Let us review the reasons for calling something "genocide". There are two, as I understand it. One, is to accurately label an event for historical perspective. Okay, this has been done by historians worldwide in the case of the Armenian Genocide, and no act of Congress is requried. Two, is to enact the label to authorize certain uses of force by the USA and the UN to stop a genocide. This is irrelevant to the current situation, because the genocide has been over and done with for almost a century now. Taking this into account, I do not understand the push at this time to take this historic step. Unless it is a Congress that is desperately looking for any "progress" to bring home for the election season to justify their existence over the last year.
I am ready to be proven wrong on this - I had an Armenian friend a few years back who introduced me to this subject and taught me a lot. But it just looks like grandstanding to me, at exactly the wrong time.
I don't think the Dems are this devious - not to mention smart - but a thought that has gone through my head is this. The Dems know that we cannot effectively win the Iraq war with out the aid of Turkey, both in the use of their air space as well as our bases actually in Turkey and without them resisting the urge to wipe the Kurds off the face of the planet. What if the Dems are pushing this through knowing that Turkey will take umbrage at this move and thus pull out of the alliance with the US, specifically with the Iraq war. So, if Turkey pulls out it means we need to back off significantly in Iraq because we can't support the war in the same way as we could with Turkey's support. So, this could essentially be seen as stabbing the pro-war movement in the back by causing our ability to fight this war to be severely hampered.
YanıtlaSilLike I said, I don't think the Dems are this devious and I'd hate to think that anyone would do this, but hey there are a lot of things done on the left that leave me speechless. Plus I know that this is way out there.
Actually, that's a type of move I could see either side doing to get ahead, especially in a "desperate" situation. Of course, this would mean the democrats would have to claim that they ended the war by offending Turkey, which is not something I'm sure they'd want to do.
YanıtlaSilIf supply lines to our troops are hampered by this or other consequences -intended or unintended- are involved, more troops (American or others) may die because of this move as well.
YanıtlaSilA bad, irresponsible move by the Democrats.
Congress should have left this alone. I don't want to sound like Ron Paul but...There is no National interest in this resolution. It is at least a big waste of time. And could do long term damage to our relationship with Turkey.
YanıtlaSil