Contact your congressional representative and let them know where you stand.

Posted by: eve_anne_gelical at October 10, 2007 1:50 PM

Pelosi supports it, hmmm? Interesting world you've got there in the U.S.

In any case, I'll say that, having accepted the reality of these mass killings, as long as by "killings" he means "murders", Bush has already set up the path of conflict with the Turkish state. The bit about labelling it genocide is a matter of semantics.

I guess the fine distinction of whether or not this was organized, state-initiated slaughter with the goal of extermination is what determines whether or not it is labelled "genocide". If it was just a bunch of red-necked turks out every weekend on pickup trucks to kill a few dozen Armenians for fun, until the bodies piled high and the herds had been thinned to the point that it was hard to locate more Armenians to murder -- well, then, that's not "genocide".

No, it's something even worse!

Posted by: Archimedes2 at October 10, 2007 1:56 PM

Hence why we made need a third political party in the future. Perhaps a "Neo-Republican" or "New Party of Lincoln". Teddy Roosevelt tried the Bull Moose Party but failed. We need something to break this dam of idiotic fools that control both parties.

Everybody keeps talking about Islam being hijacked but I am wondering when the hell was the GOP hijacked. You know it is a bad sign when even Nancy Pelosi can figure this out and Bush can't.

Free the GOP of the Bushites!

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at October 10, 2007 1:57 PM

An article put up nine months ago after the murder of Hrant Dink in Istanbul:

Fitzgerald: The murder of Hrant Dink

When awards are handed out, they often go to the wrong people. It is not the hapless Mohammed El Baradei, nor that apologist-for-Islam ("the mistreatment of women does not come from Islam") Shirin Ebadi, who deserve that Nobel for Peace, but rather Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other brave apostates. And the same is true for those prizes awarded to journalists.

Who has given a prize to Flemming Rose? Or to Hrant Dink?

Hrant (pronounced "Erant") Dink was a non-Muslim victim of Muslim hatred of non-Muslims. He was shot because he was an Armenian citizen of Turkey, who thought that the government and people of Turkey should own up to the mass-murder (genocide) of the Armenians. He was not, and could not be, a true "Turk" according to the definition supplied by Turkish nationalists.

The particular variant on Islam operative in the murder of Hrant Dink was the Kemalist cult of "the Turk" -- Kemalism, in constraining Islam, offered a replacement cult, the cult of Ataturk and of The Turk. But in this case it can be seen to have adopted to a new age essentially the same attitudes. The violence and aggression of Islam, the inability to conceive of non-Muslims as fully equal legally and socially to Muslims, have carried over into the Kemalist substitute for Islam -- the cult of "the Turk" by which the past civilizations of Anatolia, its entire history, back to the Hittites, is ascribed to "the Turks." This is another variant on the Muslim desire to ignore everything that happened before Islam arrived as merely the time of "Jahiliyya." That cannot be done in the case of Turkey: too many impressive remnants of classical antiquity, as well as of Byzantium, remain and must remain -- if only for the Western tourists. The solution of the Kemalist-nationalists was to take that pre-Islamic past and enroll it in a counter-myth: the myth of the Turk to whom all this somehow belongs, and for which he, the glorious Turk, is somehow responsible. The educated elite realize that this is absurd, but as in any country, and especially in such a country as Turkey, how few must be those members of the educated elite who are immune to both Islam and to the Myth of the Turk.

The re-emergence of Islam has led some Turks, including the one who waited to kill Hrant Dink, to be possessed by a syncretistic mix. The non-Turk means the non-Muslim citizen of Turkey -- Armenian, Greek, or Jew. No offense must be given by these inferior citizens to the cult of the Turk, or to "the Turkish Nation." There is the same readiness to be offended, the same division of the universe between Us and Them (in the case of Islam it is Believer and Infidel, and in the case of Muslim Turks who have embraced Kemalism it can be, for the primitive, the true Turk and the non-Turk), the same recourse to violence.

Hrant Dink should be remembered, and that memory honored, and not only in Sausalito or Watertown, but everywhere. And the reasons for his killing should be understood, including the reflection of the persistence of Islamic attitudes in Turks, even those who are "defending the Turkish nation from slander" rather than "defending Muhammad from blasphemy." In the minds of Turkish Muslims, these attitudes are mutually reinforcing.

One more thing.

This should be it, as far as entry into the EU is concerned. Call off the farce. And this should also be the time when the Bush Administration reads Turkey the riot act about Kurdistan, and starts to make plans for that independent state, and tells the Turkish government that it had better accept the American-extorted guarantees that there will be no territorial claim made on Turkey by the new and independent Kurdistan, but that Syria and Iran are fair game. And if it doesn't accept that? Then Turkey, whose military is entirely dependent on American re-quipping, American spare parts, American training, can see that American connection go up in smoke from the top of Mount Ararat. No more nonsense about being afraid of "the Turkish reaction." The Turkish government can get with the new program, with those guarantees given by the Kurds to the Americans (and without American diplomatic and military support an independent Kurdistan could never exist) or face abandonment by its main, and only sure ally. And if the Turkish government thinks that the Arabs would or could ever be an ally of Turkey, rather than mischief-makers intent on reversing 80 years of Kemalism, it should be disabused of that thought quickly.

[Posted by Hugh at January 21, 2007]

Posted by: Hugh at October 10, 2007 2:04 PM

And a posting on the thread under that article:

"I find the notion of Kemalism being simply a reincarnation of Islamism as laughable..."
-- from a posting above

The poster shows himself to be a hasty and a careless reader. What he describes as the theme of my postings is false, and bears no relation to what was written. It was never said, nor implied, that "Kemalism is simply a reincarnation of Islamism." He missed my point entirely.

Something else, rather, something important, wwas pointed out: that those who, because Ataturk tried to systematically contain Islam as a political and social force, assume that whatever was connected to what we call Kemalism stands in opposition to, is quite different from, Islam.

And that, I wrote, is not true. Instead, the attitudes of Islam, its dividing the world between Believer and Infidel, We and They, and its Cult of the Exemplary Man, Muhammad (uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil), can be seen to have lived on in the Cult of the Turk, a cult that was encouraged by Ataturk and then even more by Inonu (who wrote "scientific studies" on the Turk and His Contribution to World Civilization), and that the posthumous cult of Ataturk should be recognized as a replacement cult for Muhammad, suitable for a people who had been, as Muslims, used to the idea, comforted by the idea, of the exemplary figure whose every act was worth recording, praising, emulating.

Far from being dismissable, this analysis which at first surprises by its novelty will eventually be seen by many to contain much truth, disturbing as that truth will no doubt be to both kinds of True Believers within Turkey -- those in Islam and those in the Cult of the Turk. Outside of Turkey, of course, the latter is far to be preferred. Inside Turkey, though the promoters of Islam and the promoters of the Cult of the Turk, that is Turkish Nationalists, have much to divide them, their attitudes toward the non-Turk -- who happens to be the non-Muslim in Turkey, coincide.

The teenager from Trebzon, no doubt encouraged by others the way Van de Graaf was encouraged to kill Pim Fortuyn, murdered Hrant Dink because he was a non-Turk even if a citizen of Turkey, who furthermore dared to "insult" Turkey by his refusal to drop the matter of the Armenian genocide.

In order to supplant the primitivism of Islam, a different kind of primitivism was offered. The genuinely advanced members of Turkish society will now go beyond not only Islam, but the Cult of the Turk and of the Great Man.

Their numbers are small within Turkey. (On the other hand, Turks living in the advanced West, especially in academic settings, have the mental and emotional freedom to go beyond what would be possible within Turkey.) But then, in every country, the numbers of those who can get beyond the reiigning idols of the age is always very small. It is just that in Islamic countries, where Islam still dominates however it may have been contained in certain areas, the primitive is very primitive, and most of the population is kept in permanent mental thrall, in numbers far greater than they are in the advanced Western world, despite that Western world's own unquestioned assumptions, its idols of the age, its own intolerable stupidities.

