In what I can only characterize as one of the more crass examples of diplomacy gone amok in recent memory, President Bush is calling on Congress to reject a resolution condemning the Turkish genocide of more than a million Armenians more than 90 years ago:
WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush strongly urged lawmakers Wednesday to reject a resolution that describes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century as genocide - a highly sensitive issue at a time of rising U.S.-Turkish tension over northern Iraq.
“We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,” Bush said in a brief statement. “But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO, and to the war on terror.”
Because, of course, we don’t want to offend the Turks by making them face up to the reality of the murders that their ancestors committed barely a century ago, do we ?
If this is the only way we can keep allies reliable, by whitewashing history and ignoring evil, then it is really worth having a nation like this as an ally ? Rather than America ignoring mass murder, it’s time for Turkey to own up to it.
And the Bush Administration should be ashamed of itself.
H/T: Brendan Loy
October 11th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
[...] I noted yesterday, President Bush has called on Congress to reject a resolution condemning the genocide of Armenians committed by the Ottoman Empire during the First [...]
October 15th, 2007 at 9:40 am
PRESIDENT BUSH SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF HIMSELF…HE IS A SORRY EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING….TO IGNORE OR REJECT THIS SYMBOLIC RESOLUTION IS A SLAP IN THE FACE TO ARMENIANS AND JEWISH PEOPLE ALIKE. GENOCIDE SHOULD NOT AND WILL NOT BE OVERLOOKED, NO MATTER THE TIME OR PLACE!!! DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIES OR INTIMIDATION…SUPPORT THE RESOLUTION AND SAY NO TO THE FUTURE HITLERS OF THE WORLD…