The Conservative Voice, NC
Oct 20 2007
Turkish Temper Tantrum
October 20, 2007 01:00 PM EST
by Craig Chamberlain
If the Armenian genocide of 1915 wasn’t a genocide then why are the
Turks so enraged whenever the subject comes up? Yes, it’s true that
the massacre happened during a time of war and that some Turks lost
their lives. But the campaign was nothing more than an attempt by the
failing Ottoman government to wipe out the Armenians. After all they
weren’t Turks and they weren’t Muslims so why have them around.
Not that the Armenians were the first victims of Turkish agression.
For over a century the Turks ruled and brutalized the Balkans, with
acts of violence and forcibly taking Christian children from their
homes and making them Janisarries in the Ottoman army. (Now all of
that is in the past, although if Erdogan has his way the old Turkey
might emerge again.)The Greeks who had been living in Asia minor
since the bronze age were forcibly expelled by the Turks after world
war one. The Kurds had every shred of the culture buried by the
Turks(the Turks went so far as to deny that they Kurds even existed,
referring to them as "mountain Turks).
In the old days the Turks targeted their victims for religious
reasons. Non Muslims were the victims of their violence. After the
rise of Ataturk Jihad was replaced by Turkish Chauvinism. Now Turkey
is trying to combine the two. Erdogan is trying to create a new
Islamism at home and nationalism abroad.
That being said Congress has better things to do. If they want to
deal with genocide why not deal with the situation in Darfur, which
is ongoing, instead of talking about something that happened in 1915?
The answer is that Congress likes grandstanding and chest thumping,
they just don’t like to take any action.
Instead all they do is agitate a very touchy country, a country that
already wants to invade Iraq so they can launch a new campaign
against the Kurds(if Erdogan has his way he’ll turn the hunt for a
few PKK rebels into a new genocide) though it seems after Erdogan has
gotten to rattle the saber he’s backing down. The situation in Iraq
is still dangerous, even after the success of the surge, and we
couldn’t have allowed the Turks to invade the Kurdish region which
happens to be the most stable part of Iraq.
As allies the Turks are valuable, but not irreplaceable. Under
Erdogan relations have gotten worse from cool to downright frozen.
Still it would be in the interests of the United States to keep the
Turks on our side. Congress should abandon the resolution, there’s
nothing that can be done about it. If they want to stop violence let
them stop something that’s still ongoing. The Turks are going to be
Turks no matter how Congress votes.
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