reply to sara

Submitted by Doc Tater (United States), Oct 29, 2007 at 12:45

Actually, sara, the Turks deny that the Ottomans slaughtered the Armenians. The Turks either say it didn't happen at all, or say that it was perpetrated by somebody else like the Germans. Erdogan's Islamist party would like to make believe that their religious and ideological ancestors, the Ottomans, were part of a big religion of peace and love, so they can make a strong bid for increased participation in the EU, and the inconvenient truth of the Armenian genocide runs contrary to their current propaganda initiatives.

Your passion and patriotic fervor are to be applauded, and I welcome you to the discussion.

Yes, timing is an issue, but this bill has been lying around, waiting to be addressed for months while it went through committees and finally got passed by the Senate. Now it's in the House, and the Turks are just using this opportunity to claim they're offended and try to use rhetoric to jerk us around polticially and make room for them to swoop into Kurdistan. The timing issue arises now, sara, because Erdogan's Islamist party just got control of parliament and claimed the second of the two top executive offices this summer, and successfully grabbing territory in Iraqi Kurdistan now would bolster their political support in Turkey.

I really don't think that bringing this bill up for review in the House, now, is a brazen attempt by the Democrats to undermine our war for survival against Islamofascists engaged in the global jihad. Democrats are not that deceptive, and you're proposing a high-IQ gambit they're simply not capable of. I can see why you might think that, though, since Democrats are actively engaged in many such brazen undermining strategies, due mainly to the fact that Democrats rely on an African-American voting base in elections they are determined to win in the next 2 years, and their strength is in and near urban areas. The largest number of home-grown American Muslims is in the African-American community, so Democrats avoid any posture that might be seen as hostile to Muslims to avoid raising the ire the African-American community.

Any Democrat who uses the words "Islamic" or "Muslim" in the same sentence with the words "jihad" or "terrorism" can expect to face the screeching criticism of John Conyers, Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, Keith Ellison, and Cynthia McKinney, among a host of others in the Black Caucus, all making accusations of racism, etc. The largest number of imported Muslims in the US is in and near the urban areas (think New York and suburban New Jersey, Northern Virginia, Minneapolis- St. Paul, Detroit, LA, Knoxville, etc.)

Of course I understand the role of Turkey in the current and recent Middle East history: as soon as Erdogan's Islamist party gained power, the US could no longer stage offensive forces in Turkey, which is why Gulf War II couldn't involve US forces staging from Turkey as they had in Gulf War I. Turkey was, but is no longer, on a somewhat functionally communicating relationship with both the US and Israel, UNTIL Erdogan's Islamists gained influence in Turkey in the 1990's and early 2000's.

The US media exaggerates the extent to which Turkey supports the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently, and fails to mention that Turkey has withdrawn support for US actions in the Middle East throughout the entire course of Gulf War II. I think turkey has sat on the sidelines throughout Gulf War II for the primary purpose of being able to launch a land-grabbing initiative, precisely like they're doing right now, and I've said that since we first started moving into Afghanistan. Turkey anticipated the inevitable splintering of Iraqi lands under a weak and incompetent post-Hussein Iraqi government. Iran and Syria and Jordan and Suadi Arabia anticipated it, too. They're all poised and planning their moves, just like players in a big, slow 9-sided chess game.

What Turkey wants, sara, is to swoop into Iraqi Kurdistan, slaughter every Kurd they run into, occupy that oil-rich territory, and begin the splintering of Iraq by re-staking their claim to that territory, WHICH THEY'VE CLAIMED SINCE BEFORE THE END OF WW I, AND WHICH THEY NOW SEE AN OPPORTUNITY TO DEFEND WITH MILITARY FORCE BECAUSE AMERICAN POLITICAL SUPPORT FOR MILITARY ACTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST IS AT A LOW POINT. Grabbing that territory would also give Turkey a strategic advantage because it would make it harder for Iran to swoop in and grab territory and natural resources in Iraq, which Iran has wanted to do, and tried to do, for decades.

So, all together, acknowledging the Turkish Armenian Genocide sets the record straight: Muslim Turks slaughtered a hundred thousand Armenians, or maybe two hundred thousand Armenians, because they weren't Muslim. Today, another batch of Muslim Turks doesn't like having the finger pointed at them, when they're on the verge of ramping up a Kurdish genocide.

If Turkey wants to yap and carry on about it, the yapping shouldn't influence our sovereign government's legislative agenda for a second. Let them yap and jabber. We should not assume we're wrong every time some politician in another country makes painful noises.

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