House Panel Approves Resolution Recognizing WWI-Era Armenian Killings as 'Genocide'

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - House Panel Approves Resolution Recognizing WWI-Era Armenian Killings as 'Genocide' (Page 1 of 2)

Posted: 10/10/2007 4:28:22 PM EDT

This subject is worthy of note under any conditions but the coincidence is truly remarkable as this second (actually the first) genocide of the 20th century was a topic on another thread last evening. (That thread is now retired.)

Further, I had no idea House recognition was needed to recognize or designate the Armenian genocide as a holocaust. I thought the Turkish attempts to destroy an entire population based on ethnicity was recognition enough.

Most likely the House is using this symbolic recognition as an attempt to alienate Turkey (Turks were the primary killers of the Armenians) and, thus harm the Bush efforts to fight the Iraq war. Much of our supply is done through Turkey IIRC.

5sub

House Panel Approves Resolution Recognizing WWI-Era Armenian Killings as 'Genocide'
Wednesday, October 10, 2007

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WASHINGTON — A U.S. congressional panel defied President Bush on Wednesday and approved a measure that he said would damage U.S. goals in the Middle East.

The measure that would recognize the World War I-era killings of Armenians as a genocide had been strongly opposed by Turkey, a key NATO ally that has supported U.S. efforts in Iraq.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee's 27-21 vote now sends the measure to the House floor — unless the Democratic leadership reverses course and heeds Bush's warnings.

At issue is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been inflated and insists that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Bush and other senior officials had made a last-minute push to persuade lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs Committee to reject the measure.

"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," Bush said hours before the vote.

The Foreign Affairs Committee's Chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., warned of the potential fallout if the proposal passed. Lantos, a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust, supported a similar resolution two years ago.

"We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people ... against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying," Lantos said.

The Massachusetts congressional delegation has supported the measure.

"I believe that by passing this resolution, we will contribute to the process of rebuilding relations between Armenians and Turks and help heal the wounds from that dark period of history," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., whose district includes Watertown and other suburbs that are home to a large Armenian-American population, said in a statement.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., a Foreign Affairs panel member, voiced support for the measure at the hearing.

The issue flared in Massachusetts a few months ago. A local Anti-Defamation League leader was fired after saying he agreed the killings were genocide. Days later, the ADL reversed its stance, saying the killings were "tantamount to genocide." The man was rehired.

Critics had questioned how a group dedicated to remembering Holocaust victims could be credible without recognizing the Armenian killings as genocide.

In the fight over the congressional resolution, Turkey raised the possibility of impeding logistical and other U.S. military traffic now using Turkish airspace.

Earlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates conveyed their concerns.

Passing the measure "at this time would be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice told reporters at the White House.

The vote comes at a tense time in the region. Turkey's government is seeking parliamentary approval for a military operation to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The move, opposed by the U.S., could open a new front in the most stable part of Iraq.

"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Yet with the House's first order of business Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear that Turkey's position was a hard sell. She introduced the Supreme Patriarch of all Armenians, Karekin II, to deliver the morning prayer — a daily ritual intended to be apolitical.

"With the solemn burden of history, we remember the victims of the genocide of the Armenians," Karekin said in the House. "Give peace and justice on their descendants."

Gates said 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq.

"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as strongly as we believe they will," Gates said. He also said that 95 percent of new vehicles designed to better protect against mine attacks are being flown through Turkey to get to Iraq.

Lawmakers from both parties who supported the proposal said the moral implications outweighed security concerns and friendship with Turkey.

"The sad truth is that the modern government of Turkey refuses to come to terms with this genocide," said Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J. "For Armenians everywhere, the Turkish government's denial is a slap in the face."

The vote comes at a tense time in the region. Turkey's government is seeking parliamentary approval for a military operation to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The move, opposed by the U.S., could open a new front in the most stable part of Iraq.

"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Yet with the House's first order of business Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear that Turkey's position was a hard sell. She introduced the Supreme Patriarch of all Armenians, Karekin II, to deliver the morning prayer — a daily ritual intended to be apolitical.

"With the solemn burden of history, we remember the victims of the genocide of the Armenians," Karekin said in the House. "Give peace and justice on their descendants."

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said the timing of Karekin's visit was a coincidence. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, a Republican, had requested the leader deliver a morning prayer earlier this year. The House chaplain arranged the visit based on Karekin's schedule and was not aware of the committee's plans, Elshami said.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara warned U.S. citizens in Turkey about "demonstrations and other manifestations of anti-Americanism" if the bill moved ahead. Protests were reported Wednesday outside the embassy and the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul.

Pelosi and the second-ranking Democrat in the House, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, met Wednesday with Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy but emerged from the meeting unswayed. Hoyer told reporters he expects a floor vote on the measure before the House adjourns for the year.

Hoyer said he hoped that Turkey would realize it is not a condemnation of its current government but rather of "another government, at another time."

Posted: 10/10/2007 4:45:58 PM EDT

[#1]

In April 1915 the Ottoman government embarked upon policies designed to bring about the wholesale reduction of its civilian Armenian population. The persecutions continued with varying intensity until 1923 when the Ottoman Empire itself went out of existence and was replaced by the Republic of Turkey. The Armenian population of the Ottoman state was reported at a little over two million in 1914. Nearly a million had already perished by 1918, while hundreds of thousands had become homeless and stateless refugees. By 1923 virtually the entire Armenian population of Anatolian Turkey had disappeared and total losses had reached up to 1.5 million.

