Investor’s Business Daily
October 17, 2007 Wednesday
NATIONAL EDITION
Pelosi’s Premium
Politics: Congress’ foolish move to declare the massacre of Armenians
by the Ottoman Empire a genocide will have an impact far beyond
politics. It affects you — both in your pocketbook and in your secur
No question, Armenians have a right to seek recognition of their
people’s suffering. The Ottoman Turks slaughtered an estimated 1.5
million Armenians in one of the largest ethnic cleansing operations
ever, lasting roughly from 1915 to 1923. It sure seems like genocide
to us — or at least something very much akin to that odious
practice.
But congressional Democrats weren’t interested in justice when they
voted on this resolution. They had political mischief in mind.
Those who pushed the resolution saw a chance to pander to an
aggrieved but well-heeled group — Armenian-Americans — while
damaging U.S. ties with Turkey, a key ally in the war on terror.
For Democrats, what could be better? Shore up their Armenian-American
support at home, while making it harder for President Bush to win in
Iraq — a war Democrats have come to loathe, even though they voted
for it. Win-win, as political strategists like to say.
Yet what they actually did was stab U.S. troops in Iraq in the back,
forcing the military to scramble to find new ways to supply our
soldiers in case the Turks, as threatened, close our base at
Incirlik. (More than two-thirds of our Iraq supplies go through that
base.)
Not content to merely to make our soldiers’ lives more difficult and
risky, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her allies have helped create a
sharp spike in crude oil prices.
After Turkey’s government warned on Oct. 7 that the declaration on
Armenian genocide might damage U.S.-Turkey ties, the price of oil
jumped from $79.03 a barrel to $87.61 Tuesday, a gain of 11%, or
nearly $9 a barrel, in a little over a week.
The Democrats’ move, blamed by oil traders for the upsurge in crude,
has increased our monthly national oil bill by roughly $3.53 billion
at current import rates. That’s about $42 billion a year. Call it the
Stupidity Tax.
Hit hardest will be the poor. A fuel tax is regressive, meaning it
falls heaviest on those at the bottom. We’re surprised we’ve not seen
this levy dissected in detail by the mainstream media. But they’ve
gone strangely quiet.
Who knows if oil will continue to rise following the Democrats’
attempt to hijack foreign policy? It could trigger a recession — one
the Democrats and the left-leaning media would blame on Bush.
So as you pull up to the gas pump and watch the digits rise ever
higher, please avoid cursing OPEC’s potentates or China or Hugo
Chavez or whatever. This time, you’ve paid the Pelosi Premium.
Worse than oil prices, though, are the Pelosi Democrats’ intentional
damage to our Iraq War effort. Her party doesn’t have the courage to
end the war by defunding it, which it could do. Instead, it’s
creating chaos in the Middle East, where Turkey has threatened to
send forces into Iraq to pursue Kurdish guerrillas.
On Tuesday, the head of Turkey’s parliament warned Pelosi that "it
might take decades to heal negative effects of the bill if it
passes." Pelosi knows that neither the current government nor any
citizens of modern Turkey committed the atrocities against the
Armenians. She also knows the horrible timing of the genocide
resolution means big trouble for the U.S. Yet she doesn’t care.
Well, we do; so should you. Successful democracy depends on goodwill
from both sides of the debate. That’s now in short supply, at least
for one party. ity.