Looks like George W. Bush was against the Armenian genocide before he became a denialist. It's too bad this sensitivity to Turkish sentiments wasn't on display back when Paul Wolfowitz was running around urging the Turkish military to overrule the parliament and insist that Turkey back the invasion of Iraq.
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Flip-Flop
11 Oct 2007 03:43 pm
Comments (20)
That seems a little overwrought. Will any accounting of Bill Clinton's character include the fact that, like every Democratic candidate in my lifetime, he promised before the New York primary to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and then he didn't? The issues are structurally similar. The plain fact is, there are a lot of Armenian-Americans who mostly vote their pocketbook, like everyone, but they do want to know during the campaign that you feel their pain. Every president, though, realizes that there isn't much point in annoying the Turks about something that happened 80 years ago.
y81, I sort of agree with you while sort of disagreeing. The issue of the U.S. Embassy in Israel is almost entirely fake symbolism--even the overwhelming majority of Israelis don't give a damn whether anyone's embassy is located either in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem. But I have to imagine that a very high percentage of Armenians and Armenian-Americans really do care about other countries' positions on the Turks' official denial of the genocide.
Well maybe Wolfowitz will get his wish after all. Turkey sure seems ready to invade Iraq now.
it's not technically a flip-flop. just because bush called the armenian genocide a "genocide" in 2000 doesn't mean he thinks the congressional resolution is a good idea.
bush could consistently believe that it was genocide but that the resolution is "not the right response" given the strategic importance of turkey. he may not be taking the moral high ground, but it's not inconsistent.
upyernoz is basically right. Although I'd like to no what Bush meant when he said this:
"f elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people."
How does Bush propose to keep his campaign promise, if the congressional resolution isn't the right path? Also, does he still feel that Turkey committed genocide, as clearly he did back in the 2000 campaign?
Two simple questions that could be asked of Bush. That is, if he actually took questions from reporters, or God forbid, average American citizens.
It's too bad vetoing the expansion of SCHIP wasn't considered an insult to Turkishness.
Wow, what a ballsy move by our courageous Congress. I mean it's much more difficult to condemn something that happened in 1915 than to deal with trivial stuff like the Iraq War, the looming entitlement crisis, endless deficits, etc.
Bill Clinton blocked a similar resolution from passing the House in 2000. As I wrote for UPI on 10/23/2000:
"This election year it roared through the House International Relations committee on a 24-11 vote. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert said that he believed it "would have enjoyed support among the majority of the House." Moments from coming up for a vote, however, Hastert blocked it from consideration. He announced, "The President believes that passage of this resolution may adversely impact the situation in the Middle East and risk the lives of Americans."
http://www.isteve.com/2000_Arab_Armenian_Immigrants_Gain_Clout.htm
This really does seem like it's going to enrage the Turks big time. Almost certainly they are going to do at least limited incursions into Iraq now. They are doing aerial bombardment at certain locations and have brought up tanks as well to the border.
The Iraqi and US warnings against incursions aren't worth spit now. The Kurds have killed too many Turkish troops just in the last couple weeks. Turkey is going to move. The only question is how hard and how long.
Basically, the US and Iraqi governments won't be able to do a thing about it except perhaps the US on an economic threat front of some sort. How effective that will be is unknown.
The EU may be able to make some discouraging moves, but it's not looking good.
Isn't this just another way for the Democrats to undermine our troops in Iraq? After all, if you don't have the stones to vote to end American involvement there, the least you can do as a Democrat is try to cut the supply lines by proxy. From the AP: "Turkey threatens repercussions for U.S.":
"Egeman Bagis, an aide to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told Turkish media that Turkey — a conduit for many of the supplies shipped to American bases in both Iraq and Afghanistan — might have to "cut logistical support to the U.S."
[...] "About 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 there. U.S. bases also get water and other supplies carried in overland by Turkish truckers who cross into Iraq's northern Kurdish region.
In addition, C-17 cargo planes fly military supplies to U.S. soldiers in remote areas of Iraq from Incirlik, avoiding the use of Iraqi roads vulnerable to bomb attacks. U.S. officials say the arrangement helps reduce American casualties."
Well, I do think this issue brought up by Pelosi is at an odd time. Has anyone else considered that perhaps she's threatening this Turkey resolution to try to make a deal and get enough votes to pass the SCHIP legislation?
Just a thought.
You know which other presidential nominee promised to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide in his country? AHMADINEJAD!!!
(Yes, Iran has quite a few Armenians, and no, they weren't caught up in the genocide, although some of the Assyrians were - see the Assyrian Genocide, also perpetrated by the Young Turks and their Kurdish henchmen).
"Isn't this just another way for the Democrats to undermine our troops in Iraq? After all, if you don't have the stones to vote to end American involvement there, the least you can do as a Democrat is try to cut the supply lines by proxy."
This is more the straw that broke the camel's back. Turkey has been threatening military action for a while now because the Kurdish Workers' Party has been hiding out in Iraqi Kurdistan under our noses and we haven't really done anything to crack down on them. It has becomes their new base of operations while carrying out attacks in Turkey, much like how some ETA attacks in Spain were planned from le Pays Basque in France.