A capsule of the slaughter.

5sub

Posted: 10/10/2007 4:49:26 PM EDT

[#2]

During the armistice period nearly 400 of the key CUP officials implicated in the atrocities committed against the Armenians were arrested. A number of domestic military tribunals were convened by the postwar Ottoman government, which brought charges ranging from the unconstitutional seizure of power, the conduct of a war of aggression, and conspiring the decimation of the Armenian population to more explicit capital crimes, including massacre. Some of the accused were found guilty of the charges. Most significantly, the ruling triumvirate was condemned to death. They, however, eluded justice by fleeing abroad. Their escape left the matter of avenging the countless victims to a clandestine group of survivors who tracked down the CUP archconspirators. Talaat, the principal architect of the Armenian genocide, was gunned down in 1921 in Berlin where he had gone into hiding. His assassin was arrested and tried by a German court, which acquitted him.

Talaat, the principal architect of the Armenian genocide, was gunned down in 1921 in Berlin where he had gone into hiding. His assassin was arrested and tried by a German court, which acquitted him

Retribution.

5sub

Posted: 10/10/2007 4:59:01 PM EDT

[#3]

I fear that our politicians have gone from 'Not having our best interests at heart' to 'Actively destroying our war fighting ability thus leading to our destruction' with all the blatant crap they are stirring up.

Posted: 10/10/2007 5:03:30 PM EDT

[#4]

I guess they read it wrong as the American genocide. The evening ABC world news had the story all screwed up. I doubt they are alone.

Dennis Jenkins

Quoted:
I guess I'm missing something. Why is the U.S. Congress spending time on classifying an event that happened over 90 years ago?

ETA: I went back and read the OP. I agree with his point about the Dems only taking this up as a means of harming the war effort. Now it makes sense why they would spend time on the issue.

Posted: 10/10/2007 5:12:28 PM EDT

[#5]

Quoted:
I fear that our politicians have gone from 'Not having our best interests at heart' to 'Actively destroying our war fighting ability thus leading to our destruction' with all the blatant crap they are stirring up.

Truly despicable. (Maybe better: True and despicable.)

5sub

Posted: 10/10/2007 5:14:25 PM EDT

[#6]

To me, it looks like more Democrat bullshit aimed at making our efforts in Iraq fail. I'll be putting on my flame suit just in case but, who gives a shit what happened there 90 years ago?

Posted: 10/10/2007 5:18:20 PM EDT

[#7]

Not sure they should do this at this time. Might be best to have Iran hold a conference on this so they can do some calculations and see if it was really genocide...

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:36:49 AM EDT

[#8]

The fucking Dimocrats may yet succeed in further screwing our military. Certainly they are trying.

Turkey calls envoy home after House vote
Moves come after panel approves Armenia 'genocide' resolution

Updated: 59 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Turkey has asked its ambassador in Washington to return to Turkey for consultations over a U.S. House panel's approval of a bill describing the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians as genocide, a Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday.

The ambassador would stay in Turkey for about a week or 10 days, said spokesman Levent Bilman.

"We are not withdrawing our ambassador. We have asked him to come to Turkey for some consultations," he said.

Story continues below ↓
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The Bush administration earlier indicated it would try to soothe Turkish anger after the House panel's vote.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee defied warnings by President Bush with 27-21 approval Wednesday to send the measure to the full House for a vote. The administration will now try to pressure Democratic leaders not to schedule a vote, though it is expected to pass.

Hours before the vote, Bush and his top two Cabinet members and other senior officials made last-minute appeals to lawmakers to reject the measure.

“Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror,” Bush said.

Turkey criticized
Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul criticized the decision to move the measure toward a vote in the House.

“Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once again sacrificed important matters to petty domestic politics despite all calls to commonsense,” said Gul, according to the state-run news agency Anatolia. “This unacceptable decision by the committee, like its predecessors, has no validity or respectability for the Turkish nation.”

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said passage of the resolution by the House would gravely harm U.S.-Turkish relations and U.S. interests in Europe and the Middle East.

“The United States recognizes the immense suffering of the Armenian people due to mass killings and forced deportations at the end of the Ottoman Empire,” McCormack said in a statement. “We support a full and fair accounting of the atrocities that befell as many as 1.5 million Armenians during World War I” — which he said the measure doesn’t do.

Following Wednesday’s vote, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said he would call the Turkish ambassador to Washington, and that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would talk to Turkish leaders on Thursday.

Quietly preparing Turks
U.S. diplomats have been quietly preparing Turkish officials for weeks for the likelihood that the resolution would pass, and asking for a muted response.

Burns said the Turks “have not been threatening anything specific” in response to the vote, and that he hopes the “disappointment can be limited to statements.”

“The Turkish government leaders know there is a separation of powers in the United States, that today’s action was an action by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that this was not an action supported by President Bush and the executive branch of our government,” he said.

The Bush administration has expressed concern that the vote could lead to Turkey cutting off crucial supply lines to Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said ahead of the vote that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq.

“Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much be put at risk if this resolution passes, and Turkey reacts as strongly as we believe they will,” Gates said.

