The Democrats, Iraq, and Turkey

Why now?

Why 90 years after the fact would Democrats demand a resolution condemning the Armenian genocide from 1915 to 1917?

From AFP:

Top US Democrats Sunday brushed off Turkish fury and vowed to press ahead with an Armenian "genocide" bill, insisting that bloodshed today demanded a righting of past wrongs.

But Republicans accused the party in control of Congress of waging an "irresponsible" campaign of dubious historical validity that would hurt US troops in Iraq.

House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said possible reprisals affecting Turkey's cooperation with the US military were "hypothetical" and would not derail the resolution.

"I said if it passed the committee that we would bring it to the floor," she said on ABC television after the House foreign affairs committee last week branded the Ottoman Empire's World War I massacre of Armenians a genocide.

"Genocide still exists, and we saw it in Rwanda; we see it now in Darfur," Pelosi said.


"Some of the things that are harmful to our troops relate to values -- Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture. All of those issues (are) about who we are as a country," she added.

According to Armenians, at least 1.5 million Armenians were killed from 1915 to 1917 under an Ottoman Empire campaign of deportation and murder. Turkey bitterly disputes the number of dead and the characterization of "genocide."

The bill is likely to come up in the full House in November. Although the resolution is only symbolic, Turkey recalled its ambassador to Washington last week and has called off visits to the United States by at least two of its officials.

The angry reaction has fueled fears within the US administration that it could lose access to a military base in NATO ally Turkey that provides a crucial staging ground for US supplies headed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Two top US officials, one each from the state and defense departments, are now in Turkey to try to cool the diplomatic row.

"We are certainly working to try to minimize any concrete steps the government might take (such as) restricting the movement of our troops," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday in Moscow.

Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates lobbied hard against the genocide resolution, and the administration says it will keep up its effort to forestall a vote in the full House of Representatives.

US-Turkish military ties "will never be the same again" if the House confirms the committee vote, Turkey's military chief General Yasar Buyukanit told the daily Milliyet on Sunday.

The timing of this is unreal.

The Democrats are being inexcusably and intentionally irresponsible. I can't interpret this as anything other than a calculated effort to stir up a hornet's nest.

Anything to undermine the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. Anything to score political points with the fringe base.

What's unforgivable is that the Dems don't seem to care about the impact this could have on the troops.

The resolution is a roundabout way to cut off supplies to our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's sick.

There are occasions when the poisonous political climate and the divisions in my country really depress me.

This is one of those times.