Bronwen Maddox of the Times of London is fairly well appalled at the actions of the Nancy Pelosi led effort to pass the Armenian genocide bill. She points out the absurdity of condemning a 92 year-old event - regardless of what it really was - only to risk jeopardizing current and future events.
Why take up an historic cause with such passion? And why now, when the most precarious planks of US foreign policy rest on already fraying relations with Turkey? It is not just the Bush Administration that has asked Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, to desist. Eight former secretaries of state, of all political hues, have signed a petition calling for the same.
The House’s move reflects the power of the Armenian lobby, which has cherished this cause above anything more modern. It found a moment when Congress was receptive; Democratic leaders have been looking for ways to attack the values and tactics of the Administration’s foreign policy. But this is a bad way to do it.
Of course, Turkey might just mark down Congress’s gestures as an example of the contradictions thrown up by the separation of powers in US government. It could say that alleged actions by the Ottoman empire, a decade before the founding of the modern republic of Turkey, are none of its concern. But it won’t. The pity is that this frivolous move could have serious consequences: for stability in Iraq, for US forces there, for Nato, and as the markets have noticed, for the price of oil.
This was never a subject on which Congress should have set to work. It has no business pronouncing on an historical debate on which there is still enormous controversy. The massacre occurred a year into the First World War when millions of Armenians, who had fled the expansion of Russia and its satellites, tried to set up an independent state in Anatolia. The Armenian lobby says that Turks killed 1.5 million of them; Turkey denies that the number was that high, and says that many Turks died too. Documents supposed to record the atrocities have been disputed as forgeries.
She says that this a matter better left to historians and has no place in modern politics.
Put aside the theory that this is a cold, calculated move to kneecap American troops. Let's look at it on the merits. There is a lot of very high-minded rhetoric supporting this resolution. The arguments range from the, "Well, Hitler cited the Armenian genocide as an inspiration for his final solution for the Jews," to the, "we must denounce this to send a message to others contemplating the same thing." But those arguments ignore that the message - whatever it is - is being sent 92 years after the fact. So the real message being sent is that people planning genocide are pretty much good to go and their descendants will pay any political price. Said price being finger-wagging and self-congratulatory tut-tutting.
Bah. This is a cynical line of reasoning. The United States Congress is completely ineffective at addressing real time genocides, atrocities and general thuggery going on right now in the world. But they are wasting their time condemning something that happened almost a century ago. Who in their right mind believes this is the moral high ground? Who really believes this vote will signal the government of Sudan to curb the Janjaweed? Who believes it will curb Robert Mugabe's destruction of an entire nation? Who believes it will save one, single Burmese monk's head from being cracked under the iron fist of the junta that rules Burma?
Who is that smugly self-important?
The Pelosi led US House of Representatives, apparently. They wonder why they poll so badly. I don't.
She says that this a matter better left to historians and has no place in modern politics.
Put aside the theory that this is a cold, calculated move to kneecap American troops. Let's look at it on the merits. There is a lot of very high-minded rhetoric supporting this resolution. The arguments range from the, "Well, Hitler cited the Armenian genocide as an inspiration for his final solution for the Jews," to the, "we must denounce this to send a message to others contemplating the same thing." But those arguments ignore that the message - whatever it is - is being sent 92 years after the fact. So the real message being sent is that people planning genocide are pretty much good to go and their descendants will pay any political price. Said price being finger-wagging and self-congratulatory tut-tutting.
Bah. This is a cynical line of reasoning. The United States Congress is completely ineffective at addressing real time genocides, atrocities and general thuggery going on right now in the world. But they are wasting their time condemning something that happened almost a century ago. Who in their right mind believes this is the moral high ground? Who really believes this vote will signal the government of Sudan to curb the Janjaweed? Who believes it will curb Robert Mugabe's destruction of an entire nation? Who believes it will save one, single Burmese monk's head from being cracked under the iron fist of the junta that rules Burma?
Who is that smugly self-important?
The Pelosi led US House of Representatives, apparently. They wonder why they poll so badly. I don't.
Bad Ideas, Politics, World news | Gaius Tuesday, 16 October , 2007 