The vote also came as Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked suspected positions of Kurdish rebels near Iraq on Wednesday, a possible prelude to a cross-border operation that the Bush administration has opposed. The United States, already preoccupied with efforts to stabilize other areas of Iraq, believes that Turkish intervention in the relatively peaceful north could further destabilize the country.

Click for related content
PBS documentary showed how touchy topic is
Vote: Should U.S. recognize deaths as genocide?

The committee’s vote was a triumph for well-organized Armenian-American interest groups who have lobbied Congress for decades to pass a resolution.

Following the debate and vote, which was attended by aging Armenian emigres who lived through the atrocities in what is now Turkey in their youth, the interest groups said they would fight to ensure approval by the full House.

“It is long past time for the U.S. government to acknowledge and affirm this horrible chapter of history — the first genocide of the 20th century and a part of history that we must never forget,” said Bryan Ardouny, executive

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:39:11 AM EDT

[#9]

Wow, talk about political gravedigging...

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:43:09 AM EDT

[#10]

Quoted:
Fuck the Turks... Bunch of unhelpful, male assfucking, losers.

We need the turks for military supply flights. Bush was offering favors right, left and center to try to stop this.

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:44:16 AM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:
Fuck the Turks... Bunch of unhelpful, male assfucking, losers.

Supposedly they fought hard for our side in Korea.

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:45:04 AM EDT

[#12]

Most likely the House is using this symbolic recognition as an attempt to alienate Turkey (Turks were the primary killers of the Armenians) and, thus harm the Bush efforts to fight the Iraq war.

I believe you are correct.
Good analysis.

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:46:49 AM EDT

[#13]

Quoted:

Most likely the House is using this symbolic recognition as an attempt to alienate Turkey (Turks were the primary killers of the Armenians) and, thus harm the Bush efforts to fight the Iraq war.

I believe you are correct.
Good analysis.

Exactly.

5sub

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:46:51 AM EDT

[#14]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Fuck the Turks... Bunch of unhelpful, male assfucking, losers.

Supposedly they fought hard for our side in Korea.

we also had nukes there during the cold war, iirc.

however, they wouldn't let us invade iraq through their border.

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:47:23 AM EDT

[#15]

Quoted:

Most likely the House is using this symbolic recognition as an attempt to alienate Turkey (Turks were the primary killers of the Armenians) and, thus harm the Bush efforts to fight the Iraq war.

I believe you are correct.
Good analysis.

There are also several Dem congressional districts with large blocks of Armenian voters that need pandering.

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:48:39 AM EDT

[#16]

Quoted:
Fuck the Turks... Bunch of unhelpful, male assfucking, losers.

Lemme guess, you're Greek?

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:53:17 AM EDT

[#17]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I fear that our politicians have gone from 'Not having our best interests at heart' to 'Actively destroying our war fighting ability thus leading to our destruction' with all the blatant crap they are stirring up.

Truly despicable. (Maybe better: True and despicable.)

"Aid and Comfort" is another appropriate pair of words to describe it.

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:57:32 AM EDT

[#18]

Looks like Turkey isn't reacting to the news so well. They called their US-based envoy back home. Protests outside the US embassy in Turkey.

Posted: 10/11/2007 10:58:54 AM EDT

[#19]

Quoted:
This subject is worthy of note under any conditions but the coincidence is truly remarkable as this second (actually the first) genocide of the 20th century was a topic on another thread last evening. (That thread is now retired.)

Further, I had no idea House recognition was needed to recognize or designate the Armenian genocide as a holocaust. I thought the Turkish attempts to destroy an entire population based on ethnicity was recognition enough.

Most likely the House is using this symbolic recognition as an attempt to alienate Turkey (Turks were the primary killers of the Armenians) and, thus harm the Bush efforts to fight the Iraq war. Much of our supply is done through Turkey IIRC.

5sub

House Panel Approves Resolution Recognizing WWI-Era Armenian Killings as 'Genocide'
Wednesday, October 10, 2007

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WASHINGTON — A U.S. congressional panel defied President Bush on Wednesday and approved a measure that he said would damage U.S. goals in the Middle East.

The measure that would recognize the World War I-era killings of Armenians as a genocide had been strongly opposed by Turkey, a key NATO ally that has supported U.S. efforts in Iraq.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee's 27-21 vote now sends the measure to the House floor — unless the Democratic leadership reverses course and heeds Bush's warnings.

At issue is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been inflated and insists that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Bush and other senior officials had made a last-minute push to persuade lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs Committee to reject the measure.

"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," Bush said hours before the vote.

The Foreign Affairs Committee's Chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., warned of the potential fallout if the proposal passed. Lantos, a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust, supported a similar resolution two years ago.

"We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people ... against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying," Lantos said.

The Massachusetts congressional delegation has supported the measure.

"I believe that by passing this resolution, we will contribute to the process of rebuilding relations between Armenians and Turks and help heal the wounds from that dark period of history," Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., whose district includes Watertown and other suburbs that are home to a large Armenian-American population, said in a statement.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., a Foreign Affairs panel member, voiced support for the measure at the hearing.

The issue flared in Massachusetts a few months ago. A local Anti-Defamation League leader was fired after saying he agreed the killings were genocide. Days later, the ADL reversed its stance, saying the killings were "tantamount to genocide." The man was rehired.

Critics had questioned how a group dedicated to remembering Holocaust victims could be credible without recognizing the Armenian killings as genocide.