[Posted by: Hugh at January 21, 2007 11:58 PM]

Posted by: Hugh at October 10, 2007 2:08 PM

Is the following a JOKE?:

"I guess the fine distinction of whether or not this was organized, state-initiated slaughter with the goal of extermination is what determines whether or not it is labelled "genocide". If it was just a bunch of red-necked turks out every weekend on pickup trucks to kill a few dozen Armenians for fun, until the bodies piled high and the herds had been thinned to the point that it was hard to locate more Armenians to murder -- well, then, that's not "genocide"."
--posted by Archimedes
====================
Archimedes, if your post was serious, you need to educate yourself. No offense, but what you posted makes you look like a complete ignoramus. Are you just so enamored with George Almighty?

Here's a good book to get you started:

The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response by Peter Balakian

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ean=9780060558703&z=y

Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at October 10, 2007 2:09 PM

The Credo Of George Bush (He's a Believer)

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

Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at October 10, 2007 2:13 PM

On another thread, devoted to that young Turk and "reformer" (sola scriptura, dontcha know) of Islam, Mustafa Akyol, I pretended to be Akyol, writing what I thought he might write, in a ventriloquent posting inspired by the late (very late) Vattemare:

Let us be charitable. Let us help Mr. Akyol, a man who out of filial piety, and out of an inability to really stand back and see Islam for what it is (but what about all his pious and kind relatives? what about all those images of the awful and decadent West that dares to criticize this faith that has meant so much to so many? of course he can't do it, he simply can't, condemns himself to more apologetics).

So here goes. Mr. Akyol, feel free to use whatever you want in your "dialogue" with other "civilisations." (Note to reader: You are going to see a lot of that word "dialogue" in the next year or two -- you are going to have the "dialogue of civilisatons" hither and yon -- anything to delay the day when unpleasant truths become unavoidable).

Mr. Akyol:

Yes, it is true that there were mass killings of Armenians in the period 1894-1896 and from 1915 on. But please understand that these were not killiings by "Turks" against "Armenians" but of those Muslims who had been whipped up by their beliefs against the "giavours" -- the "Christian" Armenians. Let us not forget that Christian Greeks, too, were the subject of murders on a large scale, and so were Christian Assyrians, from Turks, Kurds, and Arabs, all impelled by Muslim doctrine.

But that is precisely the point. That Turkey, that Islam, is exactly what we have, over the past 80 years, managed to contain. There are still Turks who believe, alas, in the same doctrines as those Turks, Kurds, and Arabs who engaged in wholesale massacres in 1915, and 1894, and in Damascus in 1860, and in another hundred or thousand or ten thousand times and places. But we are now the country that reveres Ataturk for having constrained Islam. Yes, of course we are worried about Ergodan. Of course, we -- the secular Turks, the Turks who wish to engage in real "dialogue" because we consider ourselves, if not completely men of the West, at least distinctly amphibian in our ability to move and live between the world of Islam and the western world.

There are some in the West who say we are ony fooling ourselves. There are some who say that when we feel the slightest attack on Islam, we show our true colors, and immediately become defensive, apologetic, that we engage in taqiyya, that we ignore the true content of Qur'an and hadith and sira, that we ignore the long history of Muslim subjection of non-Muslims to a regime of humiliation and degradation

Yes, there are such people. But I am not among them, and there are others like me. We understand what Ataturk was trying to do. We have ourselves benefited from his reforms -- why do you think that a class of secular Turks has been created? Why do you think that when a Western tourist, or diplomat, engages a secularist Turk in conversation at a dinner party, he feels -- up to a point, of course -- that he is among people who are living on the same planet, with some of the same intellectual assumptions -- a feeling no honest tourist, and no honest diplomat, ever feels in a Muslim Arab country, or in those countries, such as Pakistan, that are in the Arab orbit.

Yes, it is wrong not to own up to the genocide of the Armenians. And it will continue to haunt us, and some of us realize that this question, and a good many others, must be answered successfully to relieve the fears of the European Community. A new, a real, understanding of the tenets of Islam is now dawning everywhere in the West. The old apologetics, the smiles, the diversionary tactics, the expressionsof Muslim outrage feigned or real, can no longer withstand the pressure of events, nor the fact that even some Muslims are now beginning -- a Qatari here, a brave Egyptian there -- to identify that the explanation for the moral, intellectual, economic, and political failure of Muslim countries, lie with Islam itself.

Yes, if I have myself ever engaged in such logic-chopping, please understand how difficult it is, in a society, in a civilization, that defines itself, in which everyone defines himself, according to Islam, that nothing that is perceived as an attack on Islam can be allowed. Even the most advanced, humorful, kindly people, suddenly can change on a dime, if they think that Islam is being analyzed too closely, or that such questions as the matter of dhimmitude are being examined too intently. The temptation to deny, to present a pleasing facade, to engage in the "tu quoque" argument -- yes, this is, admittedly, what too many of us, even in Turkey, do.

As for me, having first tried the former, I began to read. I read Ibn Warraq. I went to his website, and that of Ali Sina. I found convincing much of the criticism of those people who, like me, were born into Islam, but who, unlike me, began to question, began to wonder, began to claim for themselves the same mental freedom, the same freedom of skeptical inquiry, that you in the West seem to possess by birthright -- a birthright, I know, that actually took centuries to develop and expand.

Please exercise some imaginative sympathy. Not everyone has the freedom, the mental freedom, to speak exactly what he thinks. I live in a Muslim country. I cannot discuss openly there the treatment of the Armenians. I cannot dare even to study the matter, but must repeat, as others do who know better, the Turkish government's line. There is now a law that requires me to deny the fact of the Armenian genocide.

Of course we want to enter the E.U. Of course we want the economic benefits, the freedom to move around for jobs -- and Turks will work at lower wages than others. Of course we want the $58 billion in estimated aid that we will receive from the E.U. Of course we want all this -- and if somehow this furthers the islamization of Europe, but eases our own situation -- well, why should we care? It is not our affair. If we are not allowed into the E.U., because the Europeans decide to consider only their own interests, then we may have to find common cause with the Arabs whom we despise. Why can't Europe keep our interests in mind?

Well, that's the best I can do. Not very good, is it? But I tried. I tried."

[Posted by: Hugh at October 8, 2004]

Posted by: Hugh at October 10, 2007 2:23 PM

Can both grasp and essentially agree with Hugh's unflattering characterization of Kemalism. Though the system instituted by modern Turkey's founder is certainly preferable to political Islam, it should be noted that Greeks who had lived peaceably for centuries in Ottoman Turkey (albeit as second-class citizens) were killed and exiled en mass by Ataturk.

It is the previous posting by Hugh that is so highly questionable...this notion that America can prevail upon the Turks to not only accept Kurdish independence, but the lopping off of Kurdish portions of Syria and Iran, so that the only remaining Kurdish region outside the new polity would be the largest, southeastern Turkey. This is a textbook recipe for Turkey's eventual territorial dismemberment.

Anyone can see it....certainly the Turks can. Apparently Hugh can't. His inflated judgment of American power has created a pronounced blind spot. The Turks will never agree.

Posted by: Cornelius at October 10, 2007 2:36 PM

American foreign policy elites have been disgracing our country with their acceptance of the Armenian genocide for a long time, as shown by a passage from a book published by the Harvard University Press more than half a century ago:

“By 1918, with the definitive excision of the total Armenian Christian population from Anatolia and the Straits area, except for a small and wholly insignificant enclave in Istanbul city, the hitherto largely peaceful processes of Turkification and Moslemization had been advanced in one great surge by the use of force. How else can one assess the final blame except to say that this was a tragic consequence of the impact of Western European nationalism upon Anatolia? Had Turkification and Moslemization not been accelerated there by the use of force, there certainly would not today exist a Turkish Republic, a Republic owing its strength and stability in no small measure to the homogeneity of its population, a state which is now a valued associate of the United States.”

