From the "Economist" March 5, 2010
Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed by one vote a measure to be taken to the floor that would declare that Turkey carried out genocide against the Armenian people in 1915. President Obama, Hillary Clinton at the State Department and other leaders have spoken against such a formal measure for many reasons.
- Turkey and Armenia are slowly beginning to normalize relations.
- Turkey is a strategic partner of the US. We have bases there.
- Turkey is a member of NATO
- Turkey’s government is a secular alternative model for the Muslim world.’ [CNN.com]
There are also important questions that are difficult to answer:
- Should the sins of the father be visited upon the children?
- What is more important, fidelity to history or concern for the present? [Economist]
- Who are the descendants of the Turks who carried out the alleged genocide? Like many other nations today, the ethnic mix in Turkey has changed. In a very real sense, the Turkey of 1915 no longer exists.
According to a 2008 report prepared for the National Security Council of Turkey by academics of three Turkish universities in eastern Anatolia, there were approximately 45-48 million ethnic Turks, 18,6 million Kurds (including 3 million Zazas), 2,5 million Circassians (Adyghe), 2 million Bosniaks, 1,3 million Albanians, 800,000 Laz, 0,5 million Georgians, 870,000 Arabs, 700,000 Roma, 600,000 Pomaks, 60,000 Armenians, 20,000 Jews, 15,000 Greeks and 13,000 Hemshins living in Turkey [Wikipedia]
No ethnic group here should have the power to direct or otherwise influence our foreign policy. We are a nation of nationals from around the globe. The United States is no longer the only defender of the free world and we can no longer afford to police it. The measure that should be passed is that in future, all requests for these kinds of measures and resolutions should be taken to the United Nations.
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ON MY WATCH - the writings of SamHenry 
pmecabe
March 7, 2010
Well said, SamHenry. I would add another important factor – what difference does it make 95 years later? Doesn’t congress have more important work to do other than to piss off our allies? Aren’t the president and State Dept. doing a good enough job of screwing the pooch with our foreign policy already?
Ugh…