In the fight over the congressional resolution, Turkey raised the possibility of impeding logistical and other U.S. military traffic now using Turkish airspace.

Earlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates conveyed their concerns.

Passing the measure "at this time would be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice told reporters at the White House.

The vote comes at a tense time in the region. Turkey's government is seeking parliamentary approval for a military operation to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The move, opposed by the U.S., could open a new front in the most stable part of Iraq.

"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Yet with the House's first order of business Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear that Turkey's position was a hard sell. She introduced the Supreme Patriarch of all Armenians, Karekin II, to deliver the morning prayer — a daily ritual intended to be apolitical.

"With the solemn burden of history, we remember the victims of the genocide of the Armenians," Karekin said in the House. "Give peace and justice on their descendants."

Gates said 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq.

"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as strongly as we believe they will," Gates said. He also said that 95 percent of new vehicles designed to better protect against mine attacks are being flown through Turkey to get to Iraq.

Lawmakers from both parties who supported the proposal said the moral implications outweighed security concerns and friendship with Turkey.

"The sad truth is that the modern government of Turkey refuses to come to terms with this genocide," said Rep. Chris Smith, R.-N.J. "For Armenians everywhere, the Turkish government's denial is a slap in the face."

The vote comes at a tense time in the region. Turkey's government is seeking parliamentary approval for a military operation to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The move, opposed by the U.S., could open a new front in the most stable part of Iraq.

"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Yet with the House's first order of business Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear that Turkey's position was a hard sell. She introduced the Supreme Patriarch of all Armenians, Karekin II, to deliver the morning prayer — a daily ritual intended to be apolitical.

"With the solemn burden of history, we remember the victims of the genocide of the Armenians," Karekin said in the House. "Give peace and justice on their descendants."

Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami said the timing of Karekin's visit was a coincidence. Rep. Joe Knollenberg, a Republican, had requested the leader deliver a morning prayer earlier this year. The House chaplain arranged the visit based on Karekin's schedule and was not aware of the committee's plans, Elshami said.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara warned U.S. citizens in Turkey about "demonstrations and other manifestations of anti-Americanism" if the bill moved ahead. Protests were reported Wednesday outside the embassy and the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul.

Pelosi and the second-ranking Democrat in the House, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, met Wednesday with Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy but emerged from the meeting unswayed. Hoyer told reporters he expects a floor vote on the measure before the House adjourns for the year.

Hoyer said he hoped that Turkey would realize it is not a condemnation of its current government but rather of "another government, at another time."

Page 2 ownage.

BigDozer66

Posted: 10/11/2007 11:05:26 AM EDT

[#20]

Anyone else think it said "American Genocide"?

Posted: 10/11/2007 11:20:35 AM EDT

[#21]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I guess I'm missing something. Why is the U.S. Congress spending time on classifying an event that happened over 90 years ago?

An evil act then should still be an evil act now and reminder to free peoples.

That's great and all... But what business is it of Congress? They have enough trouble writing laws without trying to write (or interpret) history.

Posted: 10/11/2007 11:51:40 AM EDT

[#22]

Quoted:
Fuck the Turks... Bunch of unhelpful, male assfucking, losers.

And the only functioning country with a lot of Muslims other than Israel. We could have handled this better.

Posted: 10/11/2007 11:56:07 AM EDT

[#23]

Wait a sec...

This shit happened almost 100 years ago... in another country... that no longer exists.
And we're just now getting excited about it?

Congressional Resolutions are freaking

Posted: 10/11/2007 11:56:20 AM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I guess I'm missing something. Why is the U.S. Congress spending time on classifying an event that happened over 90 years ago?

An evil act then should still be an evil act now and reminder to free peoples.

That's great and all... But what business is it of Congress? They have enough trouble writing laws without trying to write (or interpret) history.

From what I can tell, this act of Congress serves no constructive purpose whatsoever. According to the history posted on the first page of this thread, most or all of those responsible for the massacres were hunted down and dealt with. The event should remain as history, not a current topic of discussion.

Posted: 10/11/2007 11:58:19 AM EDT

[#25]

I'm torn on this issue as I believe that we as a principled nation should call a spade a spade, even when it isn't in our best interest to do so.

The problem I have with this is "Why now?" The events took place 90 years ago, and can only damage a relationship that is vital to American interests in an ongoing conflict.

You can't really be principled when you use the death of a million people 90 years ago to further your current political agenda.

yak

Posted: 10/11/2007 12:05:24 PM EDT

[#26]

Quoted:
I'm torn on this issue as I believe that we as a principled nation should call a spade a spade, even when it isn't in our best interest to do so.

The problem I have with this is "Why now?" The events took place 90 years ago, and can only damage a relationship that is vital to American interests in an ongoing conflict.

You can't really be principled when you use the death of a million people 90 years ago to further your current political agenda.

yak

It is happening now for one reason: immigration.

When people like me talk about slowing down legal as well as illegal immigration, some of the reasons are the same. Recent immigrants from substantially different cultures form enclaves and if they are clan-based, closed societies that look out for their own interests above that of the country as a whole. We have gotten a buttload of immigration from places like Armenia into areas with a small Cold War Armenian population and these folks are, via lobbying and donations, driving this. It is coming at a bad time, but that has nothing to do with it.