– Lewis Thomas, from “The United States and Turkey and Iran,” by Lewis Thomas and Richard Frye (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1951), p. 61. Cited in “Warrant for Genocide,” by Vahakn Dadrian (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999), p. 129.

Actually, one cannot assess the final blame except to say that this was a tragic consequence of the impact of Islamic scripture and tradition upon Anatolia. As to the “hitherto largely peaceful processes of Turkification and Moslemization,” recall the earlier massacres of hundreds of thousands of Armenians during the Abdul Hamid era in 1894-96. Right into the memory hole with them, courtesy of the erudite Mr. Thomas.

Posted by: Papa Whiskey at October 10, 2007 2:43 PM

Dubyai fails...again.

If Turkey wants to take a place with the circle of civilized nations, then let it come to terms with its past, just as Germany must. If Dubyai doesn't get it, it's just one of a long list of things he doesn't get or -more likely- doesn't want to get. Will he urge rejection of this motion just as he urged acceptance of the US portlands deal the UAE, to show Moslem polities that we are their friend? By the same reasoning, should we go back to the Germans and say: "Hey, about that Nuerenburg Trial thing. We're really sorry. Things got out of hand."

Despite what some here may think, the Germans "get it." Civilized countries don't kill the innocent. The rule of law, preserving human rights, must prevail. And if the law errs, let it be in favor of the accused. That is what the West stands for, last time I checked. So if the Turks want to be all Western and stuff, let them take the first steps. Let them "get it." Let them first listen to clear, justifiable criticism. And then let them make restitution. And then let them embrace their minorities, for instance, the right of return to the survivors of the Armenian genocide, repatriation of Hagia Sophia to the Greek Orthodox Church or recognition of the Kurds as a distinct ethnic group.

As for Mr. Bush, well sir, as my mummy used to warn me "Tell me who you friends are and I'll tell you who you are."

Posted by: Chatillon at October 10, 2007 2:45 PM

I do not understand this. Turkey has no oil, no manufactured products anyone wants, and they certainly are not needed as a shield against the USSR. Why is Bush's nose so brown?

Is Bush worried about a resurgent Russia? Is he marching to a Saudi cadence? WTF is going on on Pensylvania Ave?

All I have are questions and a headache.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 10, 2007 2:47 PM

I just remembered another possibility. Bush might be placating to Turks to keep them from fiddling with the Kurds.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 10, 2007 2:54 PM

He is insane.

Posted by: GrennBeck at October 10, 2007 3:01 PM

Pelayo:

The Turkish army is huge, well trained and equipped with a lot of high-tech weapons. The Turkish army is one of the biggest in NATO. Plus Turkey is a neighbour of Bush's 'predestined-to-be-a-faliure-democracyproject', also known as Iraq. He wouldn't wanna start a conflict with them.

No, he's going for Iran and it's massive oil and gas ressources who looks to be ripe for the plunder. A war, or other trouble with Turkey right now, wouldn't fit the imperial neocon agenda.

Posted by: seville844 at October 10, 2007 3:10 PM

“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

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at October 10, 2007 3:53 PM

"he's [Bush is] going for Iran and it's [sic]massive oil and gas ressources [sic] who [sic] looks to be ripe for the plunder."[sic]
-- from a posting above

How true. Just the way the Americans in that "it's-all-about-oil" war in Iraq, have, instead of seizing the oilfields, actually keep putting them back together, at great American expense, and what's more, show not the slightest signs of taking or refusing to pay the market price for a single barrel of oil produced in Iraq.

Indeed, if the Americans are, as the sour and misleading poster above seems to think, imperialists, they are certainly going about it the wrong way. It is the Americans who have spent nearly one trillion dollars on Iraq, first in removing a dictator, and then in the futile and counter-productive effort to make something of Iraq, to keep it together, to make it prosperous, to instill some sense of entrepreneurial flair in what was taken to be the small-business class of the population (where inshallah-fatalism rules as it does everywhere else). What they got, instead, was the malevoence of each against each, and all against those Infidel Americans.

No, Iraq was not "about oil" and Iran isn't either. No Imperialist worth his salt spends a trillion dollars on his supposed victims, in order to make their lives better and keep their unpleasant country together.

I'm afraid that kind of analysis won't do. Not here. Peddle it elsewhere. I'm sure you'll find buyers. There are suckers, we are told, born every minute.

Posted by: Hugh at October 10, 2007 3:54 PM

...thanks...H.......

Posted by: exsgtbrown at October 10, 2007 4:29 PM

The question is,HOW MUCH DID THIS COST THE TURKISH LOBBY THIS TIME ROUND

Corruption in high places was alleged in a recent Vanity Fair article that surveyed government whistleblowers, including Edmonds, and unnamed congressional sources. The most sensational one was that House Speaker Dennis Hastert was paid up to $500,000 five years ago by the Turkish lobby to derail a bill that would have recognized the Armenian genocide carried out in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.

While it cited FBI wiretapped phone conversations from 2000 mentioning Hastert, the magazine conceded that there was no way of proving this allegation.

For his part, Hastert had always claimed that his eleventh-hour decision to quash the bill in October, 2000 owed directly to the intercesson of then-President Clinton, who sent a letter to him personally requesting that maintaining good relations with Turkey were more important than Armenian heritage: “We have significant interests in this troubled region of the world: containing the threat posed by East and Central Asia, stabilizing the Balkans and developing new sources of energy.”

Indeed, the potential ill effects of irritating Turkey were vocally stated, not least of all by the Turkish authorities themselves. And this pressure probably meant the death of the bill regardless. But if Hastert was able to bluff the Turkish lobby into giving him 500G unnecessarily, hey, more power to him.

Some-ones lining their pockets

Posted by: shiva at October 10, 2007 4:39 PM

as usual the Muslims in Turkey that make up the majority cannot stand the light of truth about the hordes of Mohammed and their bloodthirsty treatment of minorities that have had to accept as dhimmi under Islam

Posted by: mowasaperv at October 10, 2007 4:56 PM

I give up on Bush. Never have I been as disappointed in a President as I have been with Bush----well, maybe Clinton too. But it's Bush that is appeasing EVERY Muslim in the world with this religion of peace lie, plus the Mexican government, all at the expense of the citizens of the United States and especially our military. He certainly did not turn out to be the president I thought I was voting for.

Posted by: CLL1709 at October 10, 2007 4:57 PM

There aren't too many people who regularly comment here who can win a Hugh F. debate, certainly not me and certainly not Seville844.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 10, 2007 4:58 PM

Concerned Citizen,

Thanks for the reminder.

The Bush I voted for is not the Bush I got.

Hell, if he screwed up on taxes like his old man rather than security and international policy, we'd be better off.

Posted by: LoneRanger at October 10, 2007 5:42 PM

A first person account of some of the horror of the Armenian Genocide and forcing the Greek majority to leave Asia Minor:

The Blight of Asia by George Horton, Consul and Consul-General of the United States in the Near East. Sterndale Classics, London. ©1926/2003.

Posted by: St. David, King of Georgia at October 10, 2007 5:52 PM

No, Iraq was not "about oil" and Iran isn't either. No Imperialist worth his salt spends a trillion dollars on his supposed victims, in order to make their lives better and keep their unpleasant country together.
--posted by Hugh

Well, not according to Alan Greenspan. he said it was "all about the oil."

My own take is that Bush invaded Iraq to guarantee his re-election. Being a complete dumbass, Bush assumed he could sweep in, grab the second largest oil reserves in the world, pump up the American economy with tons of cheap oil, guarantee his re-election, improve the neighborhood for America's allies, enhance America's prestige abroad along with its military reach, and be a GREAT BIG HERO OF A PRESIDENT.

