GENOCIDAL TENDENCIES
By: K.C. Cody, [email protected].
The California Aggie Online, CA
age/paper981/news/2007/10/25/Opinion/Genocidal.Ten dencies-3056229.shtml
Oct 25 2007
I’m pissed off. I’m pissed off for a lot of reasons, but right now I’m
pissed off about genocide. Genocide is totally lame. It’s so lame,
in fact, that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted 27-21
last week on House Resolution 106 (H.R. 106), condemning Turkey’s
genocide of Armenians at the end of World War I. Body counts range
from 300,000 to 1.5 million, but basically between 1914 and 1920,
you didn’t want to be an Armenian in Istanbul.
The resolution’s content is all well and good, but it’s timing sucks.
Turkey isn’t too pleased about it, and that’s an issue. Seventy percent
of the cargo and 30 percent of the fuel we fly into Iraq goes through
Turkey, and it would be nice if we could keep that going.
Don’t get me wrong, the fact that the U.S. hasn’t already recognized
the Armenian Genocide is shameful; it’s about time we got around to
it. But now? Come on. This is not the time to suddenly discover our
moral fiber regarding events from nearly a century ago.
But what pisses me off about this stunt has nothing to do with Turkey,
Iraq or Armenians. If we’re going to recognize and condemn a genocide,
let’s start at home. Remember all those Native Americans who used
to live here? Yeah, me either, because they all got killed 300 years
ago by white guys like me.
If you want to talk genocide, let’s talk about the fact that over 80
percent of Native Americans died between 1492 and 1650. Let’s talk
about Manifest Destiny, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and massacres
like Wounded Knee. Let’s talk about Joint Resolution 4 (S.J.R. 4),
which would "acknowledge a long history of official depredations
and ill-conceived policies by the United States government regarding
Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of
the United States." While certainly not an admission of genocide,
it’s a start. Of course, that bill is No. 202 on a list of 423
"General Orders" before the Senate, which means it’ll likely get
about as much attention from Congress as I give my exes.
But enough of the past. There’s a genocide in Darfur that we could
actually do something about. Representative Barny Frank (D-Mass.),
a supporter of H.R. 106, has said, "It’s important to commemorate
genocides that have happened as a way of trying to diminish the
likelihood of them occurring again." It is in that spirit that he,
and all but one of his colleagues (Ron Paul), voted yes on H.R. 180,
the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act of 2007.
On the surface it seems Mr. Frank is putting his money where his
mouth is – condemning a past injustice while acting against a current
one. But looking closer, all H.R. 180 really does is "establish a
federal list of companies … that do business in certain sectors of
the Sudanese economy, … [enabling] mutual fund and corporate pension
fund managers to cut ties with these listed companies if they choose
to do so." Basically, it’s optional.
Frank’s claim that the passage of H.R. 106 would "diminish the
likelihood of [genocides] occurring again," rings terribly hollow when
he and the rest of Congress are too cowardly to commit to decisive
action in Darfur. In a sick twist, House Speaker Nanci Pelosi
(D-Calif.) has even invoked Darfur to support H.R. 106, saying,
"While [the Armenian Genocide] may have been a long time ago,
genocide is taking place now in Darfur, … so as long as there is
genocide there is need to speak out against it." So the message is,
when a group of human beings is being systematically slaughtered,
you can count on America … to talk about it.
Mr. Frank and Mrs. Pelosi, along with President George W. Bush (he
is The Decider after all), are demonstrating the kind of crippled
morality and spineless political pandering that so often characterizes
U.S. policy towards genuine humanitarian crises.
They’re more concerned with the "official" stance of the government on
something 90 years behind us than they are about the more than 400,000
dead and 2 million displaced in Sudan today. And that pisses me off.