Posted on 10/10/2007 11:43:35 PM PDT by Wiz
Turkey has denounced a vote by a US congressional committee recognising as genocide the 1915-17 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks.
President Abdullah Gul said the decision was unacceptable and had no validity for Turkey, which has always denied any genocide took place.
The White House said it was very disappointed by the non-binding vote.
It fears Turkey could now limit co-operation in the war on terror and provision of military bases near Iraq.
The genocide bill passed in the House Foreign Affairs Committee by 27 votes to 21 - the first step towards holding a vote in the House of Representatives.
Divisions within the committee crossed party lines with eight Democrats voting against the measure and eight Republicans voting for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Genocide against Tutsis at the end of the twentieth century has been thoroughly documented.
Genocide against Armenians at the beginning of the twentieth century has not been thoroughly documented.
The Jews of the World War 2 Holocaust and the Tutsis of the Rwandan genocide were not attempting to overthrow or secede from their respective states. They were clearly attacked and persecuted for who they inherently (genetically or ancestrally) were, not because they were a de facto threat to the state (although they were portrayed as such). That they were murdered wholesale when they were not actively opposing the state is testimony to their being murdered in an act of genocide.
For the Armenian argument, this is not clear. As with Turkish Kurds today (seeing as you pinged an apparent Iraqi Kurd), Armenian Ottomans were seeking their own, independent Armenia. They may have even resorted to force to achieve that sovereignty. And this is why the clarity which would show an Armenian genocide by the Ottomans during World War 1 is muddied.
To be crystal clear, this is NOT to state that there was not a genocide against Armenians. There definitely could have been. However, as of today, the world in general does not have enough information to firmly decide that there was a clear-cut genocide of the Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during the first World War.
Europe pinglist ping.
Okay, since you don't seem to get it, let me ask you if you would like to see us have to expand our efforts in Iraq to include Turkey? Tell me, wouldn't that be grand?
Alright, listen up. I'll tell you what I get and where I got it. I'm one of those that have been watching the slow slid toward war with islam since the scumbags blew up my brother Marines in Beirut. This is not new. This is not something that just came up recently. This did not start with the Palestinian. This did not start with the founding of Israel. Islam has been at war with the non islam world since islam was invented by a sociopathic con artist as a comprehensive ideology of imperial conquest.
Islam is at war with the rest of the world. It has been since its foundation. It will be until its obliteration. The war against the rest of the world is mandated by the source document.
Now, about the Turk. The Turk turned betrayer because, at least in part, the islamofascists have gained significant power. That power is not going away by any means other than bloodshed. It never does, never has, never will. That is set in stone and easily observable at any and every point in islamic history. No islamic/muslim society has "westernized" or seriously secularized for any real length of time. It doesnt happen because it is forbidden. For as long as there is islam, there will be those who read it as it was intended and they will war upon their neighbor until their society is as islam demands it be. Then they will war upon their next neighbor, so on, so on and until there is no non muslim and all muslim are proper muslim (according to the muslim holding the knife) or until islam is beaten into temporary submission...or obliterated.
That cycle has been repeated ad nauseum in the history of islam.... except for the obliterated part. No one's gotten around to that just yet.
...And why after us not being in the region militarily for decades except for a short stint around 1992, our troops exposed to life and death issues in-theater, do you think now is a great time to push this issue in Congress?
The first part of your question I addressed above. The other part...Congress? I give less than half a squat for them regardless of what they do or why. It will be the wrong thing at the wrong time for the wrong reason. That is an expanded and more detailed version of what I posted to you on that issue in a preceding post.
As to the Turk in specific, we will have to fight them anyway, eventually. If they choose to go pugnacious over this bit of meaningless idiocy, then fine. Burn em to the ground. And yes, Turks have been flowing into the Iraq AO and providing cash and weapons and porting bombs around europe (and getting caught) etc etc etc. Maybe not officially, but who of our enemies do that "officially"?