That's imperialism; not enlightened imperialism, but the careless imperialism of a bungler. It's the selfish imperialism of a no-nothing, arrogant jackass.

It ain't nice. It ain't pretty. There's nothing to defend.

All this crap about bringing democracy to ordinary moms and dads is/was a face-saving whitewash.

Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at October 10, 2007 6:02 PM

My take on Pelosi is that she is supporting this just to do something that she KNOWS will hurt Bush. My take on Bush is that he uses Christianity to get what he wants (i.e., votes from the religious right here in the USA). Bush thinks we are so supid that we don't know about what he said in 2000 (thanks to you, concerned citizen). Both parties are so mired in dirty politics that truth is ignored, and in that so is the interest of the American (and Armenian) people. We need a viable third party.

Posted by: never_submit at October 10, 2007 6:23 PM

Three reasons why Bush -- idiotic, but less idiotic than Clinton 1 & 2, Gore, Kerry, and a large number of our Congress critters -- is trying to kill the Genocide Resolution.

1) Armenia just signed an energy deal with Iran,
which has peeved the administration.

2) The US or Israel needs Turkish air space and bases to attack the Iranians.

3) There's a great deal of pressure on Turkey to take military action against the PKK Kurdish rebels inside Kurdistan.

So, that's why Bush is grandstanding against the amendment. Still, playing politics with Genocide is distasteful.

Posted by: Mister Ghost at October 10, 2007 6:34 PM

Bush's religion seems to have more in common with freemasonry than Protestantism. The upper levels of freemasonry tend to be relativistic and pragmatic in the bad sense. Because of this he can both speak and appear to be strongly Christian and repeat the Islamic lies that suit his needs. I think he genuinely wants to do right, but at the same time is interested in keeping the money flowing. Because he wants to keep the money flowing, he tries to make it easy for our new slave caste, the illegal Latinos, to stay and work. He tries to keep our economic borders porous because this makes it easier for the money to flow. I'm sure that he justifies this dereliction of duty by thinking that he is being kind.

Posted by: St. David, King of Georgia at October 10, 2007 6:42 PM

Just a tip to Jihadwatch staff, the Empire State building, for the first time ever, will be lit up green on Friday to Sunday to honor the muslim holiday of Eid.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071010191023.zonyv389&show_article=1

Posted by: jihadwatcher at October 10, 2007 6:56 PM

Just a tip to Jihadwatch staff, the Empire State building, for the first time ever, will be lit up green on Friday to Sunday to honor the muslim holiday of Eid.

Posted by: jihadwatcher at October 10, 2007 6:56 PM

Great-now in gratitude can we expect the peaceful ones to fly a plane into this well lit target as well? Considering what happened just six years ago this is absolutely disgusting. If things like this keep happening we'll probably have to worry about an American genocide in the future.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at October 10, 2007 7:14 PM

I urge rejection of bush; in favor of what I don't know, but rejection of this lunatic nevertheless!

I'll be driving by the Empire State building and if it light up green -- I'll be seeing red!

Perhaps we should stop doing business in the City of New York if our CA$H isn't green enough for them!

Posted by: witness at October 10, 2007 8:16 PM

I think it would be good if the United States and Russia, as the Turkish government has suggested, opened their archives on the issue so that a thorough investigation could occur.

That said, Turkish pride goeth before a fall here, and an acknowledgement of the carnage and a condemnation of it by the Turkish government, notwithstanding the meddling of the Russian government in this whole mess, is crucial and should be immediate and excuseless—as there was no excuse for it.

But there are puzzling things here: the Japanese have never stopped teaching a false history of the run-up to World War II, and they have never really apologized for it. The British have never apologized for the fire-bombing of Dresden, a nonmilitary town full of refugees and the repository of one of Europe's most extensive art treasuries. The Vatican has never apologized for accepting from the Nazis a vast repository of stolen Jewish art, when they buried in the caves around the Vatican and ruined. [Oil pigment is "alive" and if you remove it from light all he colors turn black.] The Germans did apologize but did not protest when the Mengele family raised a HUGE sign against German law. Nobody has stopped sending foreign aid to the Hutus in Rwanda despite the fact that they tried to exterminate the Tutsis, and killed as many as a million people. And the current violence in South Africa towards whites—a people apparently OK to kill now.

There's no question Turkey should make the admission. Yet there are other questions in this.

It has been nearly 100 years since the last part of this took place. There is not a Turk alive who took part in it.

We do not blame the current citizenry of Germany or Japan for a war that killed 50 million people. We can't even get the Japanese to admit that they used women as sex slaves, and nobody suggests they will not be admitted to some international alliance on account of it.

I think whether you get an apology depends on whether you matter as an ethnic group, as a religious group, as a racial group, as an economic group.

Turkey should acknowledge it and apologize. No matter what the conditions, it should never have happen.

But a few other countries and ethnic groups should be held to the same standards.

And we shoulod ask ourselves the question sometime:

For how much will we hold today's descendents responsible for the evil of their ancestors, and how long will their punishment last.

How far back do we go to claim that some chunk of land belongs to us?

100 years? 1,000 years?

Do we balk when Muslims claim that any Arabic-speaking land is "Dar-al-Islam" but at the same time support others who say some other chunk of land was given to them by God--or belongs to them because their ancient ancestors arrived there in 8,000 BC rather than 7,000 BC?

But I think the failure to apologize out of compassion bespeaks a failure to acknowlegdge the truth, and it does not speak well of the current Turkish government that they will not look at the situation and cry out against it as one of the great atrocities in the history of humanity.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 10, 2007 8:18 PM

"Bush assumed he could sweep in, grab the second largest oil reserves in the world, pump up the American economy with tons of cheap oil, guarantee his re-election, improve the neighborhood for America's allies, enhance America's prestige abroad along with its military reach, and be a GREAT BIG HERO OF A PRESIDENT."
-- from a postiong above

Don't be silly. Just exactly how do you "grab the second largest oil reserves in the world"? You can't just grab them. They are in the ground. They need to be pumped out, and can be pumped out only at a certain rate. Are you suggesting that Bush went in, and was willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars in order to keep American trooops in Iraq, in sufficient numbers (and what numbers would those be?) not only to seize the old fields, but to keep them from being sabotaged, and to keep the hundreds of miles of pipelines free of potential saboteurs, those that go north, and those that go west, and those that go south, and that furthermore, still other American troops would be guarding those ships onto which, at newly-dredged Umm Qasr, that oil now seized by the Americans would be loaded, and then presumably guard those ships, for they would need extra protection from maddened Muslims who would regard this seizure as a dangerous precedent, and the guarding would have to come from American ships that, at the moment, must rely on naval bases nearby, at Qatar for example. How would this actually happen?

And let's suppose the Americans did take total control, "seized" two million barrels (roughly current Iraqi production, from which should be subtracted the amount that must remain in Iraq if the country is to function at all). What would the savings be? And what would the cost be to hold onto those particular oilfields, in the Shi'a south, or the Kurdish north, to protect the wells, and the pipelines, and the ships, and furthermore to keep supplying those American troops with everything they need, with convoys travelling through what would be completely hostile territory? Do you think the Americcan government would spend more, or less, than it would save? If it cost about $120 billion a year to keep those trooops in Iraq now, what would it cost to keep those oil wells and oil pipelines and ships transporting that oil from being attacked, or from repairing attacks? And what would be the supposed savings? Remember, the oil wells in Iraq are not, as are the Saudi fields, conveniently right on the Gulf, nor are they in sparsely-populated areas, as are some of the Saudi fields in the Eastern Province. And if you think that this would save money, how would this all be?

Would the Americans then re-sell the Iraqi oil on the world market? Would buyers be readily found, or would those buyers refuse to buy such oil at the world market price, and demand a deep discount? And since oil is fungible, if those buyers were to pay a deep discount, it is they, in reselling the oil to the final consumers, who would be making a profit, and the American government paying for that seizure of the oil that would have to keep paying for the protection of its soldiers.

