Armenian Genocide Resolution - part III

Pelosi's Armenian gambit

And, of course, leave it to Krauthammer to cut through the issue, lay it out clearly, and make the points that everyone needs to know to understand this issue.

He also clearly points out how quite a few members of Congress not only have a tin ear but are astoundingly clueless when it comes to grasping not only current U.S. foreign policy, but also history and the entire purpose of even having a foreign policy. Remember these people make decisions about how billions of our money gets shipped abroad to despot A or to insurgent B who may one day become despot B.

Do we really think the U.S Congress is capable of handling any critical thinking in intricate matters like this when most seem to base their opinions solely on what their constituents say in opinion polls? That, by the way, is the answer to the third question. Pelosi was pandering for donations and to pass some "feel-good" legislation. She probably figured the controversy would give her more publicity and make her seem tough.

All it proves is how badly she and most of Congress on both sides of the aisle do not understand foreign policy. This also once again clearly demonstrates why the U.S. really should be out of these types of regional struggles on the other side of the planet altogether. Congress of course doesn't care since it is not their money and foreign policy is just another issue to generate talking points for the next campaign.

As we now know, the Democrats have no intention of pulling out of Iraq even if they take the White House. This is because their feigned opposition to the war was solely for the purpose of increasing their numbers in Congress in 2006. At least some of the more strident anti-war dems have figured out that they have been sold out. The rest of them will return to the sheep fold as it is explained why a 180 degree turn isn't really that dramatic and was actually the right thing all along. War is peace.

"Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away..."

Armenian Genocide Resolution - part II

Cal Thomas on the Armenian Genocide resolution


A well-reasoned article as to why passing the resolution is a bad idea in terms of current U.S. foreign policy. This is no doubt the same reasoning that both parties have decided is correct as to why the U.S. Congress should not pass the resolution.

Now read the article again and ask yourself why are we so concerned about the internal affairs of Turkey? Why are we worried about a country who has only proven itself to be a semi-democracy? Turkey is a democracy basically until the Muslim fundamentalists win election in which case, they are always immediately overthrown by a military coup. Doesn't that really make this more of a military dictatorship? One which, by the way, is the direct descendant of the secular Turkish military who carried out the Genocide.

Read the article again. I will try to boil down the big and convoluted picture. We are worried that a rebellious group who is using terrorist tactics to liberate a compatriot ethnic enclave operating out of a foreign nation that we are now occupying as the only stable military force available in order to create a peaceful democracy in that foreign nation might be attacked inside that foreign nation by an long-time ally in a war that ended 20 years ago that is a nominal democracy as a result of a resolution from Congress condemning events that took place 92 years ago and that are still the subject of much controversy and speculation which might in turn result in that long-time ally voting invading that foreign nation and electing a fundamentalist government as it has routinely done in the past when it has had the chance to act as a full democracy, which it isn't. All of this is of course being done in the context of spreading democracy in the region, which of course we don't really support fully for Turkey because it would lead to the creation of a state that supports fundamentalist Islam which would undermine our long-term attempts to stabilize (and interfere) in the region.

Is any of this really authorized by the Constitution? Isn't this the antithesis of avoiding the "entangling alliances" that George Washington warned about before he left office? Haven't we been burned enough by intervening in wars that aren't really our wars to begin with?

In the end, of course, the U.S. government will continue to give away as much or our money as possible to everyone involved on every side of this conflict and say that it somehow makes our country safer to be not only the world's policeman, but also the world's nanny and janitor.

Armenian Genocide Resolution

Pat Buchanan on Armenian Genocide Resolution


I have few Armenian friends and have heard a few second-hand stories about how various people survived the genocide in 1915. So, of course I believe it was a real event and as significant as the Holocaust. But I'm not sure if I'm missing Buchanan's point here. He has typically been against the expansion of the role of the U.S. military in the world, but he doesn't make that point here. He mostly condemns the democrats for pushing this resolution at a very critical time for what is likely nothing more than pandering for donations.

I agree with him that Turkey has been a very good ally to the U.S. and that the democrats are demonstrating their tin ear for world diplomacy (not that the neo-cons have fared much better in this decade). But if he is suggesting that we should continue to help out Turkey and reward them as allies, that seems to counter his usual sentiments arguing against the war in Iraq and the expansion of the U.S. military to every corner of the world now that the Cold War has ended.

Here are my points for what they are worth:

• I'm not a big fan of government doing anything it isn't expressly authorized to do. The passage of a measure like this, while the subject is obviously serious, strikes me as being about as useless as national broccoli awareness week or the 10,000 other resolutions passed by Congress. If the Armenian Genocide becomes an important issue in one context or another that involves the federal government, then by all means talk about it. Resolutions of this type which don't serve any purpose strike me as the worst sort of pandering. We should make sure it's in the history books, but what role the federal government should play in that is likely none.
  
• I agree with Pat that this is likely going to cause us a lot of trouble with Turkey when we really can't afford it. Ironically, perhaps, the Kurds were also implicated in helping the Turks carry out the Genocide. They should probably also be included in any resolution. Even if they are not, they are likely to feel the negative consequences of it's passage when Turkey invades northern Iraq.
  
• As long as we are a world of nation-states, I accept whole-heartedly the notion that national borders should be drawn along current ethnic and cultural lines for historic ethnic groups (multi-cultural nations such as the U.S. excepted). As such, I think that there should be a Kurdistan and that the northeast quadrant of Turkey should go to Armenia while the southeast should go to an independent Kurdistan.
  
• That being said, if you look at an ethnic map of the Middle East, you will see that Iraq, Turkey, and especially Iran, are such hodge-podges of different ethnic groups that it's any wonder they should be single nations at all. The fact that we are now being steadily drawn into a conflict that resulted from the failure to create an independent Kurdistan in 1921 just goes along with my overall thesis that the U.S. just needs to stop intervening in the world, period, unless our safety is directly (directly) threatened. Otherwise, we wind up with the current mess we are in with Iraq and the likely messes that will arise with Turkey and Iran in the next six months to a year.
  
• I would be more than happy to lose Turkey as an ally if it also meant we would be gone from intervening in the Middle East for good.