THE U.S. AND TURKEY: HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY
By Samantha Power
TIME
Oct 18 2007
A Funeral Procession For Turkish-Armenian Journalist Hrant Dink. Dink
Was Shot In Broad Daylight Outside Of His Newspaper’S Office In
Istanbul.
Kathryn Cook / Prospekt
Ninety-Two Years Ago, The "Young Turk" Regime Ordered The Executions
Of Armenian Civic Leaders And Intellectuals, And Turkish Soldiers And
Militia Forced The Armenian Population To March Into The Desert, Where
More Than A Million Died By Bayonet Or Starvation. That Horror Helped
Galvanize Raphael Lemkin, A Polish Jew, To Invent The Word Genocide,
Which Was Defined Not As The Extermination Of An Entire Group But
Rather As A Systematic Effort To Destroy A Group. Lemkin Wanted The
Term – And The International Legal Convention That Grew Out Of It –
To Encompass Ethnic Cleansing And The Murdering Of A Substantial Part
Of A Group. Otherwise, He Feared, The World Would Wait Until An Entire
Group Had Been Wiped Out Before Taking Any Action.
But this month in Washington these historical truths – about events
carried out on another continent, in another century – are igniting
controversy among politicians as if the harms were unsubstantiated,
local and recent. At stake, of course, is the question of whether
the U.S. House of Representatives should offend Turkey by passing a
resolution condemning the "Armenian genocide" of 1915.
All actors in the debate are playing the roles they have played for
decades. Turkish General Yasar Buyukanit warned that if the House
proceeds with a vote, "our military ties with the U.S. will never
be the same again." Having recognized the genocide while campaigning
for the White House, President George W. Bush nevertheless followed
in the footsteps of his Oval Office predecessors, bemoaning the
euphemistic "tragic suffering" of Armenians and wheeling out men and
women of diplomatic and military rank to argue that the resolution
would harm the indispensable U.S.-Turkish relationship. In Congress,
Representatives in districts populated by Armenians generally support
the measure, while those well cudgeled or coddled by the President
or Pentagon don’t. Official pressure has led many sponsors of the
resolution to withdraw their support.
One feature of the decades-old script is new: the Turkish threats have
greater credibility today than in the past. Mainly this is because
the U.S. war in Iraq has dramatically increased Turkish leverage over
Washington. Some 70% of U.S. air cargo en route to Iraq passes through
Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military
there. While Turkey may react negatively in the short term, recognition
of the genocide is warranted for four reasons. First, the House
resolution tells the truth, and the U.S. would be the 24th country
to officially acknowledge it. In arguing against the resolution,
Bush hasn’t dared dispute the facts. An Administration that has shown
little regard for the truth is openly urging Congress to join it in
avoiding honesty. It is inconceivable that even back in the days when
the U.S. prized West Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union,
Washington would have refrained from condemning the Holocaust at
Germany’s behest.
Second, the passage of time is only going to increase the size of
the thorn in the side of what is indeed a valuable relationship with
Turkey. Many a U.S. official (and even the occasional senior Turkish
official) admits in private to wishing the U.S. had recognized the
genocide years ago. Armenian survivors are passing away, but their
descendants have vowed to continue the struggle. The vehemence
of the Armenian diaspora is increasing, not diminishing. Third,
America’s leverage over Turkey is far greater than Turkey’s over
the U.S. The U.S. brought Turkey into NATO, built up its military
and backed its membership in the European Union. Washington granted
most-favored-nation trading status to Turkey, resulting in some $7
billion in annual trade between the two countries and $2 billion
in U.S. investments there. Only Israel and Egypt outrank Turkey
as recipients of U.S. foreign assistance. And fourth, for all the
help Turkey has given the U.S. concerning Iraq, Ankara turned down
Washington’s request to use Turkish bases to launch the Iraq invasion,
and it ignored Washington’s protests by massing 60,000 troops at
the Iraq border this month as a prelude to a widely expected attack
in Iraqi Kurdistan. In other words, while Turkey may invoke the
genocide resolution as grounds for ignoring U.S. wishes, it has a
longer history of snubbing Washington when it wants to.
Back in 1915, when Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey,
protested the atrocities to the Turkish Minister of the Interior,
the Turk was puzzled. "Why are you so interested in the Armenians
anyway?" Mehmed Talaat asked. "We treat the Americans all right."
While it is essential to ensure that Turkey continues to "treat the
Americans all right," a stable, fruitful, 21st century relationship
cannot be built on a lie.
,859 9,1672790,00.html