ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Next, do we condemn ourselves?
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is getting beat up from all sides for her “present” vote on the Armenian genocide resolution (“Armenians disappointed in Omar on genocide vote,” Oct. 30). Regardless of her motivations for so voting, maybe there’s some real wisdom for refusing to take a stand on this.
As horrible as the (century ago) killing of 1.5 million Armenians was, it is just one of numerous genocide/democide events in modern history. I don’t know that Congress has condemned other genocides with similar resolutions.
Before we so righteously condemn Turkey for this atrocious act (which, by the way, occurred before Turkey was Turkey), we should look at ourselves and contemplate our own record. We killed off most of the American Indian population as we stole its land. We played the central role in the much more recent killing of around 2 million civilians in the Vietnam War and, incidentally, poisoned the land there with Agent Orange. The war we started under false pretenses in Iraq killed hundreds of thousands and only succeeded in replacing a bad, corrupt, stable Iraqi government with another bad, corrupt, but unstable government, all while ruining Iraq’s economy and further destabilizing the entire Mideast. And all while squandering trillions of dollars.
We are obviously using the genocide resolution as a political lever to bash Turkey for taking advantage of President Donald Trump’s recent blunder in Syria. Maybe Omar thinks we don’t hold the moral high ground from which to condemn Turkey. Maybe she’s right.
Lewis Wolf, Bloomington