With that said, I'm not really sure what this resolution is going to accomplish. While emotionally I feel this is the right thing to do in the abstract, my brain is telling me this isn't exactly good policy. It probably won't benefit the US government to start deciding which events to label genocide and which not to. For instance, there exists much evidence in favor of arguing that the British crackdown against the Kikuyu during the Mau Mau insurgency and Suharto's invasion of East Timor were acts of genocide that aren't recognized as widely as the Holocaust, Rwanda and Bosnia. When the US government decides that it is going to call a certain historical event from several generations ago genocide and then not label comparable historical events as such, we just end up creating problems as certain events get ignored for political reasons in favor of others. We could also be using our resources to figure out what to do about genocide that is occurring right now in Darfur and possibly in Burma against the Karen and in northeastern Uganda at the hands of the Lord's Resistance Army. If this does become the straw that breaks the camel's back with regard to our relationship with Turkey (or at least makes it even colder than it should be), then we will look back on this resolution as idealistic foolishness.
I agree with upyernoz.
It is one thing to claim (correctly) that it was a Turkish genocide committed against the Armenians in 1915 (it was, indeed!) -
and another thing to put this claim forward in a US Congress resolution in the year 2007 - with all the political implications it has or might get for the USA in their relation to Turkey right now.
The USA seem to be doomed to make most FOREIGN politics decisions according to DOMESTIC reasons; here: Armenian election campaign money, which may be more than Turkish campaign money.
Or play the ROMANTIC in foreign politics, as Matthew Yglesias seems to do here?
Or allow the tail to wag the dog, as in US relations with Israel.
Add to that an instinct of isolationism in part of the US,
and bloody naive machoism and militarism in an other part of the nation
and that Americans seem to see any politics justified in the claim of good intentions ---
and you get US foreign policy so INCOMPETENT that a European like me must ask:
How can we contain MAD USA?
Well, here I have to admit that France also has bullied the Turks in the Armenian question. (There is a considerable Armenian minority in France, and anyway, I can understand the Armenians to insist.)
"Well, here I have to admit that France also has bullied the Turks in the Armenian question."
Bully? Seems to me like it was the Turks who bullied the Armenians in a genocidal fashion. And for some reason the Turks won't admit.
Germany admitted its bad behavior.
The Turks say it was bad, but wasn't that bad. Just as some anti-war people say Saddam was bad, but not that bad. So-called practicalities overrule the inconvenient truth.
I say good for the Democrats, Historical Truth is important after all, even if it came about because of the machinations of the Armenian Lobby(!).
Having said that, current day Turkey, a Muslim democracy, and the Kurds have both been honorable allies and both should be supported in any way possible. The Democrats' idea about another resolution praising Turkey's help in the "war on terror" couldn't hurt.
The point is the U.S. opposition can do little to directly influence the Bush regime's actions in Iraq. However, this small indirect measure may discourage Turkish cooperation with the free flow of U.S. resources through Turkey into Iraq, and encourage Turkish intervention in Iraq Kurdistan.
There may still be a few smart people in Washington. When you can't influence your own government to do the right thing, influence others to make it harder for your government to do the wrong thing.
from that Oct. 10 New York Times article about the Israel airstrike on Syria and the debate it kindled in the Bush admisistration:
"Last week, Turkish officials traveled to Damascus to present the Syrian government with the Israeli dossier on what was believed to be a Syrian nuclear program, according to a Middle East security analyst in Washington. The analyst said that Syrian officials vigorously denied the intelligence and said that what the Israelis hit was a storage depot for strategic missiles."
Turks carrying water for Israel and the US? Doubt they'll be "influenced" as "RedScare" says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/washington/10diplo.html
Are you suggesting the Turkish officials pleaded Israel's case before their Syrian hosts? "Mailman" rather than "water carrier" would likely be a closer characterization of what the Turks did here.
Granted, influencing Turkey to further oppose Bush's Iraqi war won't result from any single (non-major) event. But after all, it's usually not the first few straws that break the camel's back.
As I recall, Turkey was not happy that Israeli jets used their territory to conduct an illegal attack on Syria.
As for the Kurdish attack, some people think that the real intent is to threaten the entire Kurdish region as a warning to knock off trying to create an independent Kurdistan with oil revenues based on Kirkuk.
While it is unlikely that the apparent planned operation is going to do much to change the situation - as the Kurdish insurgents will just fade back into the mountains and lose some of their camps and the like - the overall intent of the operation could be a warning to the major Iraqi Kurdish parties not to keep pushing for Kurdish independence in Iraq.
Of course, that warning isn't going to work either.
Inevitably, in my view, sooner or later, Turkey IS going to have to invade northern Iraq and take down the Kurdish parties there - not just the insurgents crossing the border, but the big Kurdish parties. In other words, a major Turkey-Kurdistan war to add to the Sunni-Shia war (depending on when it happens.)
Because Turkey has done these cross-border incursions now for at least ten years - and it just hasn't worked for them. And before, they at least had Saddam beating up the Kurds as well - now nobody is.
This operation won't be the major war - but there will be one within a few years.
And if Iran isn't attacked by Bush (dream on...) and Iran manages to gain influence in Iraq, sooner or later Iran is going to attack the Kurds as well, or pressure the Shia Iraqi government to do so. Whether that happens or not will depend on the internal politics of Iraq - whether the Shia majority still need the Kurds to hang onto power, or if they get enough support from Iran to not need them - or just abandon the parliamentary trappings and just seize power.
Comments closed October 25, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Turkey recalls ambassador over genocide resolution
Thank You Democrats!
And here I was thinking that Democrats were in favor of diplomacy. Flip flop!
Posted by Al | October 11, 2007 4:07 PM