It was not about oil. And what Alan Greenspan undoubtedly meant, in his maladroit expression -- he apparently had no idea how his words would be taken - was simply that if Iraq, and if the whole area, had no oil, then we would pay no attention to it. And that is true, or at least it should be. If Muslim Arabs didn't possess the oil, they would not possess the Money Weapon derived from that oil, and would be a lot less of a menace, world-wide, then they are today. But Greenspan's ill-advised remark should not be interpreted to mean -- and I think he himself has noted how badly he worded the phrase, and how easily it would lend itself to malevolent misinterpretation -- that "it's all about the oil" in the idiotic MoveOn.org sense, or the sense of that poster above with whom I was forced to deal.

It was about innocence, and ignorance, and arrogance, and the Dream Palace of the Americans, who were busy being taken for a ride by those Shi'a in exile, so glad to have those Americans fall for all their promises, and scenarios of grateful Iraqis throwing kisses and roses, for all the world like the French in Paris welcoming those American boys on those American tanks, boys and tanks having gallantly let the French enter Paris first, so as not to hurt local pride, and to build up a myth that De Gaulle would find useful. Yes, the Americans were taken for a ride by the Shi'a Arabs, when they entered Iraq, as they are now being taken for a ride by the Sunni Arabs, who in Egypt and Jordan and Saudi Arabia want the Americans to stay in order to delay, as those Sunni rulers fondly hope, the moment when the Shi'a really and truly take all the power for themselves, and the Sunnis will be left with, and be seen to be left with, nothing. And that will, of course, put pressure on Sunni Arab regimes to come to the aid of fellow Sunnis, and they would prefer that the Americans do it for them.

Yes, the Americans have been taken for not one but for two disastrous rides. But let's not pity those in power, but ourselves, because it is we who are paying for their errors. They may have been taken for a few rides, but don't forget -- they were standing by the side of the road, and they had their thumbs out.

Posted by: Hugh at October 10, 2007 8:19 PM

Tell the Saudis to open their pockets a little, George is suffocating.

Posted by: profitsbeard at October 10, 2007 8:27 PM

It's real simple for me--

Just state the truth.

Why we have waited nearly a hundred years to call the genocide what it was--is a mystery to me? And Bush wants to oppose this?

The post on this issue last weekend had a link to some quotes from various leaders from the last century and their various takes on this dirty scandal from history that damns so many willing accomplices. Those quotes clearly show the most dangerous thing we could ever do is to disown the TRUTH! Hitler used the Armenian genocide as a model in many ways--his thesis was that the Turks got away with it and no one remembered what happened to the Armenians. Let's proceed with the final solution under the cover of "war time."

The Armenians comprised 20% of Turkey's population prior to the genocide in 1915. Their numbers were reduced to less than a half of a percent (as of 30 years ago)--I suppose that was just a coincidence.

When I see hear the accounts of the surviving victims who endured such attrocities at the hands of these barbarians--I am livid to think anyone would dare to minimize their plight for some damn politics.

We people in the west--our leaders such as the President and the Pope---lead the "see no evil" style of leadership we accept. We suppose that such appeasement of the mohammadens' corrupt consciences serves us (as if they have convinced us that we believe their filthy lies and that we will continue to cover for their crimes against humanity). We actually believe that this will serve our own political interests! We have become (gag me) French.

We have become so wise--we would excuse Hitler himself for "peace in our time" and Stalin and Mao and any other genocidal tyrants taking their victims to the ovens or pits if we thought we could gain some political advantage. G-d help us!

Posted by: BB at October 10, 2007 8:53 PM

Morgaan Sinclair

You are missing the point. It has nothing to do with the Turkish government admitting this historic event but instead it is just a congressional resolution calling the 1915 massacres of Armenians genocide. Thus it is just a statement of fact by the U.S. Government recognizing this event. What is troubling is if the U.S. government is scared to recognize historic facts because they are worried about what it might do to relations. Thus what other historic facts might we be willing to sell down the river to prevent some ambassador from having a fit.

Frankly it is none of the business of the Turkish government what we the United States recognizes as truth and un-truth. It was a calculated attempt by the Ottoman Empire to remove Christians by killing them. Some were Armenian and some were Greeks. It was planned and executed with extreme aggression and yes success. It was so successful that Hitler himself praised it. When questioned by his own commanders about his plan to wipe out the Jews and the world would think, Hitler was reported to have said…” Who remembers the Armenians?”.

Perhaps it is time just to state a historic fact for the record. If the United States government can’t even recognize this event do to pressure then who will?

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at October 10, 2007 8:54 PM

US Congressional Committee Approves Armenian Genocide Resolution

Photos:

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/photo_wegner_view.html?photo=skulls.jpg&collection=wegner&caption=Skulls+of+deportees

http://members.fortunecity.com/fstav1/megali_idea/armenian_genocide.jpg

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/9/9d/300px-Armin_wegner-pile_of_bodies-DSC_0124.JPG

http://itwasjohnson.impiousdigest.com/Heads.jpg

http://www.bibleprobe.com/genocide5.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/225/459290059_fc98be4d3b_o.jpg

Posted by: Concerned Citizen at October 10, 2007 9:20 PM

Shameful. The bloods of two million innocent and peaceful Armenian men, women and children are crying for justice, and they deserve recognition every bit as much as the millions of Jews, gypsies and Slavs who were murdered by the German Nazis. For how many more decades must the Armenian community wait before its national tragedy is finally recognized?!

Shameful.

Posted by: US_infidel at October 10, 2007 9:35 PM

The Japanese government acknowledges that more than 200,000 women (mostly Korean and Chinese) were deceitfully recruited or forced into prostitution in so called comfort stations operated by the Japanese Army. The Japanese government set up a compensation fund in the mid 1990s and the US House of Reps. unanimously passed a proclimation deploring the practice.

Sorry, but this is the only item posted by Ms Sinclair that I can quickly refute without doing any additional research.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 10, 2007 10:38 PM

Concerned Citizen

Thanks for the first link. I think some of these quotes should be repeated for this comments section. Here is a sample…

Republican Dan Burton said...

"The strongest ally in the area, and has been for over 50 years, is Turkey, and I just don't understand why we are going to cut our nose off and shoot ourselves in the foot at a time when we need this ally,"

Democrat Brad Sherman said..

"We cannot provide genocide-denial as one of the perks of friendship with the United States,"

Democrat Robert Wexler said..

"It is clear that America can ill afford to lose the support of an ally as important as Turkey at this critical juncture,"

All these folks keep calling the Turks key allies. Key allies to what and to who? Help in Iraq? Friends for Israel? Fight Russia?

Really why are they so dam important? They should be kissing our feet that they get the chance to buy American military equipment but instead they threaten our leaders and our leaders in response do the friendship dance. This fact is simple: If you slaughter a Christian and you are Muslim our leaders will never raise a finger to help but if you are a Christian and you kill some Muslim in some war (see Yugoslavia) you get NATO and U.S. Army invading and U.S. Presidents giving speeches.

Why is this? I can have no doubt on this but that the Arabians and Muslim groups have bought their slaves! Until the American people take back this country from the oil men, multiculturalists communist, sell outs and all other dhimmi slaves we will be enslaved to this madness.

The war is not in Iraq but is within this nation! We are being invaded by Jihadist money!

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at October 10, 2007 10:48 PM

Great Comet ...

I don't find any reason why we should get into an exchange about this.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 10, 2007 10:49 PM

Morgaan Sinclair

No exchange needed.

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at October 10, 2007 10:52 PM

To Marisol or whoever is watching the JW/DW store. I cannot sit still and let stand the comments that recite mythology as fact or repeat outright errors.

