Posted on 10/16/2007 1:49:26 PM PDT by jazusamo
October 16, 2007
Democrats are split on the value of bringing a controversial Armenian genocide resolution to a floor vote.
Five House Democrats plan to hold a news conference Wednesday to urge their leadership not to bring the resolution to the floor, although the measure passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week with strong Democratic support.
Reps. Alcee Hastings of Florida, John Murtha of Pennsylvania, Robert Wexler of Florida and Steve Cohen and John Tanner, both of Tennessee, will participate in the news conference. They plan to urge House leadership to “reconsider its decision” to bring the Armenian genocide resolution to the floor.
The non-binding resolution would require the president to call the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between the years 1915 and 1923 “genocide.”
Turkish officials have said the resolution will harm relations between Turkey and the United States. Turkey acknowledges hundreds of thousands of Armenians died as modern Turkey grew out of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, but Turkish officials contend the killings were part of a civil war and that atrocities were committed on both sides.
Top administration officials have warned Congress that Turkey could respond to the resolution’s passage by blocking access to an airbase critical to the supply of troops in Iraq.
Despite the pushback, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has indicated she would bring the controversial resolution to the floor. California is home to a significant number of Armenian-Americans, including some who came to the United States after fleeing the World War I-era upheaval.
The House has passed similar resolutions in past decades.
President Ronald Reagan also once referred to what happened to Armenians as they were being pushed out of what became eastern Turkey as genocide. During his presidency, however, Bill Clinton also worked to block an Armenian genocide resolution from passing the House.
Reparations and right of return.
“It actually means nothing, but the Turks are hyper sensitive to this, some would say even irrationally so.”
You’ve got that right, which is why they’ve always lobbied so strongly against it.
“I hereby direct the sheriff of this county to remove you from this courtroom forthwith, and to transport you to the gallows, where before sundown this day you are to be hanged by the neck until dead; your body left to be picked at by the crows, until the Sheriff directs it to be cut down, drug to a shallow grave in unhallowed ground, and buried face down in the dirt.”
— Purported death sentence in the American west, attribution unknown
IMO, Pelosi knows this will cause a problem with the Turks. Any problem in the region will effect the price of oil. She figures high heating oil costs this winter and high gas prices next summer will lead to a Dem victory next Nov.
“It’s a resolution which seems to call for punishment.”
It neither calls for punishment nor reparations. It’s just a resolution that has come up for many years by descendants of the genocide and killed every time by those who believe it’s in our interest to placate the Turkish government.
“It’s a resolution which seems to call for punishment.”
It neither calls for punishment nor reparations. It’s just a resolution that has come up for many years by descendants of the genocide and killed every time by those who believe it’s in our interest to placate the Turkish government.
Very good question. Maybe they are too chicken to address a current problem. Maybe they realize, deep down, that they're not very good at coming up with practical solutions to almost anything.
They thought they could provide public housing for the poor but failed dismally according to America's Trillion Dollar Housing Mistake, which is written by the director of public policy case studies at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
I have no difficulty understanding why Pelosi and other Democrats might want to push for this right now, but I still don’t see why the likes of Murtha and Hastings would be publicly, pointedly opposing the floor vote. There are a few plausible reasons presented on the thread, but maybe there is still something else we’re not seeing.
Gets even better. Now Turkey is partnering with Iran to deal with the Kurdish PKK, including incursions into Iraq that will not only destabilize the area, but also bring our troops into the line of fire and increase the chances of them getting killed.
This is all being done by the Dems to create troop deaths and make Bush look bad. Rush needs to be shouting this if he isn’t already.
Forgive me if I don’t rejoice that the once-great United States is now cowering in fear at the like of Turkey. We give the money and support and then we react to them like we are sickly child and they are the school bully. What’s next, are we going to convert to Islam, so we don’t make them mad?
Even Jimmah “Peanut” Carter has said he wouldn’t vote for the resolution. How far around the bend have Nancy and her other perverts gone when even the worst U.S. President - EVER- says it’s a bad deal?
To show her good faith the Nancy woman should be required to conduct an on site “fact finding mission” to Turkey.
To show her good faith the Nancy woman should be required to conduct an on site “fact finding mission” to Turkey.
(30) Despite the international recognition and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, the failure ....to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future, and that a just resolution will help prevent future genocides.
House Resolution 106, section 3 Paragraph 1.
The Resolution
1) calls upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning .... the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution;
Wow...so don’t rejoice.
It's simply not possible to say that those responsible for the killings (the Ottoman Empire) were not punished.
Last time anyone looked the Empire was ripped into pieces and handed over to the winners of WWI to loot at will.
Then, each of the residual pieces was given an especially nasty dictator to rule over the place and to directly punish the people who lived there.
I've never understood why the folks who push this resolution aren't willing to come up with one that's correct ~ it was definitely an evil event, so certainly someone out there can get it right.
This very well might start a war, and will probably spell the end of NATO and of US presence in the middle east.
Someone is pushing this. The timing is very suspicious.
They have us over the proverbial barrel, we need to use their territory. It’s not cowering in fear, no fear involved.
Sorry, but that makes my point. The people responsible are long since dead. It says NOTHING about the current government of Turkey.
All the resolution does is give what happened the label of “genocide” because that’s what it was. The objection to such a simple, long overdue resolution is ridiculous.
It’s peculiar to me that the people who are so outraged at Ahmadinijad for his denial of the Holocaust are the very same people who continue to placate Turkey in their denial of the Armenian genocide.
Quite a double standard, wouldn’t you say?
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