Democrats split on Armenian genocide resolution

Democrats split on genocide resolution
By Jim Snyder
October 16, 2007

Democrats are split on the value of bringing a controversial Armenian genocide resolution to a floor vote.

Five House Democrats plan to hold a news conference Wednesday to urge their leadership not to bring the resolution to the floor, although the measure passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week with strong Democratic support.

Reps. Alcee Hastings of Florida, John Murtha of Pennsylvania, Robert Wexler of Florida and Steve Cohen and John Tanner, both of Tennessee, will participate in the news conference. They plan to urge House leadership to “reconsider its decision” to bring the Armenian genocide resolution to the floor.

The non-binding resolution would require the president to call the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between the years 1915 and 1923 “genocide.”

Turkish officials have said the resolution will harm relations between Turkey and the United States. Turkey acknowledges hundreds of thousands of Armenians died as modern Turkey grew out of the crumbling Ottoman Empire, but Turkish officials contend the killings were part of a civil war and that atrocities were committed on both sides.

Top administration officials have warned Congress that Turkey could respond to the resolution’s passage by blocking access to an airbase critical to the supply of troops in Iraq.

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http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/democrats-split-on-genocide-resolution-2007-10-16.html

not use every weapon they can is a key question - one with a sad answer.

Seems more along the lines of Bush's foreign policy over the past 6 years.

...not the nicest of folks...and, apparently, a bunch of whiney-genocide-deniers...

After 6 years of Bush, I don't think it is wise to alienate any more nations.

According to the Pew Research Poll. They recently published a newer one, but before the Armenian Genocide resolution which put the favorable at 9%.

...didn't make him a good guy either...

Turkey needs to come to terms with their past...

Alienating the Turks at this point is a GOOD thing vis a vis the war in Iraq...it disrupts the flow of killing machinery into Iraq...

Bush and his plans for the Middle East, our access from Turkey might make it difficult to get our injured troops out of Iraq to hospitals in Europe, for instance. I also don't see the point of this resolution. There is no one alive who is responsible for the atrocities committed, and the government of Turkey cannot be blamed for the atrocities either. However, our government has committed atrocities and genocide against the native population here; therefore, this resolution is hypocritical, no one will be punished as a result of it, and it will only cause difficulties for the U.S.

I don't know what the controversy is here. The USA is a signatory of the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide".



It's quite plain that the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians fall under at least one of the five points.

All they need is a resolution recognizing that the pResident already has called it Genocide (when he was running for office in 2000, and again in his 2004 Coronation Address).

Not to minimize the suggering of the Armenian people under the hands of the Turks but to be perfectly honest it was a long time ago, no one who was responsible for this is alive today and pissing off one of the few allies we have in the Middle East with a pointless feel good resolution about their past sins makes no damn sense.

I hate to say it but I'm with Bush on this one.

Now Darfur--where people are being killed as we speak is another story altogether.