This is another problem with the Bush/Kennedy immigration deal. The problems of other people's become US problems by dint of lobbying when the US has no interest of any kind whatsoever in those issues.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:09:27 PM EDT

[#27]

Quoted:

Most likely the House is using this symbolic recognition as an attempt to alienate Turkey (Turks were the primary killers of the Armenians) and, thus harm the Bush efforts to fight the Iraq war.

I believe you are correct.
Good analysis.

Yep. The Democrats are using anything they can find to fuck us in the ass, and then blame it all on President Bush.

Komintern got everything it could ever have wished for in today's Democrats.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:14:52 PM EDT

[#28]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Fuck the Turks... Bunch of unhelpful, male assfucking, losers.

Lemme guess, you're Greek?

Lemme guess your a Turk? These guys are basically muslim-lite

The Turks need a good ass beating to remind them of what the did to Britain and Australia.

Galopoli - A tarnish to the Queens Crown

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:21:38 PM EDT

[#29]

Quoted:

Most likely the House is using this symbolic recognition as an attempt to alienate Turkey (Turks were the primary killers of the Armenians) and, thus harm the Bush efforts to fight the Iraq war.

I believe you are correct.
Good analysis.

Yep. The Democrats are using anything they can find to fuck us in the ass, and then blame it all on President Bush.

Komintern got everything it could ever have wished for in today's Democrats.

No.

Please see my post above.

This particular issue has been percolating since the exodus of Amenians from the former Soviet states really picked up. Reps from areas with a lot of Armenians started agitating for this when Bill Clinton was in his first term. There are enough Armenians to lobby the political process to make this happen now. They also tried it a few times in the Bush administration and he didn't give a damn because Iraq wasn't going as badly then, and IIRC that was being pushed by Republicans.

This is an immigration issue, essentially. Armenians here now want to screw the Turks over there. They are attempting to make their ethnic issues an American national priority, just like Mexicans in the US trying to make the support of their relatives in Mexico a national priority.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:24:37 PM EDT

[#30]

Remember when the Democrats said we need to be more sensitive to international opinion and act with the support and approval of our allies?

Hmmm.....

I guess that goes out the window when you have an opportunity to make life more difficult for a president you don't like.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:25:41 PM EDT

[#31]

Quoted:
Remember when the Democrats said we need to be more sensitive to international opinion and act with the support and approval of our allies?

Hmmm.....

I guess that goes out the window when you have an opportunity to make life more difficult for a president you don't like.

No, please see my two posts above. This issue has been building for years. It's an immigration issue, essentially. We are getting lobbied to continue obscure ethnic hatreds. When this came up earlier, the Turks were annoyed that Bush didn't give a damn. He didn't have to because things weren't as bad up from Kuwait. Now that Bush is desperate, he "cares".

This may also screw Bush, but the origins and drivers aren't with Democratic partisan politics, really.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:27:15 PM EDT

[#32]

Quoted:
Looks like Turkey isn't reacting to the news so well. They called their US-based envoy back home. Protests outside the US embassy in Turkey.

Who can blame them?

They are already ill-tempered over the Kurdish question, and now out of the blue the legislature of somebody who is supposed to be an ally decides to pass a resolution calling them a bunch of genocidal maniacs for something that happened almost 100 years ago.

We in the United States are used to that sort of treatment because we're the 800 pound gorilla in the world. Other nations aren't used to that sort of nonsense...ESPECIALLY from the 800 pound gorilla.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:28:55 PM EDT

[#33]

Quoted:
Wait a sec...

This shit happened almost 100 years ago... in another country... that no longer exists.
And we're just now getting excited about it?

Congressional Resolutions are freaking

It's the international equivalent of telling the Turks that their momma sells it on the street.

It's nothing but a political stunt that the dumbasses in Congress think will help them get a bump in the polls....which is more than worth making an already difficult situation in Iraq even MORE difficult, right?

This is what happens when you let f*cking chimps control Congress.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:29:31 PM EDT

[#34]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Remember when the Democrats said we need to be more sensitive to international opinion and act with the support and approval of our allies?

Hmmm.....

I guess that goes out the window when you have an opportunity to make life more difficult for a president you don't like.

No, please see my two posts above. This issue has been building for years. It's an immigration issue, essentially. We are getting lobbied to continue obscure ethnic hatreds. When this came up earlier, the Turks were annoyed that Bush didn't give a damn. He didn't have to because things weren't as bad up from Kuwait. Now that Bush is desperate, he "cares".

This may also screw Bush, but the origins and drivers aren't with Democratic partisan politics, really.

That may be part of it, but I assure you the (D)s in the house see it as a way to fuck our troops in Iraq in the ass.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:33:30 PM EDT

[#35]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Remember when the Democrats said we need to be more sensitive to international opinion and act with the support and approval of our allies?

Hmmm.....

I guess that goes out the window when you have an opportunity to make life more difficult for a president you don't like.

No, please see my two posts above. This issue has been building for years. It's an immigration issue, essentially. We are getting lobbied to continue obscure ethnic hatreds. When this came up earlier, the Turks were annoyed that Bush didn't give a damn. He didn't have to because things weren't as bad up from Kuwait. Now that Bush is desperate, he "cares".

This may also screw Bush, but the origins and drivers aren't with Democratic partisan politics, really.

That may be part of it, but I assure you the (D)s in the house see it as a way to fuck our troops in Iraq in the ass.

