THE DAILY BLADE: Calling A Genocide A Genocide
Sometimes, a man’s career comes down to one word – just ask Michael Richards.
For U.S. diplomats, that word is "genocide," when referring to the murders of 1.5 million Armenians – nearly every man, woman and child – who were executed, starved or deported (warning: graphic images) from the countryside in forced death marches through the Syrian desert by the Ottoman Turks.
In February 2005, shortly after assuming his ambassadorship to Armenia, John Evans dared to utter the g-word in a speech at the University of California, Berkeley. Though Evans made it clear he was stating his own personal views and not the official position of the U.S. State Department – which prefers such euphemisms as "mass killing," "massacres," "atrocities," "annihilation" – his candor eventually cost him his job.
Tiptoeing around the Armenian Genocide began with the Clinton administration – as if The Stiletto didn’t have enough reasons to despise Slick Willie – and genocide denial continues to be official U.S. foreign policy to this day. As the Los Angeles Times notes:
Outside Turkey, there is little debate over the facts or the use of the word "genocide."
In Turkey, however, official history has long disputed the use of that term. As a result, American officials have used all sorts of others — but have stopped short of "genocide."
"We have never said it wasn't genocide," explained a senior State Department official, who agreed to discuss formation of U.S. policy in detail on condition he not be further identified. "We just haven't used that word."
It wasn’t always thus. In an April 1981 proaclamation, President Ronald Reagan –stated: "Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it ... the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten."
Of course, 10 years later President Reagan got Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," setting the stage for Armenia to become an independent nation after nearly 70 years of Soviet control – and necessitating the creation of a new ambassadorship and the crafting of State Department policy toward the fledgling democracy and its hostile neighbor to the south.
In the Soviet era, an alliance with Turkey had strategic advantages. In today’s War on Terror Turkey has proved to be a less than stalwart ally, refusing the U.S. use of troop facilities and airbases from which to stage our assault against Saddam Hussein from the north.
The Baltic nations are eager to provide such facilities to the U.S. and being European in culture and ideology, would be more reliable than Turkey – and would need less delicate handling by our State Department - in what will no doubt be a protracted struggle by the West against Islamofascism and global terror.
Over the years, both houses of Congress introduced numerous resolutions urging the Clinton and Bush administrations to recognize the Armenian Genocide, to honor the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide and to designate April 24 as a Day of Remembrance. A few recent examples:
† [109th Congress] Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide, and for other purposes. (Introduced in House)
† [109th Congress] Calling on the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide. (Introduced in Senate)
† [109th Congress] Commemorating the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923, urging the Government of the Republic of Turkey to acknowledge the culpability of its predecessor state, the Ottoman Empire, for the Armenian Genocide and engage in rapprochement with the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian people, and supporting the accession of Turkey to the European Union if Turkey meets certain criteria. (Introduced in House)
† [107th Congress] Reaffirming support of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and anticipating the commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the enactment of the Genocide Convention Implementation Act of 1987 (the Proxmire Act) on November 4, 2003. (Introduced in Senate)
† [106th Congress] Calling upon the President to provide for appropriate training and materials to all Foreign Service officers, United States Department of State officials, and any other executive branch employee involved in responding to issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, and for other purposes. This resolution may be cited as the "United States Training on and Commemoration of the Armenian Genocide Resolution" (Introduced in House)
Now that Dems have taken control of Congress they are in a position to do more than pay lip service to changing US foreign policy so that it "reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity" with regard to the Armenian Genocide According to the Los Angeles Times:
[T]he issue is preparing to boil over again, setting up a clash between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the Republican White House. The dispute has stalled the confirmation of Evans' successor and strained U.S. relations with Turkey …
In May, President Bush nominated Ambassador Richard Hoagland, who most recently served as ambassador to Tajikistan. But in September, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) put a parliamentary hold on Hoagland's nomination, blocking it until the end of the congressional session, when the nomination expired.
Some Armenian Americans took issue with Hoagland, complaining that in written responses to questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he was dismissive of the Armenian genocide. Last month, Menendez and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) demanded the administration send over a new nominee.
Referring to the decades since the Armenian Genocide, Evans told the Los Angeles Times, "Ninety years is a long time. At some point you have to call a spade a spade."
The Stiletto couldn’t have put it better herself.
Depends Whose Ox Is Gored
The New York Times ran an editorial over the week-end that took the Food and Drug Administration to task for evaluating whether cloned meat and milk are safe: "The right question is, why clone at all?" The paper insists that, "Cloning isn’t just a matter for the F.D.A. to decide. It is up to us as a society to decide as well. … Are we willing to judge the suitability of new technologies in ways that fully address their ethical and biological complexities? Or are we doomed to give in to politics and the bottom line?"
It occurs to The Stiletto – but, apparently not to The New York Times - that these very same questions can be asked about embryonic stem cell research. The Times is a megaphone for embryo-killing zealots who have no moral qualms about harvesting stem cells from nascent human life – without first determining whether there are other sources of embryonic stem cells that can form into useful tissues and structures; whether a specific disease would respond to embryonic stem cell therapy, as opposed to adult stem cell therapy; whether adult stem cells from adipose cells or hair follicles would behave like embryonic stem cells; and whether autologous stem cell implants, for instance, might be the most promising line of research to pursue.
And since The New York Times has come out against cloning ("why clone at all?"), someone should inform the paper that human embryos are being cloned so that their stem cells can be sucked out.
What Would Sun Tzu Do?
Maybe it’s just The Stiletto, but doesn’t "A New Way Forward" sound like one of those half-baked Commie agricultural and economic development programs Mao used dream up? You’ll recall the Great Leap Forward was an unmitigated disaster. Couldn’t Bush’s wordmeisters come up with a more auspicious name for the new, improved Iraq war plan he will announce this evening? Something like "WIN: Whip Iraq Now." Has a nice, retro ring to it - don’t you think?
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April 24, 2007
The Stiletto wrote:
Today is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Readers of this blog know that The Stiletto has been championing passage of H.Res.106/S.Res.106, which would bring the U.S. in line with other Western governments in recognizing the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-1917 by Ottoman Turks as a genocide. Some even believe that the genocidal campaign against Christian Armenians should be consdered the first Muslim jihad against a Christian population in modern history – a point of view that has gained currency in the wake of last week’s murder of three Christians by Turkish nationalists in Malatya. But today ...
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