts, and then the Kurdish parts. They see the slippery slope. Too bad.

Ah, Constantinople in the springtime, so beautiful.