1 Boring Old Man

House Panel Raises Furor on Armenian Genocide

A House committee voted on Wednesday to condemn the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey in World War I as an act of genocide, rebuffing an intense campaign by the White House and warnings from Turkey’s government that the vote would gravely strain its relations with the United States.

The vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee was nonbinding and so largely symbolic, but its consequences could reach far beyond bilateral relations and spill into the war in Iraq. Turkish officials and lawmakers warned that if the resolution was approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the American war effort, which includes permission to ship essential supplies through Turkey and northern Iraq.

President Bush appeared on the South Lawn of the White House before the vote and implored the House not to take up the issue, only to have a majority of the committee disregard his warning at the end of the day, by a vote of 27 to 21. “We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,” Mr. Bush said in remarks that, reflecting official American policy, carefully avoided the use of the word genocide. “This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror.”

The Armenian Genocide (Armenian: Հայոց Õ‘Õ¥Õ²Õ¡Õ½ÕºÕ¡Õ¶Õ¸Ö‚Õ©Õ«Ö‚Õ¶ ("Hayoc’ c’ejaspanut’iwn"), Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı) — also known as the Armenian Holocaust, Great Calamity (Õ„Õ¥Õ® ÔµÕ²Õ¥Õ¼Õ¶ "Mec Ejer’n" ) or the Armenian Massacre — was the forcible deportation and massacring of hundreds of thousands to over 1.5 million Armenians during the government of the Young Turks from 1915 to 1917 in the Ottoman Empire.

It is widely acknowledged to have been one of the first modern, systematic genocides, as many Western sources point to the sheer scale of the death toll as evidence for a systematic, organized plan to eliminate the Armenians. The event is also said to be the second-most studied case of genocide. To date twenty-one countries have officially recognized it as genocide. The government of the Republic of Turkey rejects the characterization of the events as genocide.

Denial of the Armenian Genocide is the assertion that the events following April 24, 1915 and the Tehcir Law of May 1915 were not part of a state organized genocide, that an Armenian Genocide did not occur. The Republic of Turkey does not accept the deaths were the consequence of an intention of Ottoman authorities to eliminate Armenian people indiscriminately. Turkey acknowledges that during World War I many Armenians died, but counters that Turks died as well, and that massacres were committed on both sides as a result of inter-ethnic violence and the wider conflict of World War I.

I doubt that Mr. Bush knows where Armenia is unless someone briefed him recently, or knows anything about the Turks and the Ottoman Empire, or knows who Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was or of his place in Turkish history, or has read anything [even Wikipedia] about the Armenian/Turkish struggles, or cares much about any of these things. All he knows is that it is not polically expedient for our country to acknowledge the Armenian mass killing as a genocide because it will infuriate the Turks who are NATO Allies. His deepest understanding is to do the politially expedient thing.

President Bush invaded Iraq [based on a deceit] and deposed the government – resulting in the killing or execution of Iraq’s leaders. He’s authorized the perpetual incarceration of Iraqi prisoners of war and their torture. In this endeavor, a million or so Iraqi Civilians have died. Even as dense as he is, I expect he is vaguely aware that his own unprovoked aggression against Iraq, his suspension of the Geneva Conventions, his secret prisons, and his torture policies are going to be open to this same kind of censure down the road.

He’s no person to be entering the debate about the Armenian Genocide. First, he doesn’t know anything about it. Second, the issue is way too close to home for him to be objective. He cites his "War on Terror." What he doesn’t mention is our own Terrorism.