The Turk deserves exactly zero consideration on any issue due to their already established proclivity to play the arab and be treacherous in this fight. There's always just enough assistance given to cause some among us to want to grasp onto hope of peaceful coexistence and cooperation, but the chances of that are slim at best.
The idea that the Turk would go overtly beligerant is silliness in the extreme at this time. They're advanced enough in military to understand that we can kick them to death and never have to put a boot on their dirt if we needed to.
Is Turkey today doing what it did in 1915-1917? It would seem that might be at least one prerequisite to pushing this issue at this time. Why after 90 years is this the best moment we could choose to address this issue?
As I said earlier, the Turk has only had a veneer of western secularization and that veneer has been eaten at since day one by various slow burn islamic insurgencies. The islamics have gained much power in the politics of the Turk in the last decade or two. The islamic insurgency will win because enough of the population is actually islamic in orientation that the change will be demanded. There is as much dominance in the Turk secular areas as there are the same sort in Pakistan. It's what we choose to see and ignore the rest. The rest will fight and win unless obliterated. That is how it works.
Until the secularists are willing to give up islam completely, islam will continue to be reborn as it was intended to be and it will, eventually gain supremacy in that population. 1000+ years of pattern and practice trump the supposed mutation of the last 70ish.
Nobody is making the claim that Islam is wonderful. Holy Cow, you really are dropping off the deep end here.
Oh, really? I am, am I? Your response to the issue was that the Turk must be mollified and coddled or it will become our enemy. I fully disagree. This bit of congressional idiocy means nothing, in any real terms. If it gives the islamics among the Turk an excuse to show their hand then fine. They are no threat. If they choose to become a threat, they can be depopulated/destroyed to whatever degree proves beneficiary. We really do have that much strength, and I'm not talking nukes.
If push came to shove and we didn't worry so much about who got hurt, we could have landed our forces on the west coast of Turkey and have destroyed our way to Indonesia by now. We do not have to play nice. So far we choose to. By putting forward the image that we give ourselves no option but to play so nice goes a long way to ensuring that this will, eventually, turn into a much much bloodier fight.
There is a real and true value to providing an enemy an undeniable reason to fear for his survival and the survival of his kith and kin. We have forgotten that in our social re engineered war fighting dogma.
I do view you as a good and decent person and I do realize my opinions on this issue are still considered to be in the extreme. That's fine with me, for now. But folk need to understand, bloody days are ahead of us for a long time. And it's not going to be over with Iraq and Afghanistan, nor when Syria and Iran have been thrown into the bucket.
About the Congress and what it did, why it did it, or whatever. My respect for Congress and the cowards and enemy sympathizers that infest that palace of corruption is not much affected by this latest idiocy. Only a declaration of unconditional surrender given to some random guy walking down a road in some randomly selected islamic neighborhood would cause me to view the Congress with less respect than I do now.
“Your comments weren’t specifically addressed to me, but I didn’t particularly care for the implication that I don’t care what took place in 1915-1917.”
If I implied that, it was accidental and your ire is justified. My contention is “I” dont care.
Because it is the truth.
Why are you afraid of the truth?
Enough of this kissing the ass of mooselimbs or chi-coms or venezuelans or cubans or any group.
Enough of concealing truths.
As Hitler himself said: "Who remembers the Armenians?"
The blindness of the west towards the jihadist democide of the Armenians was a direct factor in Hitler's genocide of the Poles and Jews. 1.5 Million people being killed at the edge of Europe with no, repeat no comeback - Hitler is on record as having taken note of this, and I bet Stalin and Mao did too.
The West does seem to have had a blind spot about this act of mass murder: kudos to your Govt for calling a spade a spade. Anything else would have been seeking rapprochment with Islamic murderers.
Your whole premise is off.
The Turkish parastate has never been an ally of the west. The only time Turkey was nominally an ally was during the cold war era when it was to their benefit to be bought off in exchange for putting bases there to watch the Soviets.
Your insulting of Armenian Americans is beyond the pale. Too bizarre.
The Turks would only agree to help and then knife us. It’s their way.
Good riddance.
