Turkey and the Armenian Genocide

I want to be 100% clear. I believe that what happened in Turkey during World War 1 against the Armenian people constitutes a genocide. Pure and simple. However, I have to question the motives of the Democrats in Congress who recently pushed thru a Bill to formally state it so. It has lead Turkey to recall its ambassador and is destabilizing an important relationship at this stage in the Iraq War. An ally especially important if we eventually want to withdraw troops, since our transport planes would need to use their airspace.

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.