Turkey Genocide Resolution: Huh?

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This thoroughly baffles me.
Linky

To sum up: The U.S. congress just brought to vote a resolution condemning the mass killings of Armenian Christians by the Turks during World War I as "genocide." I repeat: World War I. Nearly a century ago. This is a really important issue that needs my government's attention, evidently. Like we don't have bigger fish to fry right now.

We're currently waging a futile and losing war in the Middle East. At this point, and really since the beginning, the key to any success we have in the region depends on the support of what few allies we have. One country who's been with us more or less since the beginning is Turkey. The citizens and government of Turkey, royally pissed off and offended by the move, now say that passing the resolution will severaly hurt U.S./Turkish relations (which I don't blame them for).

I'm not a WWI history buff (WWII is my favorite subject), so I don't know the details enough to judge whether such a condemnation or even the term "genocide" is warranted, considering the sheer amount of Armenian Muslims who were killed en masse as well. But I have a couple of questions:

1) Even if the Turks were guilty of genocide, why on earth is this coming up for a vote now? When we need not piss off and alienate what few allies we have?

2) How will something that happened almost a century ago have any substantive effect on any nation's policy in 2007? As important as this issue apparently is to some people, could it not wait until AFTER the war (several decades from now, the way things are going) to bring it up? It's waited this long...

3) Can anyone explain the thinking behind any of this? Subquestion: historically, what, if any, relevance do such resolutions carry?

Maybe this is really simple and I'm just too lazy and sleep deprived to think this through today, but man...this one just strikes me as one of the dumbest moves my government's made in a while, especially in the sense of risking so much over so little. And that's saying something.

TIA

 

I'm guessing from the context of the article that Armenia is pushing for reparations or sanctions of some kind and various countries have taken up the torch including France and the U.S.

Based on my knowledge of WWI I would say that what Turkey did qualifies as genocide. Then again, what the U.S. did to the American Indians could also qualify and I don't see other countries passing resolutions about it 100+ years later.

I agree with your sentiments on the subject. It seems like an awful waste of time considering the current world situation. Worse, as you mentioned, it could damage U.S./Turkish relations. Seems kind of silly to me considering the importance of Turkey relative to Armenia. I'm with you DR. It just doesn't make sense.

This just proves that the U.S. government is quite adept at addressing trivial matters. It is the weighty matters that are quite beyond their capabilities.

[ October 11, 2007, 18:30: Message edited by: Dinsdale ]

 

@Death Rabbit

1. The dems have been doing little things like this for awhile now. Election comming up remember? A good time to piss off our allies and be able to scream "end the war now".

2. Something that happened almost a century ago still has relevance now, as history not as current policy. I'm glad Turkey isn't dumb enough to pass resolutions condeming the US for doing its best to genocide the Indians over 100 years ago and in some things more recent than that.
History is to be learned from not to be turned into current policy.

3. See answer 1. This kind of resoloution just proves congress has idiots and a**holes on both sides of the room, left and right.

Please do not think I am speaking for or against the war. That was not the subject. Elections and the war are my opinion as to what is behind the answer to #1. I am proud to be an American but do wonder how we can elect such morons to office. Blame it on TV!

My apologies to our Turkish members for the stupidity and holier than thou actions of my government. We do not all think alike.

 

Ok, maybe I misinterpreted the article. I thought Armenia might have been the instigator but I'm not so sure now. I was thrown off by the mention of France having done the same thing. Old One's comments seem quite cogent, especially this one:

 

@ Oldie,

I'm not sure I buy the reasoning for #1, but I do see your point. I'll have to dig a little deeper, as my normally cynical self suspects there's more to it than mere electioneering. But who knows, it may well be.

All in all I can't disagree with the rest of it, though. And I think we're all agreed that our elected officials are tools.

 

There is also stuff like that coming from Europe, that feels genuinely uneasy about Turkey wanting to enter the EU - pissing them off over the Armenian genocide is a convenient excuse to keep them at bay it seems to me at times, and a cheap one for that. And yes, it is silly that the Turks just deny the whole thing as if it never happened.

As for America, I question the wisdom of the timing of such a resolution when Turkey, an important ally, is already pissed off at the US doing way too little in their eyes to deny the PKK terrorists safe-haven in Kurdistan. They don't like, after fighting the Kurds for two decades, to have to go through all this again. The resolution won't make them any happier. They might feel tempted to do something that serves their interest as apparently nobody else is taking care of them. Confronting Turkey now over misdeeds from 80 years ago is in my eyes a silly thing to do.