“Are you convinced that Turkey was the sole aggressor here?”
Absolutely. 100%
You are correct.
The Rats are behind this, as usual.
This vote at this time undermines the safety of our troops.
What is the point of this action aside from disenfranchizing an ally?
Folks, you have to ask yourselves why, after 90+ years, the Dems would vote on a useless measure like this.
Then the answer come naturally: They want us to lose in Iraq. That vote was directly used to hurt our Iraq efforts by offending the Turks to drop their support. And it seems to have worked, the Turks are condemning the measure and might pull out.
“Because of some massacre, which did nor did not happen 90 years ago...”
The massacre did happen. 1.5 million dead. Whether or not it was genocide is another matter.
Absolutely right.
Everything the Rats do is intended to undermine the war.
Just look at the number of FR posters who are backing the Dems' action. Some people will never learn.
Sheesh.
One hundred years have passed...so to bring this up now...so what? If Turkey says its sorry...so what.
But lets settle the picture correctly here. The land of Turkey, was run by the Ottoman empire up until the early 1920s...by the Sultan. When you examine these periods of cleansing...which would run two to three years and then simmer....from the mid 1890s until around 1923...it was not the Sultan’s folks who started alot of this unrest. I would call them “young bulls” with an agenda...which was very fascist in nature...and very much anti-Sultan.
The cleansing? Oh...the young bulls would go through a region and start unrest...blaming the Armenians for creating the situation. Property would be taken. Assets in the bank would be taken...and the ones who stood up to challenge this...shot dead. So they slowly pushed the Armenians out of very neutral areas where they were part of the general neighborhood. They created concentration camps later...during WWI and work gangs. Starting to sound familiar? Maybe related to some Hitler dude in Germany? Yep...it is a carbon-copy.
But read on....the German military was there in 1915...and witnessed various acts...sending letters back to Berlin and demanding that the Kaiser bring this up and HALT the genocide going on. This is documented. The German government did nothing because they were involved in a war. The British and Americans....saw and documented vast acts....and attempted after 1919 to bring these up in a world court type setup. Nothing occurred. The guilty parties escaped any punishment.
The Sultan was eventually kicked out, and the new “fascist” government of Turkey, with Mr. Atatürk then took over...with a republic type “look”. Turks will talk boldly of their new government and how things got modern after the Sultan was kicked out. But make no mistake...this was a fascist-state and got results by extreme action.
So did Hitler learn from the Turks? Yes, without any doubt. We need historians to go through the Munich press and find the connection of Hitler and the methods he used in the 1930s/1940s with the Jews...because he learned every trick...from the Turks. He knew they would work....especially with his brown-shirts and a fascist-type environment that he created.
Modern Turkey....built itself on this entire concept. The modern enemy? The Kurds. Thinking about stopping the Turks...oh...don’t even joke about it. The US has this funny relationship that it can’t envision in any other fashion. The Turks are the friends of the US...even if they are modern-day fascists, and even if they would kill 50,000 Kurds tomorrow if given the chance.
So does anything matter 100 years later? Nope...really not. But its funny how you can lay the template of the young bulls of Turkey over Hitler and see the vast connection to the genocide of the Jews. Should that change our minds and make us care in 2007...over a 100-year event? It all depends on how you view your future in the world, and that of the Kurds. Have you learned anything about history yet? Or....the real question...what is the obvious thing that you should have picked up from years and years of observing history?
“Because of some massacre, which did nor did not happen 90 years ago...”
The massacre did happen. 1.5 million dead. Whether or not it was genocide is another matter.”
Perhaps it did. But please help me understand how any focus on this matter in any way will help us save 1.5 American lives, or perhaps, 15 hundred, or perhaps 15 American lives in the current flight against Islamofacism?
“But please help me understand how any focus on this matter in any way will help us save 1.5 American lives, or perhaps, 15 hundred, or perhaps 15 American lives in the current flight against Islamofacism?”
I haven’t seen anybody claim it will help save lives.
Sins of the father belong to the father (Ottoman Empire) not to the son (Turkey).
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