Tweet
Investor's Business Daily
Oct 13 2007
When Amateurs Make Foreign Policy
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 10/12/2007
Justice: Of course, it's right to recognize the wrong that the former
Ottoman Empire did to the millions of Armenians it slaughtered and
deported from 1915 and 1922. That said, does Congress have to
recognize it now?
The answer is no. The country that was formed following the Ottoman
Empire's collapse in 1922, Turkey, is today a stable, democratic and
secular country - and an ally of the U.S. and Europe. Believe it or
not, after ours its army is the second-largest in the NATO alliance -
bigger than Britain's, France's or Germany's.
More importantly, it straddles a swath of what may be the most
strategically important piece of land in the world.
Turkey is situated in both Europe and Asia Minor, guards the oil-
rich and strategically vital Black Sea, dominates the back end of the
Mediterranean, and shares borders and geography with some of the most
troubled spots in the world. These include Iraq, Syria, Iran, the
former Soviet Union and parts of Eastern Europe.
How puzzling, then, that the Democrat-led House Foreign Affairs
Committee would choose this time to push through a resolution
recognizing as genocide the murder of an estimated 1.5 million
Armenians at the end of the first World War. We hope the rest of
Congress - House and Senate alike - pass on the chance to vote on it.
Today's Turkey, founded on the ashes of the Ottomans, didn't commit
these crimes. We wonder: Will Congress now also condemn our own
government for genocide against the American Indians?
We fail to see what good comes of this. But it's easy to see the bad.
To repeat: Turkey is an ally - though an imperfect one. Recently, it
has been angered by hit-and-run attacks staged from Kurdistan in
northern Iraq (a fifth of Turkey's population is Kurdish, and it
adamantly opposes the creation of an independent Kurdistan on its
border). It has threatened to invade Iraq repeatedly, only to be
talked out of it by the U.S.
Now, after it recalled its ambassador following the committee's
action, will Turkey continue to show patience? Maybe not. We hope
Democrat Tom Lantos, who heads the foreign affairs panel and who
pushed H.R. 106, remembers this. The blood's on his hands.
Don't get us wrong. We think Turkey should have recognized its acts a
long time ago. And the U.S. is only one of a number of democracies
that have already recognized the killings as genocide. Others include
Argentina, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, France, Greece, the European
Parliament, Lithuania, Slovakia and Switzerland.
But the timing of this resolution simply stinks, and we're made to
wonder if this isn't some Democrats' way of making President Bush's
Middle East policy even harder to implement.
Americans might not realize it, but Turkey is strategically
indispensable. About 70% of our flights into Iraq come from our
Turkish base at Incirlik. About 30% of our fuel comes from there.
Our ability to base in Turkey gives the U.S. and NATO reach far
beyond our borders. A carelessly delivered diplomatic slap to the
face of a key American ally - the Turks see the resolution as
undermining the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
elected to a second term only in July - can hardly be helpful.
(By the way, this isn't the first time Congress has done this. It
voted on similar resolutions in 1975 and in 1984. We're already on
the record.)
Turkey struggled to create a modern identity for much of the 20th
century, and continues to do so today. At great political cost, it
has turned itself toward the West - building a modern, secular and
democratic state in a region not known for any of those things. It
has undergone wrenching but necessary change over the last decade in
an effort to join the European Union.
But its 71 million people, let's not forget, are still mostly
Islamic, and the same forces at work in the rest of the Middle East,
namely Islamic fundamentalism, are at work there. The committee's
vote didn't help that one bit, and will only give the extremists more
fodder.
No wonder Turkey is furious - talking even of shutting down Incirlik,
which would cost the U.S. war effort in Iraq dearly and could even
delay what appears to be a likely victory there.
This is where the Democrats' foreign-policy meddling and incompetence
will get us: echoes of Jimmy Carter, who embarked on a
badly-thought-out human rights campaign as the Soviet Union gobbled
up more territory around the world.
Democrats style themselves as highly intellectual, nuanced global
thinkers. But both in Congress and on the campaign trail they've
shown themselves to be a bunch of bumbling, foreign-policy-challenged
amateurs. Is this the best they can do?