 

A current theory in national relations and development is that you cannot move forward until you have admitted to the mistakes in your past. Therefore, a country must publicly admit and apologize for what it did before other countries will respect it (at least in theory.)

Turkey has never really stepped up to the plate and taken responsibility for their genocidal acts in the last century. I have an Armenian friend who is still pissed about it -- he says "if the Germans are made to feel guilty for their gas chambers and the Japanese are made to feel guilty for their sex slaves and the Americans and Canadians are made to feel guilty for their Japanese internment camps and native policies, why shouldn't Turkey be forced to admit to its past mistakes?"

That said, though, to me it is really not the time for this sort of nonsense, especially since once guilt has been admitted, the formerly targetted group often comes forward looking for monetary reparations, which no country can really afford. The Americans (and we Canucks too) should look to our own backyards and history before passing smug little resolutions like this one.

 

Look on the bright side, rags; if we alienate Turkey, maybe we'll decide to make nice with Iran.


....Nah.

 

Ragusa, confronting, not opening dialogue with any group of people or government is just a useless practice after everyone involved is probably dead. Dialogue is also impossible until both parties want to talk, hence my belief it is (stupid) politics as usual. This seems to be how the US is playing the people here with no regard to lasting effects. Comment?

[ October 12, 2007, 00:44: Message edited by: Old One ]

 

I gotta agree with the stupid Democrats screwing up the war theory.

They want out of the war, so by alienating the top ally in the region--through who's country the lion's share of the troops pass, is just that way to increase the resistance, hoping to get the "lazy" vote towards their ending the war agenda (We gotta go that far around? Screw that...)

But will the "lazy" demographic actually vote though...

 

Indeed. We *still* haven't apologized for slavery or the Indian "resettlement". Plus at this point I really think we need to apologize to Mexico for taking Texas, considering the current consequences of that act.

 

Why? Mexico stole it from the indians....And Africa was one of the biggest traders in slavery - some say they still are - so should they apologize as well? The resolution is pointless, but I think they passed it to tick GWB off a bit, and make his life a little more difficult. At this moment in time the relationship between GWB and Congress is so poisoned that it would not surprise me. You know, the guy with the big veto?

 

Old one,

That's a very good point. I share your view with a few qualifications. That said, it is in ones best interest to be sincere, sober and rational in ones assessment who can be talked to and who cannot. Flaunting offers for talks and realignment just because, out of sheer arrogance, is wasteful, stupid and inexcusable. In that decision it helps a lot to be well informed about the other side. Peace you have to make with your enemies, and that requires engagement. Engagement means you will not achieve a 'Siegfrieden' where all your demands are met and the other side surrenders, that's impossible. The equivalent is to go to a shop, demand the crown jewels of the enterprise, and expect them to be given to you for free. Feeling entitled doesn't make it any better. The world doesn't work like that.
The reason why engagement is mandated is not to keep the peace at all cost. It's much simpler, all common sense: A view that sees enemies as unworthy to be dealt with short of use of force reduces foreign policy to a zero sum game, with the predictable and inevitable result of conflict. Picking fights in such a way is a foolish and exhausting thing to do in the long run, no matter how strong you are now. When you interact with the world around you, you do want to have options beyond what cruise missile to pick for what target, just like you want to have options beyond picking a shotgun or a rifle to be safe when you go out on your Sunday picknick. That doesn't mean that engagement will make you 100% safe in the end – make no mistake, 100% safety is an illusion, and anyone promising 100% safety is making a promise he can't deliver on – but many people less hating you will help a lot. I have no illusion that Al Quaeda is irreconcilable. But Iran however, is, if one is willing to accept that they don't want to and will never be like California or Ohio, no matter what tall tales emigrants tell on US tv or on your neighbourhood bbq.

EDIT: As for Turkey, by going to war with Iraq, and by basically creating a sovereign Kurdish entity in the north, the US have severely hurt a critical Turkish national interest, namely the safety of their southern border, and in the long run Turkish territorial integrity. The US do little about it, worse, the Turks have complained that the PKK is fighting in Turkey with arms originating from the US that they obviously must have gotten through Baghdad channels (think of Iran supplying Iraqis with arms, which is regarded by US hawks as short of a casus belli there. The Turks have a lot of hawks as well) - and now they get the genocide resolution on top of that.
The only reason why Turkey has taken this quietly and with restraint for so long is their dependence on the US military aid, that is, they had to be bribed. I have had Turkish news papers read to me about that. Americans probably don't even begin have a clue about how pissed off the Turks are about their strongest ally. That probably extends to their congressmen and senators. The US goodwill account in Turkey is deep red.

