"I just don't know how many people can be destroyed before that word [genocide] can be applied," said Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, New York Democrat. "Our friends in Turkey have to understand that they can get beyond this."
I could ask the same "how many people can be destroyed before..." of Ackerman, when it comes to defining what constitutes a WMD. Evidently Saddam's discovered and maintained stashes of mustard and sarin gas, combined with proscribed (illegal) missile possession doesn't constitute a WMD in his and the Dem's eyes. But that's another story.
And what about that business that Turkey must "get beyond this"? Exactly how relevant is this?
The said genocide occurred in WWI, from 1915 to 1923. Let's see... that's 92 years ago. Let's assume that those committing the genocide had to be at least 15 years old. That makes the culprits minimally 107 years old... if they're still alive. And the victims? There is at least one.
The committee hearing drew a standing-room only crowd that included Turkish officials and four elderly Armenian women who sat in wheelchairs at the front of the room, wearing stickers that read, "I am a survivor of the Armenian genocide."
One of the women Sirarpi Khoyan, 102, who was born in Istanbul, said "there's no two ways about" whether the Turkish killings of Armenians from 1915 to 1923 amounted to genocide.
While my heart goes out to such a survivor, I really must ask... is this resolution merely to appease the one or few victims still alive? As if such an action could erase such atrocities... And what good comes of condemnation of a country, a government and it's officials that had nothing to do with the genocide?
The answer is, nothing. Needless to say, the Turkish President, Abdullah Gul, nailed the US House and it's intentions to the wall with his response.
"Unfortunately some politicians in the United States of America have closed their ears to calls to be reasonable and once again sought to sacrifice big problems for small domestic political games," the state news agency Anatolian quoted him today as saying.
Yep. That would be our political elite. Always concerned with their public image as they effectually "live" in campaign mode all their business life. Yet they demonstrate amazing confusion over doing the country's most important business.
The reasons NOT to pile on the current Turkish government far outweigh the feel good vibes from passing the resolution. And, and the fact that Bush and the military are less than pleased with this may just offer another reason of "why" the House committee did this.
"About 70 percent of all air cargo going into Iraq goes through Turkey. About a third of the fuel that [U.S. troops] consume comes from Turkey," Mr. Gates said.
Mr. Gates said U.S. military commanders raised concerns about the resolution because "they believe clearly that access to air fields and to roads and so on in Turkey would be very much put at risk if this resolution passes and the Turks react as strongly as we believe they will."
Miss Rice said the military commanders "asked us to do everything we could to make sure this does not pass" and said "we are very dependent on a good Turkish strategic ally to help with our efforts" in Iraq."
Ah HAAA... if they won't cut off the funds for the troops, they'll shut down the roads in. All the while standing behind the condemnation of genocide as their moral excuse.
You must be kiddin' me!
And, as the infomercial sez... but WAIT! There's MORE! Kurdish northern Irag is one of the most peaceful regions in the area. But there are the Kurdish rebels running amok, and the Turkish military, the 2nd largest in NATO, has been entertaining the idea of entering northern Iraq to fight the rebels. They've been working on a plan, which they are passing to Parliament today, and the Iraqi gov't is none too happy about the prospect.
Anti-U.S. sentiment has steadily risen in Turkey, partly because of what Turks regard as an unfair portrayal of Turks during World War One, but also because of what they say is a failure by the U.S. and Iraq to crack down on some 3,000 Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.
Last month Turkey signed an anti-terror agreement with Iraq in an attempt to halt these Kurdish guerrilla attacks. Turkish military officials said Kurdish rebels killed 13 soldiers in fighting on Sunday in Sirnak province, which borders Iraq.
Such attacks have put domestic pressure on Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan which has increased following the Armenian resolution. The army has been pressing for months to be allowed to mount a major cross-border operation against the rebels.
"Unfortunately there is a linkage between the bill and a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq because the Turkish public will be much angered towards the United States and the government will feel so as well," Faruk Logoglu, an influential former Turkish ambassador to Washington, told Reuters.
So it is, once again we find the Demwits in Congress busying themselves with alternative methods to thwart the war efforts.
Oddly enough, even if the Resolution passed both houses of Congress with nary a "nae" vote, it is still meaningless. After all, both houses passed a resolution labeling atrocities in Darfur as "genocide", and look how much has been done about that by the UN and the int'l community?
But what they have done is pissed off an ally... and why do that other than to further pressure for failure in Iraq?
1 comment:
If AIPAC and the ADL were against it, you can believe it's a good move. Or are theirs the only ethnic group entitled to exclusivist claims in this regard (while lobbying successfully the US military war to protect their favorite country's right to dispossess yet another ethnic group?
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