Yes, that may be opportunistic, but I assure you that this is the result of an ethnic lobby reaching critical mass, and, like Bush assuring Arabs from Michigan that they were being unfairly profiled on airplanes and pushing PC standards with penalties that made airline people afraid to confront folks that they profiled as hijackers (like Mohammed Atta, profiled by a ticket agent who said that he was afraid of being accused of prejudice if he stopped the guy), this will have negative consequences.

This is another issue of our out-of-control immigration policies, first and foremost.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:35:46 PM EDT

[#36]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Wait a sec...

This shit happened almost 100 years ago... in another country... that no longer exists.
And we're just now getting excited about it?

Congressional Resolutions are freaking

It's the international equivalent of telling the Turks that their momma sells it on the street.

It's nothing but a political stunt that the dumbasses in Congress think will help them get a bump in the polls....which is more than worth making an already difficult situation in Iraq even MORE difficult, right?

This is what happens when you let f*cking chimps control Congress.

Yes, and the resolution's key supporters are doing this for the ethnic Armenian vote in their districts.

This is an immigration issue, folks. It is being driven by unassimilated immigrants from clan-based societies forming enclaves in the US and trying to bend the democratic process to their own ethnic goals. We will see more and more things that make no sense to US interests becoming policy as time goes on with the formation of more and more ethnic lobby groups.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:42:26 PM EDT

[#37]

It was just more of those Muslim types killing Christian infidels...that cant be genocide

. Fuck Turkey they are not a real ally. Remember the 4th ID that was not allowed to enter into Iraq...how about their incursions into the Kurdish part of Iraq against our wishes. Yeah they are real helpful and good buddies to us.

Fuggem!

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:43:38 PM EDT

[#38]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Fuck the Turks... Bunch of unhelpful, male assfucking, losers.

Lemme guess, you're Greek?

Lemme guess your a Turk? These guys are basically muslim-lite

The Turks need a good ass beating to remind them of what the did to Britain and Australia.

Galopoli - A tarnish to the Queens Crown

Not a drop of blood in my body that came from east of the Adriatic, as far as I know.

Should we also give the Germans today "a good ass beating" to remind them of Normandy, say?

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:48:41 PM EDT

[#39]

Quoted:
It was just more of those Muslim types killing Christian infidels...that cant be genocide

. Fuck Turkey they are not a real ally. Remember the 4th ID that was not allowed to enter into Iraq...how about their incursions into the Kurdish part of Iraq against our wishes. Yeah they are real helpful and good buddies to us.

Fuggem!

Actually, at the time it had to do with crypto-Jewish Greeks who were part of the Turkish military trying to get local Turkish Sunni Muslims to drive out Christian Armenians from former Shiite Kurdish lands. Religion didn't have a lot to do with this unless you like using Microsoft Project for your conspiracy theories. It was a land grab.

And the Turks have been damned good allies for a long time. GHW Bush left them twisting in the breeze after the Second Gulf War (the first one we were in) and Clinton abused them, then they put up with Bush's idiots telling them what they "had" to do while Powell's State Department told them that they would never be forgiven if they did. They had no dog in the fight, they were annoyed that the US was ignoring the Kurdish crime syndicates operating from US-protected Iraq, and so they sat it out. That move is widely seen in Turkey today as a mistake, by the way.

This is more complicated, and it could have been handled a lot better.

Losing the Turks may be yet another one of Bush's amazing avoidable mistakes.

Again, this resolution is not in the best interests of the US. Why is it happening? Ultimately, immigration. It's time to close off the tap for a few years, at least.

Posted: 10/11/2007 1:57:53 PM EDT

[#40]

Quoted:

Quoted:
It was just more of those Muslim types killing Christian infidels...that cant be genocide

. Fuck Turkey they are not a real ally. Remember the 4th ID that was not allowed to enter into Iraq...how about their incursions into the Kurdish part of Iraq against our wishes. Yeah they are real helpful and good buddies to us.

Fuggem!

Actually, at the time it had to do with crypto-Jewish Greeks who were part of the Turkish military trying to get local Turkish Sunni Muslims to drive out Christian Armenians from former Shiite Kurdish lands. Religion didn't have a lot to do with this. It was a land grab.

And the Turks have been damned good allies for a long time. GHW Bush left them twisting in the breeze after the Second Gulf War (the first one we were in) and Clinton abused them, then they put up with Bush's idiots telling them what they "had" to do while Powell's State Department told them that they would never be forgiven if they did. They had no dog in the fight, they were annoyed that the US was ignoring the Kurdish crime syndicates operating from US-protected Iraq, and so they sat it out. That move is widely seen in Turkey today as a mistake, by the way.

This is more complicated, and it could have been handled a lot better.

Losing the Turks may be yet another one of Bush's amazing avoidable mistakes.

For those of us not that familiar with the history of this, can you expand on the section in blue? I'm surprised that the Kurds in that area were Shia.

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:00:32 PM EDT

[#41]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I guess I'm missing something. Why is the U.S. Congress spending time on classifying an event that happened over 90 years ago?

An evil act then should still be an evil act now and reminder to free peoples.

-1

It's a backdoor way for the Dems to undermine the War on Terror by alienating Turkey.

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:02:45 PM EDT

[#42]

So, they have all other business concluded? They have time to worry about shit that happened a century ago?