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorial content.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=2 77080878934600
Oct 13 2007
When Amateurs Make Foreign Policy
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 10/12/2007
Justice: Of course, it's right to recognize the wrong that the former
Ottoman Empire did to the millions of Armenians it slaughtered and
deported from 1915 and 1922. That said, does Congress have to
recognize it now?
The answer is no. The country that was formed following the Ottoman
Empire's collapse in 1922, Turkey, is today a stable, democratic and
secular country - and an ally of the U.S. and Europe. Believe it or
not, after ours its army is the second-largest in the NATO alliance -
bigger than Britain's, France's or Germany's.
More importantly, it straddles a swath of what may be the most
strategically important piece of land in the world.
Turkey is situated in both Europe and Asia Minor, guards the oil-
rich and strategically vital Black Sea, dominates the back end of the
Mediterranean, and shares borders and geography with some of the most
troubled spots in the world. These include Iraq, Syria, Iran, the
former Soviet Union and parts of Eastern Europe.
How puzzling, then, that the Democrat-led House Foreign Affairs
Committee would choose this time to push through a resolution
recognizing as genocide the murder of an estimated 1.5 million
Armenians at the end of the first World War. We hope the rest of
Congress - House and Senate alike - pass on the chance to vote on it.
Today's Turkey, founded on the ashes of the Ottomans, didn't commit
these crimes. We wonder: Will Congress now also condemn our own
government for genocide against the American Indians?
We fail to see what good comes of this. But it's easy to see the bad.
To repeat: Turkey is an ally - though an imperfect one. Recently, it
has been angered by hit-and-run attacks staged from Kurdistan in
northern Iraq (a fifth of Turkey's population is Kurdish, and it
adamantly opposes the creation of an independent Kurdistan on its
border). It has threatened to invade Iraq repeatedly, only to be
talked out of it by the U.S.
Now, after it recalled its ambassador following the committee's
action, will Turkey continue to show patience? Maybe not. We hope
Democrat Tom Lantos, who heads the foreign affairs panel and who
pushed H.R. 106, remembers this. The blood's on his hands.
Don't get us wrong. We think Turkey should have recognized its acts a
long time ago. And the U.S. is only one of a number of democracies
that have already recognized the killings as genocide. Others include
Argentina, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, France, Greece, the European
Parliament, Lithuania, Slovakia and Switzerland.
But the timing of this resolution simply stinks, and we're made to
wonder if this isn't some Democrats' way of making President Bush's
Middle East policy even harder to implement.
Americans might not realize it, but Turkey is strategically
indispensable. About 70% of our flights into Iraq come from our
Turkish base at Incirlik. About 30% of our fuel comes from there.
Our ability to base in Turkey gives the U.S. and NATO reach far
beyond our borders. A carelessly delivered diplomatic slap to the
face of a key American ally - the Turks see the resolution as
undermining the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
elected to a second term only in July - can hardly be helpful.
(By the way, this isn't the first time Congress has done this. It
voted on similar resolutions in 1975 and in 1984. We're already on
the record.)
Turkey struggled to create a modern identity for much of the 20th
century, and continues to do so today. At great political cost, it
has turned itself toward the West - building a modern, secular and
democratic state in a region not known for any of those things. It
has undergone wrenching but necessary change over the last decade in
an effort to join the European Union.
But its 71 million people, let's not forget, are still mostly
Islamic, and the same forces at work in the rest of the Middle East,
namely Islamic fundamentalism, are at work there. The committee's
vote didn't help that one bit, and will only give the extremists more
fodder.
No wonder Turkey is furious - talking even of shutting down Incirlik,
which would cost the U.S. war effort in Iraq dearly and could even
delay what appears to be a likely victory there.
This is where the Democrats' foreign-policy meddling and incompetence
will get us: echoes of Jimmy Carter, who embarked on a
badly-thought-out human rights campaign as the Soviet Union gobbled
up more territory around the world.
Democrats style themselves as highly intellectual, nuanced global
thinkers. But both in Congress and on the campaign trail they've
shown themselves to be a bunch of bumbling, foreign-policy-challenged
amateurs. Is this the best they can do?
http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorial content.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=2 77080878934600