LED ASTRAY: PUSHING THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION THROUGH CONGRESS IS A RECKLESS ACT THAT REFLECTS THE CORRUPTION OF THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM
Stephen Kinzer
The Guardian, UK
Oct 16 2007
About Webfeeds October 16, 2007 10:00 AM | Printable version Last
year’s Pulitzer prize for non-fiction was awarded to a devastating book
called Imperial Reckoning. It is a triumph of historical research that
accuses Britain of having committed genocide in Kenya during the 1950s.
Will the United States Congress endorse this claim and pass a
resolution condemning Britain? Of course not. Congress is not
equipped to make such judgments. More important, that is not the job
of Congress. It exists to make laws, no to condemn evil-doers from
past centuries.
There is another reason why Congress will never condemn the British
for killing hundreds of thousands of Kenyans, and for what Imperial
Reckoning calls "their campaign of terror, dehumanizing torture and
genocide." Kenyans in the United States do not have a powerful lobby
that wins influence in Washington by channeling millions of dollars
into election campaigns.
That is not the case with Armenian-Americans. After years of
intense effort, they have persuaded the house committee on foreign
affairs to approve a resolution declaring that Turks were guilty of
genocide against Armenians in eastern Anatolia during the spring of
1915. The speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, has pledged to bring
this resolution to a vote by the full House, where it will almost
certainly pass. In doing so, she satisfies the wealthy Armenian
community in her home state of California.
She also commits a reckless act that reflects the deep corruption
of the American political system – and does no good for Armenia
or Armenians.
Passage of this resolution will set off another wave of anti-American
sentiment in Turkey, a Nato ally that happens to be the most democratic
Muslim country in the world. Worst of all, it will intensify hatred
between Turks and Armenians, two peoples who need to build bridges
to a common future, not consume themselves in recriminations stemming
from atrocities of a century ago.
In considering the resolution that accuses Turks of genocide, thereby
placing them on a level with Nazis, members of Congress must answer
two questions.
First is whether the slaughter of Armenians in 1915 constitutes
genocide. That depends on one’s definition of genocide. The United
Nations, in a treaty approved in 1948 and ratified by more than 120
countries, accepts a sweeping definition in which the murder of a
single person, or even causing "mental harm" to a single person, can
constitute genocide. Neither this treaty nor the UN existed in 1915,
but by its definition, the Ottoman campaign against Armenians, in which
hundreds of thousands perished, almost certainly constitutes genocide.
For years the Turkish authorities have sought to deny the truth
of what happened in 1915. Their campaign of denial is a shameful
blot on Turkey’s national conscience. A complex matrix of fear and
mendacity lies behind it. That, however, is no excuse. Armenia’s
official narrative of what happened in 1915 is largely true. Turkey’s
official narrative is largely false.
The second and more fundamental question Congress must consider is
whether it should make decisions about which powers from past centuries
were genocidal and which were not. If the job of Congress is to respond
to political pressure, it should embrace this resolution. If it wants
to contribute to peace among nations, it should not.
Passing this resolution would place a moral obligation on Congress
to decide whether Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Russia, Serbia,
Spain, Portugal, Cambodia and China are guilty of genocide – not to
mention the United States itself, which was built on piles of native
American and African bones. Few members of Congress, however, reflect
on such abstract concepts as moral obligation.
Turkey’s position on this issue is wrong. So, however, is the
position of the Armenian-American lobby. It seems uninterested in
reconciliation. The resolution for which it has worked so hard, and
paid so much money, is producing exactly the results it seeks. It
undermines efforts at reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, and
also weakens the Turkish-American alliance that is one of the few
points of light in the dark relationship between today’s Christian
west and the Muslim world.
Armenians whose ancestors perished at the hands of Ottoman Turks
in 1915 deserve truth. They deserve an apology. Most importantly,
they deserve advocates who will ensure that their legacy is not only
honored, but also lends itself to the peace for which many of them
have vainly hoped for decades.
If Pelosi and her comrades in Washington cared to go beyond rhetoric,
expediency and the lust for campaign contributions, they would be
seeking to promote the urgently important process of Turkish-Armenian
reconciliation. Instead they have chosen to take a lamentable and
revoltingly cynical political step.
What the foreign affairs committee did on October 10 has already
led Turkey to withdraw its ambassador from Washington. It may lead
Turkey’s parliament to forbid the US army from continuing to use
the air base in southern Turkey from which huge amounts of supplies
are shipped every day to American soldiers in neighboring Iraq. That,
and the fueling of anti-Americanism in Turkey, may weaken the national
security of the United States.
Taking steps that have such an effect is not always wrong. All
should rejoice when even the slightest hint of morality penetrates
the brutally cynical word of pay-to-play Washington politics. This,
however, is not a case of morality against realpolitik. It is another
depressing confirmation that Congress – as personified by Pelosi –
leaps to grasp temporary political advantage and inflame world tensions
when it should be trying to calm passions and promote reconciliation.
uk/stephen_kinzer/2007/10/reckless_nancy_pelosi.ht ml
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress