Shameful Dhimmitude From Washington Update. For the reality of the Armenian genocide, see here. From AFP (thanks to JE):
THE US President has opposed moves to legally term the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire a "genocide", backing Turkey's stand on the issue."The President has described the events of 1915 as 'one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century', but believes the determination of whether or not the events constitute a genocide should be a matter for historical inquiry, not legislation," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
The comments came after George Bush talked with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and discussed legislation before the US Congress, which describes the deaths of Armenians from 1915 to 1923 as genocide. "The President reiterated his opposition to this resolution, the passage of which would be harmful to US relations with Turkey," Mr Johndroe said.
Turkey is a key Muslim ally for the US and a fellow member of NATO.
Turkey's then foreign minister Abdullah Gul, who is now Turkish President, warned after a visit to Washington in February that passing the draft would "poison" ties and "spoil everything" between the two countries.
A similar draft to the resolution before Congress was pulled in October 2000, following an intervention by then president Bill Clinton.
Turkey categorically rejects Armenian claims that 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in systematic deportations and killings during 1915-1918, as the Ottoman Empire was breaking up.
Turkey is not needed as an ally. At least not at the cost of denying history which is part of Islamic legacy of jihad. This is caving to an implicit threat by Turkey.
Bush should be opposed to Turkey's intervention on this resolution in the strongest terms. Not only should he withhold opposition, as a supposed decent, "Christian", honest human being he should go out of his way to make sure the Armenian genocide is properly memorialized. Support of this resolution could be a start. Then he should announce funding of a U.S. government sponsored memorial project that kept archives of the atrocity.
Iftar dinners last week. Deny Islamic jihad's biggest ethnic cleansing next week. Sabotage Isreal's existence the week after....this guy's on a roll.
Bush--I would say unfricking believeable--but since he still calls islam a religion of peace--what else should amaze beyond that! He and Condi call palestinians "partners for peace" and they lecture Israel and others on that.
Then he speaks on Turkey--the same asinine way. Let's treat them as the animals they are. We just got done pointing out that the height of absurdity was Ackma-nutjob denying the holocaust--but now we give Turkey a pass on the Armenian GENOCIDE!!! Paint it in large capital letters on the forehead of any Turk you meet--that is the truth.
I have yet to meet a German who isn't ahamed of the holocaust. These Turk bastards don't admit anything--I have a problem with that. But not Bush!! Let's bring them in the EU and other nonsense. Don't dare call them to account for the blood on their hands! He and Pope Ratzinger Benedict Arnold make a great team on this. "see no evil..." Let's go lay a wreath at Attaturk's tomb to honor him!
GWB did not support Ambassador John Evans when the latter referred to the Armenian genocide. Now I know the reason behind GWB's lack of support of Evans.
Never again? It's happening right now in the Sudan and will continue to happen as long as plagues of the mind,heart and soul are allowed to fester.
Being good and doing the right thing are exceptions to human behavior, not the standards. Saying the right things and taking a stand when it incurs a personal cost are rare events as well, even at the highest levels of achievement or responsibility.
Humanity will continue to experience genocide and slavery of mind and body and we'll continue to pay in spades. People are weak minded in most cases and politics makes this birth defect even worse.
Please do everything you can to get the word out about the nature and scale of the Islamic threat. It's more than simply jihad. This will go on until the basis of jihad has been disproven, dissembled, discredited and destroyed. We'll have genocides like the past Armenian deaths in Turkey and the present one in Darfur as long as we're too weak to admit the reasons for it and face the cost of fixing it once and for all.
The day will come when we will pay the price in lives on our own real estate if we fail to rise to the task. Sound like hyperbole? Remember, it's far easier to do evil and be destructive than it is to do right and build something valuable and lasting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvJtgMsBsfk
Beslan tragedy - part one.
"It cant' happen here."
The efforts of the Armenians have not gone without notice. As a mother, I can say with certainty that the discussion of the Armenian genocide has penetrated beyond the control of politicians. Three of my own children [>15 yrs.] have Armenian friends and the discussion continues on a personal level - outside of school.
Officially, Bush, to his eternal shame, will appease the Turks. The discussion however, will continue and spread as I am witness to - and fully encourage the next generation's continuous efforts to expose fully documented historic revelations of the Armenian Genocide - never, ever to be buried again. The President's capitulation cannot control this.
****
Of related note, I stayed up through the wee hours of this morning to watch a book review on CSPAN2.
The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam's Holiest Shrine and the Birth of al-Qaeda by Yaroslav Trofimov
The author discusses this siege in the context of a significant flashpoint in ME conflicts, events whuch remain illegal to talk about or teach in most the Muslum world. He mentions in the CSAPAN Q&A that discussion of this siege was stifled successfully by the Sauds only because the technology (cell phones, internet, digital cameras etc.) was not yet available.
He admits that such tight control over information would not be possible today.
And Yaruslav is correct. Modern communication has permanently altered tendentious appeasement equations.
How low will this jerk stoop to kiss the asses of our enemies? Am I disrespecting the president? Yes I am. Bush disrecpects me and you.
First, I thought GWB was angling for the presidency of Mexico after leaving office, and now it looks like it may be Turkey.
I wish he'd settle on one form of betrayal.
George Bush, Armenian Holocaust denier.
Getting more spineless daily.
"Turkey categorically rejects Armenian claims that 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in systematic deportations and killings during 1915-1918, as the Ottoman Empire was breaking up."
And as long as we try to appease we will not stop this from happening again.
He's right, there were not hundreds of thousands of Armenians slaughtered by the Turks in 1915. There were 1.5 million.
Governor Arnold Schwartzeneger courageously proclaimed the week of April 22nd 2007 as "Days of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide". Apparently all the historians in the White House have left and taken up residence as academic refugees in California.
Denial of the Armenian genocide reveals the president to be as much a buffoon as the the denial of the holocaust has made Ahmadinejad.
Unfortunately for our GW, this is not the sort of thing that history books remember kindly.
Unless, of course, the bad guys win.
The Turks are truly lucky-the Armenian genocide took place when the mass media was in its infancy-no TV, no radio and the film industry was just getting started. Plus the Turks didn't keep meticulous records of this event. 25 years later the media was more developed and the Nazis kept plenty of records. Today everybody rightly condemns the Nazis for their genocide while the Turks get a free pass. The Germans admit this horrible event while the Turks don't mention the Armenians at all. To them, the lack of records and media scrutiny from that time means it just never happened. And forget about the Armenian massacres from before WW1-those happened in the prehistoric era as far as the apologists are concerned.
It also means it can happen(again)to the few infidels left in Turkey if/when the sharia lovers ever take control and that's the most frighteneing thing of the whole Armenian massacre.
More of this rubbish from the Dhimmi Economist magazine:
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9910136
Turkey and Armenia
Genocidal follies
Oct 4th 2007 | ISTANBUL AND YEREVAN
From The Economist print edition
The trouble that might flow from an American congressional resolution
A RECENT evening in Istanbul, Turkey's (and Europe's) biggest city. Armenia's leading musician, Djivan Gasparyan, is playing his duduk, an Anatolian-style clarinet, as Yavuz Bingol, an ethnic Kurd, belts out Turkish folksongs. The event symbolises a budding rapprochement between ordinary Turks and Armenians. But America's Congress may now torpedo this fragile process by voting for a bill calling the mass slaughter of up to 1m Ottoman Armenians in 1915 a genocide.
Turkey has squashed previous attempts to pass such a bill by exploiting its strategic significance and its clout as NATO's only Muslim member. This time officials fret that not only will a congressional committee approve the resolution but also it may pass on the House floor. Turkey says that this would plunge relations with America into deep crisis. “Placing the Turks in the same category as Nazis is intolerable for us,” says one official.
Possible retaliatory measures might include denying the Americans the use of the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey, which is a hub for the supply of non-combat materiel for American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Turkey could also seal its land border with Iraq. With positive Turkish views of America at a low of only 11%, according to a recent German Marshall Fund poll, such moves might give nationalists in Turkey a big boost.
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, whose Californian district includes many rich Armenians, is unswayed by pleas to back down. Eight former secretaries of state have written to her to argue that, besides endangering “our national security interests”, the bill would kill “some hopeful signs already that both parties are engaging each other”. Vartan Oskanian, Armenia's foreign minister, retorts that “expressing concern about a process that doesn't exist is disingenuous”. His own recent meeting with his Turkish counterpart, Ali Babacan, in New York got nowhere.
Turkey has no diplomatic ties with Armenia and refuses to open its border with the landlocked ex-Soviet republic. This was sealed in 1993 after Armenia occupied a chunk of Azerbaijan in a vicious little war. Air links have been restored, however, and recently Turkish diplomats have hinted at a more dramatic move: formalising ties, over the objections of a vocal Azeri lobby in Turkey, not to mention those of its hawkish generals. In exchange Armenia would have to recognise its border with Turkey and make some conciliatory gesture towards Azerbaijan.
Armenia counters that it wants to restore relations “without preconditions”. That is because of a widespread suspicion that Turkey is feigning change merely to derail the genocide resolution. If Turkey were sincere, say the Armenians, it would scrap article 301 of the penal code, under which intellectuals have been prosecuted for daring to call the Armenian tragedy a genocide. On October 3rd Turkey's new president, Abdullah Gul, duly called for changes to article 301 in a speech to the Council of Europe.
Turks claim that they want to delink the issues. As one official puts it, “we strongly believe in decoupling our ties with Armenia from the genocide bill and feel that over time the relationship will flourish on its own merits.” Should the bill be adopted in Congress, though, a change in policy would become impossible because of the nationalist passions it would stoke. These worries are shared by Turkey's Armenians, still reeling from the murder in January of an ethnic Armenian newspaper editor, Hrant Dink. Mr Dink's lawyers claim that the nationalist teenager who shot him was acting under orders from rogue elements within the security forces.
David Shahnazarian, a former chief of Armenia's National Security Council, complains that Western countries are using the genocide issue to promote their own agenda. “In the case of France, it is to keep Turkey out of the EU,” he says. The massacre of a million civilians is a matter in which Turks should arrive at the truth on their own. But as Mr Gul has partly conceded, that may necessitate an end to article 301's restrictions on free speech.
So the president refuses to acknowledge an indisputable atrocity in order to appease its perpetrator.
There is no question that we are losing our country; stances such as this one, along with our insane immigration policy and suicidal willingness to accommodate those who would impose Sharia upon us, are slowly, inexorably, killing us. Thanks, Mr. President. Go have your Iftaar dinner now. Enjoy.
I sent this letter (via email) to President Bush on January 2, 2005 (president@whitehouse.gov)
Dear Sir:
“The twentieth century was marred by wars of unimaginable brutality, mass murder and genocide. History records that the Armenians were the first people of the last century to have endured these cruelties. The Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension and commands all decent people to remember and acknowledge the facts and lessons of an awful crime in a century of bloody crimes against humanity. If elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people."
George W. Bush, February 19, 2000
With all due respect, I don't think candidate Bush was referring to a then potential second term or perhaps a poster in the subsequent George W. Bush Presidential Library. In less than 19 days you will have let these people down.
Please don't do that. The date to commerate is April 24, 1915. Ninety years.
Your supporter and fellow Republican,
XXXXXXXXXX
Of course, I got no response.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at May 27, 2006 9:22 AM
Denying the truth so as not to offend Turkey? What is Turkey holding over their heads?
I am pleased with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's position on this issue. Copied & pasted.
http://eafjd.org/spip.php?breve194
Brussels, 20 April 2006
The Prime Minister of Canada Recognizes the Armenian Genocide
Ottawa - The Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, made a clear statement recognizing the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide.
In response to a reporter’s question regarding the Armenian Genocide, the Prime Minister said: “That was a vote held in the last Parliament [Motion M-380 - April 21, 2004]. As you recall, Parliament passed that resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Our party supported that resolution and we continue to recognize that parliamentary resolution”.
Dr. Vagharch Ehramdjian, Chairman of the Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC), thanked the Prime Minister Harper, on behalf of the Canadian Armenian Community, for his historic statement. “The Right Honorable Stephen Harper’s principled and righteous stand in recognizing the Armenian Genocide will finally bring closure to the Canadian-Armenian Community,’’ said the Chairman of the ANCC.
source: Armenian National Committee of Canada
Just when I thought bush was DUMB he says something even DUMBER.
Perhaps he is competeing for some kind of idiot's award?
I suppose he will be chanting with carter that there was no genocide in Darfur?
http://www.genocideindarfur.net/?gclid=CKz13r3f_Y4CFSa0Igod4gOmxg
This is because Turkey is the only Middle Eastern country that is on good terms with Israel. Israel is always fearful of losing Turkey and will not cross them on the issue of the Armenian genocide.
No end in sight for this insanity. I guess it doesn't matter who's in the White House, Turkey's free pass will always be a given.
Sorry, but it seems the biggest enemy to freedom is really the US, as evidenced by this kind of bs, and its warped relations with barbarous middle eastern Islamic cults.
The Armenian holocaust happened. Denying it is similiar to denying the Jewish holocaust.
Germany has not denied its role in the Jewish holocaust. Why can't Turkey do the same?
We are only as sick as the secrets we keep.
By the by, there was a Hindu holocaust during it's invasion by Muslims. And their was a Buddhist holocaust in Central Asia when that area was invaded by............Muslims.
Make yoiur own conclusions.
from the same muslims who are dedcrying so called genocides in palastine, kashmir, chechnya etc. while the real culprits of genocide, the muslims , are allowed to get away with it.
bush is really on the roll of dhimmitude. first by hosting this ifftar dinner he pays homage to a sex pervert, pedophile, murderer and the religion he dreamed up. and now he is kissing turk asses to prevent any confrontation with them over the issue of armenien genocide. .