"The Vatican has never apologized for accepting from the Nazis a vast repository of stolen Jewish art, when they buried in the caves around the Vatican and ruined . . . "

That is the first I've heard about the Vatican accepting looted art from the NAZIs for storage Jewish or otherwise. Most art treasures were kept underground in Germany. The NAZIs actually moved them underground to protect them from Allied bombing. US troops discovered large repositories in underground caves and tunnels. They were recovered, still in very good condition. Hermann Goring amassed a vast collection of valuable paintings that were also recovered in good condition. Goring appreciated art, and he did not destroy any Jewish art.

Paintings that the US Army recovered were not ruined by the dark, pure B.S.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 10, 2007 11:02 PM

Pursuant to Hugh's above, re: Mustafa Akyol and Hrant Dink. Friends and colleagues of mine in Turkey, including Mustafa Akyol, who is considered a member of my family, point to the murder of Hrank Dink as a tipping point about this issue. The rage on the part of Turks that this creep kid would murder Dink, who was an absolute inspiration to the vast majority of Turks, was palpable and deep. The response of Turks was overwhelmingly pro-Dink in this matter, and his death is now referenced as the travesty it was in every trial about "insulting Turkishness" that comes up. It is accurate to say that this Kemalist legal gambit is used by Islamists, however, to equate the "insulting Turkishness" and "insulting Islam", something Ataturk would never have put up with. And now whenever anybody tries it, the defendant usually arrives in court with 100 lawyers (really) in tow, a statement on the part of Turkish legal advocates that they won't let little bullies get away with repressing free speech with this ploy. In general, Turks grieve Hrant Dink's loss on a national and ethnic level. And they miss him. He was wonderful.

Below Akyol talks about Turkish fascism, and it's a good lesson. There are two enemies here: the extreme fascism that has an ethnic supremacist basis and the Islamist religious fascism in Turkey, which is exemplified by the Turkish Hizbollah (not related to the Iranian variety) that is a Sunni organization that killed Konca Kuris.

Mustafa Akyol
The Hrant Dink Murder and Its Meaning

[Originally published in First Things website]

Some of the 100 Turks who marched in Dink's funeral with slogan, 'We are all Armenians' On January 19, 2007, a journalist named Hrant Dink was shot dead by a seventeen-year-old militant on one of Istanbul’s busiest avenues. In just thirty-two hours, the Turkish police caught the reckless killer, who confessed his crime quite proudly. “I shot the Armenian,” he said smugly, “because he had insulted Turkishness.”

Hrant Dink was a member of Turkey’s seventy-thousand-strong Armenian community. But he was not just any member. As the founder and editor of the weekly Agos, the bilingual Turkish/Armenian newspaper, he was certainly the most prominent Armenian public intellectual in the country. He was, like many Turkish democrats, critical of the authoritarian measures of the state, with a particular emphasis on the taboos about the Armenian tragedy of 1915. Mr. Dink, like many others, believed that the tragedy was indeed a planned genocide. (The Turkish view, on the other hand, is that hundreds of thousands Armenians did indeed perish in 1915, but so did many Turks and Kurds, and what happened should be defined as intercommunal violence, not as a campaign of extermination.)

Yet, while Mr. Dink continued to make his case in the face of reaction from Turkish authorities and nationalist groups, he also criticized the anti-Turkish stance in some circles of the Armenian Diaspora. Turks were not bad people who deserve to be seen as the enemy, he insisted; they just needed to be informed about the other side of the story.

Mr. Dink’s principled stance placed him right in the center of the ideological war between those who strive to create an open and democratic Turkey and those who want to avoid it. The dividing line between these two camps is not religion, as some would presume, but nationalism. The proponents of the latter ideology, which is strong both in the state bureaucracy and in society at large, are particularly against the democratic reforms inspired by the European Union accession process. They want their good old Turkey, in which the all-powerful state oversees society, and civil liberties are sacrificed for its narrow definition of “Turkishness.”

Mr. Dink’s killer, Ogun Samast, is just one of the many chauvinistic young militants inspired by the most radical version of the cult of Turkishness. One of his predecessors is Mehmet Ali Agca, who shot Pope Jean Paul II in 1979. Another one is the sixteen-year-old militant from Trabzon–which is also Samast’s hometown–who killed Father Andrea Santoro last year. And of course these young apparatchiks have their elder “brothers,” who indoctrinate, train, and arm them.

The relationship between this hysterical type of Turkish nationalism–or, to use a more appropriate term, Turkish fascism–and Islam is worth clarifying. There are of course many militant Islamists in the world today, but Turkish fascists are not among them. In fact, they are clearly distinguished from and often at odds with Turkey’s Islamic circles, some of which are strong proponents of democratization and the EU bid. The fascists defend Islam and use it in some of their slogans, to be sure, but this is because they see religion as an important component of the Turkish identity. They hate the “infidel” Jews, Armenians, or Americans, but they detest Muslim Kurds and Arabs, too. Indeed, some of their most extreme factions don’t like Islam because of its trans-nationalism; instead they yearn for the pagan faiths of the pre-Islamic Turks.

Threats and violence have been the traditional tools these fascist cadres use to silence the intellectuals they hate–including liberal novelists such as the recent Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, and the Sufi-inspired Elif Safak. With the murder of Hrant Dink, they probably wanted to give a warning to them all. But the reaction of Turkish society to this political assassination suggests that their plan has backfired. Right after Dink’s murder, thousands of people gathered in front of his office to protest the crime. Their maxim was dramatic: “We are all Hrant Dink.” And the Turkish media, save for a few extremist dailies that support the fascist line, published heartfelt praise for Dink and grave condemnation of his murder.

Moreover, Hrant Dink’s funeral turned into an unprecedented rally against fascism in Turkish society. About one hundred thousand people from all walks of life and faiths marched in the wide avenues of Istanbul, creating a scenic river of bodies. The motto of the day was “We are all Armenians.”

In the following days, this motto was criticized by some nationalist figures as “going too far.” To gauge public opinion, the mainstream daily Hurriyet launched an online poll to which more than 450,000 people replied. To the question “Is it rightful to say ‘We are all Armenians’ to protest the Dink murder,” nearly half the respondents said yes.

All this implies that there is an important trend in Turkish society toward embracing its historical “others.” The “others” note this, too. In his piece published in the Turkish Daily News, the former prime minister of Armenia, Armen Darbinyan, wrote, “Armenians in Armenia did not anticipate such a sincere manifestation of solidarity” in Turkey for Hrant Dink. “This leaves no doubt that a core transformation in the worldview of today’s Turkey has occurred,” added Mr. Darbinyan, “[which] should become a turning point in the relations between Turkish and Armenian nations.”

He is right. These two great nations, which lived peacefully side by side for centuries until the curse of modern nationalism, should seek reconciliation. An Islamic principle reads, “From every evil, there emerges a good.” Perhaps the good emerging from the evil murder of Hrant Dink might be the chance to build that mutual understanding. Had he lived, that would have been his advice to us all.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 10, 2007 11:07 PM

If anybody would like to see a photograph of the 100,000 Turks who came to Hrant Dink's funeral in protest of his murder and as a show of solidarity, go to:

http://www.thewhitepath.com/archives/2007/01/the_hrant_dink_murder_and_its_meaning.php

The sign they're hold says: We are all Hrant Dink.

The former prime minister of Armenia, Armen Darbinyan, wrote, “Armenians in Armenia did not anticipate such a sincere manifestation of solidarity” in Turkey for Hrant Dink. “This leaves no doubt that a core transformation in the worldview of today’s Turkey has occurred,” added Mr. Darbinyan, “[which] should become a turning point in the relations between Turkish and Armenian nations.”

I think things are changing. And I think it will be as hard for the Turks to face the Armenian Genocide as it was for Germans to face the Holocaust and America to face slavery.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 10, 2007 11:17 PM

Oh please, Morgaan Sinclair, must I beat you on the head with a logic stick?

Which one of these items are unlike the others?