Actually, I take that back. The more time they spend argueing about and passing meaningless resolutions the less time they have to spend money and raise taxes and eliminate freedoms.

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:09:11 PM EDT

[#43]

Quoted:

Quoted:
It was just more of those Muslim types killing Christian infidels...that cant be genocide

. Fuck Turkey they are not a real ally. Remember the 4th ID that was not allowed to enter into Iraq...how about their incursions into the Kurdish part of Iraq against our wishes. Yeah they are real helpful and good buddies to us.

Fuggem!

Actually, at the time it had to do with crypto-Jewish Greeks who were part of the Turkish military trying to get local Turkish Sunni Muslims to drive out Christian Armenians from former Shiite Kurdish lands. Religion didn't have a lot to do with this. It was a land grab.

And the Turks have been damned good allies for a long time. GHW Bush left them twisting in the breeze after the Second Gulf War (the first one we were in) and Clinton abused them, then they put up with Bush's idiots telling them what they "had" to do while Powell's State Department told them that they would never be forgiven if they did. They had no dog in the fight, they were annoyed that the US was ignoring the Kurdish crime syndicates operating from US-protected Iraq, and so they sat it out. That move is widely seen in Turkey today as a mistake, by the way.

This is more complicated, and it could have been handled a lot better.

Losing the Turks may be yet another one of Bush's amazing avoidable mistakes.

For those of us not that familiar with the history of this, can you expand on the section in blue? I'm surprised that the Kurds in that area were Shia.

The Ottoman military was a very mixed bunch of folks, with Slavs, Kurds, Arabs, Greeks, and so on. Attaturk was a half-Jewish (mother's side) Greek, for instance. Anatolia was a huge patchwork of small peoples. The Armenians had moved in as traders for 200+ years, often into Kurdish areas because a lot of the Kurds there were pretty primitive, the core of Kurdish development being in the far south of what is now Iranian Kurdistan. What the Ottomans,seeing the writing on the wall, wanted was an ethnostate of Turks and Turkic people. The Armenians weren't. They got local Turks to kill them off, sometimes Kurds (but not all that often) in exchange for Armenian property and land. They were looking at the European nation states and seeing the future, and it looked like the patchwork of small peoples had to go. My understanding is that a lot of the Kurds in what is now Turkey at one point were somewhat Shiite, but have been pretty solidly Sunni for most of the last century, and that they were Shiite because of the Persian influence. What I was told by a Turk was that at one point the Kurds were probably secretly Shiite and after a certain point that died off. Right now, I think that the breakdown is 35/35/20/10 for Sunni/Shiite/Christian/Yezdi with the whole Kurdish population, and you also have some Jewish Kurds, but most of them have been in Israel since the 1960s. Not all of the Kurdish religious mix makes sense -- the last Jewish Kurds actually live in Iran and don't want to leave, and probably a majority of the Iranian Kurds are Sunni, so in Iraqi Kurdistan you have Christian Kurds trying to get the US to back off of Shiite Iranians to make life easier on Sunni Kurds trying to see relatives in Iran.

ETA:

Something that is really odd when you think about it is that the father of the only successful secular Muslim democracy was actually Jewish and and from an ethnic group that had been in conflict with Turkey for 800+ years at that point.

ETA:

If this is all clear as mud, that's the late history of the Ottoman Empire.

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:10:58 PM EDT

[#44]

Quoted:
I'm torn on this issue as I believe that we as a principled nation should call a spade a spade, even when it isn't in our best interest to do so.

The problem I have with this is "Why now?" The events took place 90 years ago, and can only damage a relationship that is vital to American interests in an ongoing conflict.

You can't really be principled when you use the death of a million people 90 years ago to further your current political agenda.

yak

This is my view as well. Damn Democrats are using the Armenian Genocide to further their political agenda but at the same time it is important to highlight the murder of millions of people. I'm torn as well.

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:18:18 PM EDT

[#45]

Quoted:

Quoted:
It was just more of those Muslim types killing Christian infidels...that cant be genocide

. Fuck Turkey they are not a real ally. Remember the 4th ID that was not allowed to enter into Iraq...how about their incursions into the Kurdish part of Iraq against our wishes. Yeah they are real helpful and good buddies to us.

Fuggem!

Actually, at the time it had to do with crypto-Jewish Greeks who were part of the Turkish military trying to get local Turkish Sunni Muslims to drive out Christian Armenians from former Shiite Kurdish lands. Religion didn't have a lot to do with this unless you like using Microsoft Project for your conspiracy theories. It was a land grab.

And the Turks have been damned good allies for a long time. GHW Bush left them twisting in the breeze after the Second Gulf War (the first one we were in) and Clinton abused them, then they put up with Bush's idiots telling them what they "had" to do while Powell's State Department told them that they would never be forgiven if they did. They had no dog in the fight, they were annoyed that the US was ignoring the Kurdish crime syndicates operating from US-protected Iraq, and so they sat it out. That move is widely seen in Turkey today as a mistake, by the way.

This is more complicated, and it could have been handled a lot better.

Losing the Turks may be yet another one of Bush's amazing avoidable mistakes.

Again, this resolution is not in the best interests of the US. Why is it happening? Ultimately, immigration. It's time to close off the tap for a few years, at least.