"Perhaps he is competeing [sic] for some kind of idiot's award"
From World Net Daily:
[George W. Bush]
"Well, first of all, I believe in an Almighty God, and I believe that all the world, whether they be Muslim, Christian, or any other religion, prays to the same God. That's what I believe. I believe that Islam is a great religion that preaches peace. And I believe people who murder the innocent to achieve political objectives aren't religious people, whether they be a Christian who does that – we had a person blow up our – blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City who professed to be a Christian, but that's not a Christian act to kill innocent people.
"And I just simply don't subscribe to the idea that murdering innocent men, women and children – particularly Muslim men, women and children in the Middle East – is an act of somebody who is a religious person
"all the world"
Does that make him an idiotarian universalist?
Concerned Citizen:
I resemble the remark about "idiotarian universalists". I was raised in that "church" but I remember learning in Sunday school that there were some Muslim groups in the Phillipines, who believed that killing a Christian was a ticket to Paradise.
The bulletin boards at the left-wing "United Church of Christ" now feature a poster that quotes "The Golden Rule in the World's Great Religions" and the UCC motto is "that they may all be one".
It's for those reasons that I switched to an Evangelical church.
--
CT "recovering Liberal" Yankee
Ok Remember when Turkey wouldn't let US troops cross Turkey to assault Northern Iraq? Oh I see, as long as we give give give to Turkey that's ok. When we need something Turkey says no? Now Turkey wants President Bush to deny "THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE". I say again "THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE". Even a moron knows about the "THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE". Oh sorry, except for the Muslims.
HELLO KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK Who is there?
Thomas Jefferson??? No!!! It's our gutless Muslim ass kissing President.
Bush wouldn't make a hair on Jefferson's ass.
Ok, now I know Bush is a coward and a nitwit.
Please forgive me; until this blog I just wasn't "Gettin' IT". Well I just got it.
The Dhimmicrat Senator Joe Biden has a plan for peace in Iraq: partition into 3 countries, i.e. Kurdistan, Sunni and Shiite regions.
I am sure our NATO ally, Turkey, would love to see the USA recognize an independent Kurdistan. ;) That would piss them off more than anything!
A_Plague_on_Both_Houses wrote:
Never again? It's happening right now in the Sudan and will continue to happen as long as plagues of the mind,heart and soul are allowed to fester.
....................................
Yes, and not only in Sudan. It is happening with Christians in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, and Kosovo, Hindus in Kashmir and Jammu, and Buddhists in southern Thailand. There have been recent campaigns against the Kurds, Amadaya, and Bahai. Immediately following the founding of the state of Israel, there was widespread violence against Jews and mass explusions all over the Muslim world.
What is often referred to as "sectarian violence" in Iraq is also largely a form of this, as Muslims of minority sects are attacked, murdered and driven out of areas with a majority of Sunni or Shi'ite.
The Armenian genocide was one of the worst, no doubt, but it is just one of a huge continuity of ongoing ethnic and religious cleansing throughout the Muslim world.
On technical grounds Bush may have a point -- although I doubt he understands the technical point. I think his spokesman is quite right to say that this is a matter for "historical investigation, not legislation". You don't legislate the decision that some event was a genocide; either it was or it wasn't. You legislate a response.
Still, as a Canadian I support our Prime Minister's recognition of the Armenian genocide, though I still question whether anything concrete is likely to come of it in terms of legislation. I'm more interested that justice and appropriate response come than that a particular label be applied.
There are, apparently, some technical grounds not to use the term "genocide" I don't undestand these terms myself -- as far as I can tell it seems to fit the common perception of genocide. Nevertheless, apparently Bernard Lewis, no less, questions the use of the term, so who am I to object? Let the historians and lexicographers battle out what term to apply.
Bush and Bernard Lewis both acknowledge that this was a horrendous atrocity of massive proportions in the last century, that decimated a vulerable ethnic group. So, I'm content, and not willing to split hairs.
They don't like the term "genocide"? Perhaps "armenian holocaust" would be sufficient. Or maybe we could come up with a unique term, similar in force to "holocaust" that adequately expresses the world's outrage at the event. And, instead of quibbling over words, how about the nations of the west, and the U.N., propose appropriate actions to recognize the atrocity, and insure that does not become a mere historical footnote in another generation or so.
Nothing will ever repay the loss, any more than the Jewish holocaust can be undone by reparations. But our leaders could show some spine and take actions that will dry Armenian tears and help bring healing and closure instead of covering over the evils of the past with historical labels and philosophical debates.