Gnarff,
IMO the Dems don't do that to undermine America's war in Iraq, or to undermine Bush. It would, if true, be utterly reckless, and I do not think Democrats want to hurt America's interests just to spite Bush. They are smarter than that, well, so I hope, and I have no doubt in their patriotism. I sense as the motive rather sincere moralistic impulses, and the influence of Armenian Americans who have been lobbying for something like that for years.

[ October 12, 2007, 11:10: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

think again ragusa, some dems could care less about how their actions affect the countrys' interests as long as they can take a shot at the president. this was brought up 2 years ago & several years before that

look on the left hand side of the article under the DONT MISS segment for rep. skeltons letter about this resolution. he has and makes some very good points on the last page of it about the repercussions that this may cause

 

My personal opinion was that the resolution was made mostly for internal consumption - to show the public/voters that the US politicians care about human rights, yadayada. I've heard that a similar resolution passed in France (the US wasn't the first country to qualify what happened in Armenia as a massacre) thanks to a small, but insistent Armenian lobby; it's possible that something similar might be the case in the US. Of course, this presupposes that many US statesmen have no interest or understanding in how most Turkish people would feel on the matter; unfortunately, I consider this possible. The relations between Turkey and the US are already strained, which is only normal considering how much the US presence in Iraq has elevated the role of the Iraqi Kurds. I think that the bigshots in Ankara have been seriously mulling the idea for an intervention in northern Iraq for a while, and this resolution does nothing to dissuade them.

Certainly, I do believe that there was a large-scale persecution - probably qualifying as genocide, given the number of dead and the likely government involvement - and the way the issue is represented by the Turkish government is reprehensible and absurd. It's like the Japanese saying that they didn't kill millions of Chinese, they were merely hunting down bandits*. Or the Germans saying that they didn't kill Jews (or Russians, Gypsy/Roma, or what had you) en masse, they were just arresting criminals. I wonder whether this is due to the massacres happening almost simultaneously with the Ataturk era - which is, afaik, the holy of holies for modern Turkish nationalism - or that even though the country changed, Turkish people today still consider themselves the successors of the Ottoman empire and thus consider it a point of honor to defend its historical legacy.

On a completely unrelated issue, the US is the biggest supporter of Turkish entry in the EU - probably more so even than the Turkish themselves. Maybe it's merely a coincidence... nah.

*: actually, I've read that some Japanese did actually say that. I hope I'm wrong.

[ October 12, 2007, 11:24: Message edited by: The Shaman ]

 

martaug,
of course there are such people. Just like you have people on the right who hold the view that Democrats are always wrong, no matter what they say and do. Now that we know that, are we any wiser?

Shaman,
good point about the domestic consumption. As to the US support to Turkish EU entry, that's something that requires more time to address than I have now.

 

@Ragusa
Reading your edit and last message again I went looking, doing a search. I can see why right now pissed at America would be a mild statement about Turkey. The situation with the Kurds being supported by The US will continue I am sure. This is defiantly going to cause even more problems in the future.

I agree with Martaug in his statement about the Dems and have to add the right in there too. I think if you lived here little things on our TV and magizines, local papers would provide more of a feel for the -not thinking for the future-how will it spin now- attitude prevaient in our politics. I am not ignoring that you have a wide feel and knowledge for what goes on in the world, I just think you missed this one. Self serving, not serving the people could be the mantra for our congress and president right now.

 

I think nobody cares for Armenians or Turks. Republicans just don't want to lose an ally and democrats want to irritate republicans. They don't care whether what happened is a genocide or not.

 

Dengo, Do not mistake the actions and reasoning of a government for how people feel. I repete something from my earlier post:

My apologies to our Turkish members for the stupidity and holier than thou actions of my government. We do not all think alike.

This was directed to members like you from Turkey. I will not discuss with someone from Turkey if the genocide occured since feelings run so high and as said before that is not the point. If you read the thread again I think you will find the posters here do care about other people. Governments make errors, this resolution is one of them IMO.