THIS? NOW?

Fort Worth Star Telegram, TX
Star-Telegram
Oct 17 2007

In 1915, the Ottoman Empire committed genocide.

It’s true whether modern Turks admit it or not. It’s true whether
Congress passes a resolution saying so or not.

So why did the Democrat-dominated House Foreign Affairs Committee
think that Oct. 10 was the best time to pass a nonbinding resolution
declaring that the deportation of nearly 2 million Armenians from the
Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 was "systematic" and "deliberate,"
amounting to "genocide"? The deportations led to the deaths of an
estimated 1.5 million Armenians.

What also is true is that Turkey is one of the few U.S. allies in a
part of the world that doesn’t need more complicating factors.

House Democrats — led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and undeterred by
requests from the White House, the State Department and the Defense
Department to drop the matter — are continuing their efforts to have
the resolution come to a full vote of the House. They’re apparently
oblivious to the potential negative effect that this could have on
U.S. troops in Iraq.

It renders hollow Pelosi’s oft-repeated pledge to provide the support
that U.S. troops need in this difficult and dangerous time. Has
the speaker forgotten that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo and about
one-third of the fuel headed for Iraq passes over or through Turkey?

Turkey is battling militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party, or
PKK, which reportedly uses terrorist tactics during cross-border
attacks. Turkey’s response thus far has been limited, but its
parliament might consider a motion to approve incursions into northern
Iraq as early as this week.

Keeping the Turkish army from pursuing the PKK across the Iraq border
has been high on the U.S. list of priorities for not making a bad
situation worse.

Basic diplomacy dictates that one doesn’t smack the party across the
table in the head at the same time that one is attempting to get that
party to act reasonably.

With so many major issues facing this Congress, not the least of
which are passing budgets and overriding the president’s veto of
the bill reauthorizing the Children’s Health Insurance Program,
this resolution is a waste of time and political capital.

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