1. Armenian Genocide by Turks

2. Jewish Holocaust by Nazis

3. Slavery in America

Posted by: atheling at October 10, 2007 11:26 PM

I give my 100% support to the U.S. Congress for having the courage to take a stand for the truth and hold the Turkish government accountable for the genocide that they denied ever existed.

The United States will hopefully join other countries such as France in formally calling the Armenian genocide what it truly was, a brutal genocide committed by Turks in early 1900's under the banner of Turkish nationalism and superiority.

Sadly, the Turkish governement and the majority of the Turkish people today remain in complete denial over their dark violent past towards Armenian Christians that once lived in their midst.

The Turks must be stopped in covering up the facts while lying to the world about their own history.

The Armenian genocide is well documented from a historical point of view. Secondly, there are Armenian survivors to this day that can still recall the Armenian genocide and describe in vivid detail the despicable events that were carried out by the Turks.

It is true that President Abdullah Gul and the Turkish government are now attempting to make Turkey into a country that is more Islamic and less open to democratic ideals of the west.

They are also attempting to whitewash and re-write their own history following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Journalists in Turkey that challenge the official Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide end up murdered.

As for President Bush, I am increasingly losing confidence in his leadership with foreign policy issues. President Bush places national interest for "the war on terror" (Turkish airspace and oil transport access) over human rights and justice.

Bush's political agenda with the U.S. military overrides his moral integrity in making the right decisions as leader of the United States.

Kudos to Congress for challenging President Bush!

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=49750&cl=4471187&ch=61492&src=news

Posted by: Johnathan at October 10, 2007 11:32 PM

If owning a person, forcing them to work for you without pay, and THEN they die isn't the taking of a life, what is it? You killed them. You just squeezed every drop of sweat out of them before you did it.

Owning a life if taking a life that is not yours. You don't honestly want to try to say otherwise, do you?

Or, would you like us to sorta let up on the pressure we place on those from Mauritania, which outlawed slavery a MONTH ago, and Darfur, where CHRISTIANS ARE BEING SOLD INTO SLAVERY ALL THE TIME?

You might want to talk to them before you decide that slavery (and then death from it) is somehow less of a calculated abuse and murder than a genocide. It's deciding another ethnic, racial or religious group DOES NOT HAVE HUMAN STATUS, SO THEREFORE YOU CAN USE, RAPE, ABUSE, TORTURE AND KILL THEM AT WILL.

That's slavery, and it most certainly is a form of genocide. And Americans did it for about 350 years.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 10, 2007 11:33 PM

And the numbers?

12,000,000 slaves were shipped to the Americas between the 17th and 19th centuries. Another 4 million were born into slavery here.

Historians agree that the masters' state-given authority to punish a slave in any form at will (including, in many cases, killing them) was the principle form of restraint, outweighing all other forms of control.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 10, 2007 11:42 PM

You know, Morgaan Sinclair,

You remind me of the man in the par of James Joyce's short story, "An Encounter", who talks to these young boys in apparently an innocent nature, but then after a little while the boys start to sense that something is not "quite right" with the man's mind... and slowly edge away from him...

How about some proof for your allegations regarding Nazis giving the Vatican stolen art treasures?

Secondly, you obviously have no clue what slavery was about in America, or even in ancient Rome for that matter.

Slaves were valuable. They learned skills and were necessary to keep a household smoothly running. It is a fact that slaveowners can be cruel and have been cruel to their slaves. However, that does not negate the fact that many slaveowners were businessmen who were not dumb when it came to "managing assets".

Comparing the systematic, intentional extermination of the Jews or the Armenians to the "peculiar institution" in America is absurdly illogical and blatantly untrue.

Now, I'm going to edge away, because your mind scares me.

Posted by: atheling at October 10, 2007 11:43 PM

I think the difference is that slavery in the United States was an institution that was in place before the American Revolution. Slavery in North America was not started by the US Government, but it surely was ended by the same government that inherited it. We have never covered up the history of slavery, we acknowledge it everyday, and everyday someone beats us over the head with it. As far back as 1955, the people who operated Andrew Jackson's plantation, The Hermitage, did not hide the fact that Jackson owned slaves.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 10, 2007 11:47 PM

"That's slavery, and it most certainly is a form of genocide. And Americans did it for about 350 years.

If by Americans, you mean the US Government and its citizens, The US had legal slave ownership only "four score and seven years" plus two.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 10, 2007 11:56 PM

Pelayo, check out museum websites, and read a book called "Provenance" which is a deftly (and thinly) disguised fictionalization of a slew of research the author didn't dare print as the solid research it was. Those of us who have been involved with major galleries and museums are DEEPLY aware of how much involvement there was. The following is just one note from a society that runs museum security:

http://www.museum-security.org/ww2/diversen.html

BTW, I wish it weren't true, too. But this is an interesting set of communications. We ask Turkey to admit to a genocide, yet we are STILL flinching ourselves over slavery. Somehow it is difficult to admit that enslaving another human being is taking a life, and we took some 16 million of them. Well not us, but our forebears did, and it's still a NATIONAL TRAUMA. When someone criticizes our religion, we respond by calling in the website police in hopes they will punish the "offender" who has "insulted Catholicism" or "insulted Americanness".

Be careful ... you're now making the Turks' point, in a way, as if to say that it's OK for ***us*** to demand others look at how intolerant they are when we ask them to simply admit that terrible things went on. But when even *we ourselves* point out things that have happened in our own country or in our own religion, those who say it are suddenly to be silenced by the "Night Police" (the police that would come in the night to arrest people in Florence during the time of Leonardo da Vinci).

'Vatican cover-up' over Nazi art thefts
By Hugh Davies in Washington

http://www.museum-security.org/ww2/diversen.html

LORD Janner voiced suspicion yesterday that the Vatican may be covering up details of its involvement in the plundering of Jewish-owned art by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
He said in Washington that the Roman Catholic authorities in Rome were refusing to open up archives from the era. As chairman of the Holocaust Education Trust, he had made a series of requests to the Vatican but received no reply. "If the Vatican has nothing to hide, they should open the archives," he said. Lord Janner was speaking at an international conference discussing how to reclaim stolen works of art for Holocaust survivors.

He said: "We are certain that into the Vatican came not only human beings, SS people on their way out, but property, art, assets. We have no idea what; and we're saying to them, as we do to every other country and authority, please tell us what happened. Please tell us the truth." He stressed that he did not believe that the present Pope was aware of the problem. According to a survey by Ronald Lauder, chairman of the board of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, virtually "every art museum" in the Western world had Nazi loot. A review of 225 museum catalogues by his staff found 1,700 stolen pieces. He urged governments and galleries to return the art or auction it to help Jews. "It is time for museums to set the same standard for ownership that they expect of themselves for authenticity. Is the art genuine? Is the art genuinely theirs?" France is refusing to auction 2,058 works of art, many by masters such as Picasso, that have been dubbed the "last prisoners-of-war" by the World Jewish Congress. All have been advertised on the Internet, but Paris has been unable to trace the original owners.

President Chirac has said the paintings are part of France's heritage and must remain in the country. A French delegate to the Washington gathering, Louis Amigues, said it was "not the French way" to go to auction. "The French way is to try to find the owners or their heirs. The art belongs to them and nobody else." ? French Jews strongly support the government's refusal to sell Nazi-looted art to compensate Holocaust victims worldwide, preferring to keep the works in France, a Jewish leader said yesterday.

Henri Hajdenberg, president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions, said that if the owners were not traced within 10 years the government should estimate the value, then put that sum towards building a new Holocaust centre in France.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 10, 2007 11:57 PM

Major parsing going on here!

We all trace our national ancestry to immigrants from England, beginning in 1620 roughly.

Actually, the Virginia tobacco plantations were running on slave labor as early as 1593. And cotton and indigo plantations earlier (much earlier) than that.