Well there Turkish expert that may well be the case. What I am saying is sarcastic as to the religion aspect. I betting today the Muslim Turkish attitude is that they were just Christian squatters on Muslim land and they had it coming so genocide it was not...it was justified Jihad. If Turks were such good allies they would have let us go through with the 4th ID thats all I am saying. Yeah the Demoncats are trying to bring this about as another way to interfere with Bush in Iraq. If the Turks cant see this than they really are not the allies we think they are!

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:21:25 PM EDT

[#46]

Quoted:

Quoted:
It was just more of those Muslim types killing Christian infidels...that cant be genocide

. Fuck Turkey they are not a real ally. Remember the 4th ID that was not allowed to enter into Iraq...how about their incursions into the Kurdish part of Iraq against our wishes. Yeah they are real helpful and good buddies to us.

Fuggem!

Actually, at the time it had to do with crypto-Jewish Greeks who were part of the Turkish military trying to get local Turkish Sunni Muslims to drive out Christian Armenians from former Shiite Kurdish lands. Religion didn't have a lot to do with this unless you like using Microsoft Project for your conspiracy theories. It was a land grab.

And the Turks have been damned good allies for a long time. GHW Bush left them twisting in the breeze after the Second Gulf War (the first one we were in) and Clinton abused them, then they put up with Bush's idiots telling them what they "had" to do while Powell's State Department told them that they would never be forgiven if they did. They had no dog in the fight, they were annoyed that the US was ignoring the Kurdish crime syndicates operating from US-protected Iraq, and so they sat it out. That move is widely seen in Turkey today as a mistake, by the way.

This is more complicated, and it could have been handled a lot better.

Losing the Turks may be yet another one of Bush's amazing avoidable mistakes.

Again, this resolution is not in the best interests of the US. Why is it happening? Ultimately, immigration. It's time to close off the tap for a few years, at least.

Well there Turkish expert that may well be the case. What I am saying is sarcastic as to the religion aspect. I betting today the Muslim Turkish attitude is that they were just Christian squatters on Muslim land and they had it coming so genocide it was not...it was justified Jihad. If Turks were such good allies they would have let us go through with the 4th ID thats all I am saying. Yeah the Demoncats are trying to bring this about as another way to interfere with Bush in Iraq. If the Turks cant see this than they really are not the allies we think they are!

I have never heard this from Turks. It is a straight up ethnic issue. They do verbal gymnastics about the Armenians suddenly becoming "enemy aliens", which is BS.

It was a land grab, pure and simple.

As to the current Turkish irritation, that has been a long time coming. Again, there were better ways to handle this.

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:36:14 PM EDT

[#47]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I guess I'm missing something. Why is the U.S. Congress spending time on classifying an event that happened over 90 years ago?

An evil act then should still be an evil act now and reminder to free peoples.

That's great and all... But what business is it of Congress? They have enough trouble writing laws without trying to write (or interpret) history.

+1
Put aside the ethnic strife angle and some Congresscritters want to stick to GWB angle. A reasonable person must ask why are they wasting their time with this? This genocide was committed by the Ottoman Empire, which DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE! The people that were responsible for this atrocity were either assassinated or simply died of old age.

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Congress is trying to accomplish this idiotic resolution because they can't accomplish anything else!

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:46:27 PM EDT

[#48]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I guess I'm missing something. Why is the U.S. Congress spending time on classifying an event that happened over 90 years ago?

An evil act then should still be an evil act now and reminder to free peoples.

That's great and all... But what business is it of Congress? They have enough trouble writing laws without trying to write (or interpret) history.

+1
Put aside the ethnic strife angle and some Congresscritters want to stick to GWB angle. A reasonable person must ask why are they wasting their time with this? This genocide was committed by the Ottoman Empire, which DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE! The people that were responsible for this atrocity were either assassinated or simply died of old age.

If I didn't know any better, I'd swear that Congress is trying to accomplish this idiotic resolution because they can't accomplish anything else!

Please, please, please read my previous posts on this.

This is happening because of heavy lobbying by Armenian lobbying groups. Due to post '89 immigration from the former Soviet Union, areas with small Armenian groups now have really large Armenian populations. Big enough to get enough money together to lobby for this. They are making their ethnic issues an American national issue by buying face time with reps and delivering votes. This is consituent service, pure and simple, for reps in districts with a lot of ethnic Armenians, and these constituents want to pick a fight with the Turks with the power of the US government.

The longer we allow enclaves of unassimilated foreigners to grow, the more of these exact problems we will have. This is an immigration issue, just like people in the US lobbying for more immigration to get their relatives out of Mexico and on US welfare.

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:51:57 PM EDT

[#49]

Quoted:

Quoted:
I guess I'm missing something. Why is the U.S. Congress spending time on classifying an event that happened over 90 years ago?

An evil act then should still be an evil act now and reminder to free peoples.

Yeah but . . . as others mentioned this was done to stir up shit with an ally in the WOT.

Posted: 10/11/2007 2:53:28 PM EDT

[#50]

Quoted:

Quoted:
Fuck the Turks... Bunch of unhelpful, male assfucking, losers.

And the only functioning country with a lot of Muslims other than Israel. We could have handled this better.

Oh, they handled it well.

Whatever it takes to srew things up.

Can we call them "unpatriotic" now?

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - House Panel Approves Resolution Recognizing WWI-Era Armenian Killings as 'Genocide' (Page 1 of 2)

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