Tick, Tick, Tick
Turkey was preparing to send troops and tanks into northern Iraq today as the Government came under intense pressure to avenge the deaths of Turkish soldiers in attacks by Kurdish rebels.
Risking a major diplomatic row with Washington and the European Union, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, said that he had ordered preparations for a possible military strike and asked parliament for approval.
Turkish combat aircraft and helicopter gunships attacked suspected positions of Kurdish rebels near Iraq and police detained 20 Kurds with suspected rebel links at a border crossing. A number of Turkish police officers were wounded when a police vehicle was the target of a bomb attack the southeast of the country.
Today’s frenzied activity came just days after the killing of 13 government troops in an ambush that outraged the country and marked the latest in a spate of intensified attacks by the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
At a meeting on the attacks earlier this week, chaired by Mr Erdogan, senior Turkish civilian and military authorities decided to consider “every kind of legal, political and economic measure, including an incursion across the border.”
Parliament would still have to authorise any military action and the final decision rests with the Government. The weekend ambush and the killing of another two soldiers in a separate attack have ignited the fuse of a nationalistic anger in Turkey.
So, if the government becomes angry enough, they might approve the incursion. What could set such a chain of events in motion? Two words: Nancy Pelosi.
A proposed House resolution that would label as "genocide" the deaths of Armenians more than 90 years ago during the Ottoman Empire has won the support of a majority of House members, unleashing a lobbying blitz by the Bush administration and other opponents who say it would greatly harm relations with Turkey, a key ally in the Iraq war.
All eight living former secretaries of state have signed a joint letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warning that the nonbinding resolution "would endanger our national security interests." Three former defense secretaries, in their own letter, said Turkey probably would cut off U.S. access to a critical air base. The government of Turkey is spending more than $300,000 a month on communications specialists and high-powered lobbyists, including former congressman Bob Livingston, to defeat the initiative.
This morning, President Bush and two key Cabinet members bolstered those efforts, calling on Congress to drop the legislation. "I urge members to oppose the Armenian genocide resolution now being considered by the House Foreign Affairs Committee," Bush told reporters in a prepared statement he made on the South Lawn of the White House. "We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915. 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."
I pointed the danger out a few days ago. So, a question then. If the supporters of this bill cause real death and destruction in the area as a result of trying to condemn a current NATO ally for something done by a government no longer in existence will they still feel proud of what they've done?
Why?
Uncategorized | Gaius Wednesday, 10 October , 2007
By Maggie, Wednesday, 10 October , 2007 @ 2:46 pm
Prayer:
“Dear G-d, PLEASE protect Pres. Bush and Vice Pres. Cheney for the rest of their term(s) in office … Please spare us from the punishment that would be a Pelosi presidency … Amen.”
By ajacksonian, Wednesday, 10 October , 2007 @ 3:15 pm
The interesting thing is that prior to the WWI genocide, the US did send aid to the Armenians when the Ottomans were starting their work. It was totally private in nature and finally headed up by Clara Barton, who would perservere against the Ottomans to get help to those areas that had been attacked. The Ottomans even awarded her a medal for that!
Why I bring this up is that what followed will rest heavily on the conscience of the Democratic Party forever. And it *should*, if they had any honesty, at least.
By the time 1915 rolled around, that had been pushed far to the back burner while Ambassador Morgenthau and a number of reporters would contact President Wilson about the genocide. Isolationist in character Wilson did *nothing*… not even give the problem wider publicity. When the US finally went to war he specifically *excluded* an Allies of Germany, one of which was, yes, the Ottoman Empire. Yes, a Democrat would not go to war against an enemy that was committing genocide.
Why?
Commercial interests in Turkey and the strange notion that trade would liberalize the Ottoman Empire. Mind you *that* while a genocide he knew about was going on. Others had argued for a wider war, especially Roosevelt who pointed out that by not taking full part in the war, the US would have no say in the peace that followed.
If you want the lovely start of trade freeing people that is put forward today, remember the Armenian genocide and how liberal and enlightened the Middle East became due to US trade there. Worked out so well, didn’t it?
There is a reason I do not trust the view that free trade frees people: it has failed for 90 years. Now the conscience doth nag at the Democrats in power, yet again, reminded with a US Army nearby what they should have done in 1917. And didn’t do.