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STAY OUT OF THIS DISPUTE: NO REASON TO ANTAGONIZE TURKEY
Chicago Sun-Times,IL
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commenta ry/616773,CST-EDT-edit24a.article
Oct 24 2007
This is a momentous week for the local Armenian community. The
Armenian pontiff, Karekin II, arrived in Chicago on Tuesday for his
first visit to these parts. His monthlong American tour is timely:
Leading House Democrats are pushing to pass a resolution in which
the United States would denounce as genocide the mass killings of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the World War I era.
It's one thing for this country to apologize for moral missteps in its
own past, such as slavery and the internment of Japanese Americans
during World War II. But getting involved in this bitter, endless
dispute, which originated on another continent nearly 100 years ago,
would put the United States in the position of criticizing another
government over a conflict in which our government played no role.
More crucially, it would create serious problems for us in Iraq
by antagonizing Turkey, one of our key allies in the Mideast. The
resolution has been around in various forms for years. Why in the world
would House Speaker Nancy Pelosi choose this moment to make a case
for making such a divisive proclamation? Chances for the resolution's
passage have gone from good to bad after Turkey's angry response to it.
The United States can and should acknowledge that the killing
and torture of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923
was genocide, as an expression of sympathy and understanding to
Armenians. Such a statement would be emblematic of our vigorous support
for human rights. But formalizing that stance serves no purpose.
When the United States pushed early this year for a United Nations
resolution to recognize the Holocaust, an atrocity that has deep
personal relevance to millions of Americans, it was in response
to a campaign by Iran to deny those horrors. When President Bush
characterized the mass killings in Darfur as genocide, he was trying
to spur efforts to stop the slayings. The resolution on the Armenian
massacres wouldn't achieve anything except to become a self-inflicted
thorn in U.S. foreign policy.
Turkey intimated that it would close off crucial air and land supply
lines into Iraq to U.S. troops and stop cooperating in other ways with
the U.S. war effort if the resolution passed. That response took on
unsettling meaning this week when Turkey threatened to send troops
into northern Iraq after Kurdish militants hiding there killed 12
Turkish soldiers.
The last thing the United States needs as it struggles to stabilize
Iraq is for Turkey to turn the only calm area in that country into a
battleground -- a scenario that could play out if it loses diplomatic
influence because of resentment over the ill-timed genocide accusation.
We should never kowtow to a country that is so offended by the mere
suggestion that a massacre occurred that it has made it a crime to
use the "g" word. But neither should Turkey interpret our lack of
formal condemnation as an endorsement of its version of history.
Chicago Sun-Times,IL
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commenta ry/616773,CST-EDT-edit24a.article
Oct 24 2007
This is a momentous week for the local Armenian community. The
Armenian pontiff, Karekin II, arrived in Chicago on Tuesday for his
first visit to these parts. His monthlong American tour is timely:
Leading House Democrats are pushing to pass a resolution in which
the United States would denounce as genocide the mass killings of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the World War I era.
It's one thing for this country to apologize for moral missteps in its
own past, such as slavery and the internment of Japanese Americans
during World War II. But getting involved in this bitter, endless
dispute, which originated on another continent nearly 100 years ago,
would put the United States in the position of criticizing another
government over a conflict in which our government played no role.
More crucially, it would create serious problems for us in Iraq
by antagonizing Turkey, one of our key allies in the Mideast. The
resolution has been around in various forms for years. Why in the world
would House Speaker Nancy Pelosi choose this moment to make a case
for making such a divisive proclamation? Chances for the resolution's
passage have gone from good to bad after Turkey's angry response to it.
The United States can and should acknowledge that the killing
and torture of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923
was genocide, as an expression of sympathy and understanding to
Armenians. Such a statement would be emblematic of our vigorous support
for human rights. But formalizing that stance serves no purpose.
When the United States pushed early this year for a United Nations
resolution to recognize the Holocaust, an atrocity that has deep
personal relevance to millions of Americans, it was in response
to a campaign by Iran to deny those horrors. When President Bush
characterized the mass killings in Darfur as genocide, he was trying
to spur efforts to stop the slayings. The resolution on the Armenian
massacres wouldn't achieve anything except to become a self-inflicted
thorn in U.S. foreign policy.
Turkey intimated that it would close off crucial air and land supply
lines into Iraq to U.S. troops and stop cooperating in other ways with
the U.S. war effort if the resolution passed. That response took on
unsettling meaning this week when Turkey threatened to send troops
into northern Iraq after Kurdish militants hiding there killed 12
Turkish soldiers.
The last thing the United States needs as it struggles to stabilize
Iraq is for Turkey to turn the only calm area in that country into a
battleground -- a scenario that could play out if it loses diplomatic
influence because of resentment over the ill-timed genocide accusation.
We should never kowtow to a country that is so offended by the mere
suggestion that a massacre occurred that it has made it a crime to
use the "g" word. But neither should Turkey interpret our lack of
formal condemnation as an endorsement of its version of history.