But suddenly, when some question of slavery comes up, with conveniently lop off everything before 1776 (four score and seven) so we can restrict the pain we feel about it to something less than it really is.

That's silly parsing, really.

Again, you see the problem. When a country is asked to openly and fairly acknowledge the history of its wrongs, it's hard. Its hard for any country that has treated what Akyol above calls the "others" in some way we can never excuse, that we can never condone.

Perhaps it's good to remember that the country we are really supposed to be is the one in which it's safe to say unpopular things.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 12:03 AM

Atheling, I'm going to quote you here:

> Secondly, you obviously have no clue what slavery was about in America, or even in ancient Rome for that matter.

Slaves were valuable. They learned skills and were necessary to keep a household smoothly running. It is a fact that slaveowners can be cruel and have been cruel to their slaves. However, that does not negate the fact that many slaveowners were businessmen who were not dumb when it came to "managing assets".>

A HUMAN BEING IS ** NOT AN ASSET ** And a human being has VALUE in and of themselves; they are not a commodity; and they are NOT to be owned for the expediency of some 'business owner'.

I find it extraordinary that you can say this and not even remotely get that you're out of your head!!!!

I think you need to keep in mind that your words can be quoted and JW management's names smeared all over it.

I can't imagine ANYBODY on this website could possibly agree with you.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 12:11 AM

I have to admire Morgan Sinclair's polemical style:

1 One hundred Turks attend a funeral shouting "We are all Armenians now " - this in his estimation
signals a shift in Turkish opinion. One hundred persons can hardly fill a modern double-decker bus.

2 450,000 people in a nation of 80 million souls agree that "we are Armenians now" and this heralds a sea change that warms Armenian hearts. But we already know that Turkey has a substantial number of secular Muslims and these would be among the first to lose if the Mohammed Agha types gain power.

3. 12,000,000 slaves were imported into the Americas with 4,000,000 born here. By "here" I assume he means the US. A casual reader will read 12,000,000 imported into the US, when that figure clearly includes the far larger proportion for Latin America.

By means of casual misdirection with numbers, Morgan gets his way hoping no one will notice.

Posted by: ivan at October 11, 2007 12:17 AM

Sheesh how old is this guy?

Posted by: atheling at October 11, 2007 12:35 AM

Morgan, Americans acknowledge the foulness of slavery, what's next reparations? We shoud hope other countries (Turkey) would face their own skeletons so openly.

Don't confuse the allegations that the Vatican helped conceal gold and currency with allegations that the Vatican neglegently stored stolen paintings.

It is wrong to blame the US Government for slavery. Jefferson put a few anti-slavery sentences in a draft of The Declaration of Independence; they were later removed. The need to have all thirteen colonies sign up was too important to attempt to tackle slavery in 1776. The young United States wrangled over slavery from beginning to 1861 when the ability to compromise finally was exhausted.

I have distant, long since dead relatives, and one ancestor (Civil War veterans) who helped end slavery by putting themselves in harm's way. I know their stories. I get really steamed when we are criticized because the US could not end slavery fast enough to suit some people.

If instead of citing slavery, you had used the Trail of Tears and similar examples, I would not be awake at 12:30 am.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 11, 2007 12:38 AM

Atheling, Ivan, I believe, based on much earlier encounters, Morgaan is a female of the modern human species.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 11, 2007 12:41 AM

Pelayo:

My great-grandmother was a slave. And half my relatives were part of the Trail of Tears. And the rest of my family fought to end slavery. And none of them every owned slaves.

What's next for the Armenians? Reparations? Think about that. [I do not like reparations as I think they are a form of slavery, since nobody alive did this.]

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves himself and had children by them.

It was George Washington who limited slavery in the colonies outside the original 13.

The Vatican is not only implicated in gold, but in much else, and refuses to open archives between 1939 and 1945 regarding art. It should do that.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 12:43 AM

IVAN ...

The number of Turks at Hrant Dink's funeral was ...
100,000 (not a hundred)

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND. That's a pretty significant show of grief and support.

Again, the voice of an ARMENIAN PRIME MINISTER:

The former prime minister of Armenia, Armen Darbinyan, wrote, “Armenians in Armenia did not anticipate such a sincere manifestation of solidarity” in Turkey for Hrant Dink. “This leaves no doubt that a core transformation in the worldview of today’s Turkey has occurred,” added Mr. Darbinyan, “[which] should become a turning point in the relations between Turkish and Armenian nations.”

You don't seem to want to accept that amid this incredible tragedy, there was a tremendous outpouring of solidary with the Armenian people.

Those words aren't mine. They belong to the prime minister of Armenia.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 12:47 AM

It is all about oil and the Anglo-American petroleum access to the oil and gas deposits of the Caspian basin is extracted via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

A popular argument in today’s media outlets is that much of today’s predicament is the result of more than two and half decades of political and ideological alienation between Iran and the United States. There is no question that this animosity must be lifted, and is a major contributor to present day politics. However the issue being discussed here is the largely unreported geopolitical and economic factor:
Petroleum Diplomacy.
Is Oil Running Out?

Cheap and plentiful Oil is rapidly becoming a diminishing resource. This fact has been hidden from global popular knowledge. All the facts about to be reported below are listed under Part VI References: Diminishing Petroleum Resources, just after the Web references. These are also reported by the aforementioned William Engdahl (see References, p.258-263, 284).

Just two days before the horrors of Sept 11, 2001, a very interesting memo was delivered to Tony Blair’s Cabinet Office in London. The Memo was called “Submission to the Cabinet Office on Energy Policy”. Virtually unknown is the fact that the panel which submitted the report to the British Prime Minister’s office included the aforementioned British Petroleum chairman, Lord Browne.

A number of details from that report and other subsequent communiqués can be summarized into the following:

[a] Global supplies of cheap oil are diminishing – output will soon decline. The global peak for oil was forecasted to be 5-10 years away and Natural Gas 20 years away.

[b] One of the reasons for declining access to cheap oil will have to do with the rise of new economic global powers: China, India and possibly Indonesia.

[c] At present, oil supplies are contributing 90% of the world’s transportation fuel as well as 40% of the world’s other vital energy necessities.

[d] Large investments in available Middle Eastern supplies will only result in limited increases. “Available” means those regions under the full sway of western interests.

[e] There is a significant amount of underdeveloped oil resources in the Middle East, notably Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the oil Emirates of the Persian Gulf. Iraq alone has been estimated to have perhaps 432 billion barrels of oil reserves, making it an even larger resource than Saudi Arabia. Western Africa and Libya were also reported as having significant reserves.

[f] The Caspian Sea region, especially in the Republic of Azerbaijan, is also seen as a lucrative resource base.

The report was prepared collaboratively by the following:

United Kingdom Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (esp. world-renowned geologist, Dr. Colin J. Campbell

British petroleum

Colorado School of Mines

Princeton University’s Geology Department

The French Petroleum Institute

University of Uppsala (Sweden)

Petroconsultants (Switzerland)

Douglas-Westwood Ltd.

Although news reports did appear in some of the world’s most highly respected media outlets (see Part VI References: Diminishing Petroleum Resources), none of these appear to have attracted much attention.

Engdahl’s analysis of the main thrust of geopolitical and Petroleum Diplomacy are of interest:

“…controlling every major existing and potential oil source and transport route on earth…deception would be essential…”

The ATC.

There are a number of lobbies actively promoting pan-Turanian ideology in the west. The majority of these constitute the Petroleum and geopolitical lobbies discussed above. An important lobby affiliated with these is the American Turkish Council

It is no coincidence that the ATC is one of the most powerful lobbies in America today. As a "non-profit" organization, the ATC operates tax-free and is kept out of the media and legal spotlights. But perhaps the most interesting component is the "educational committee” of the ATC. This committee has successfully lobbied the US public and government branches on behalf of the ATC.

Political reporter Christopher Deliso has cited a distinguished array of American ATC members (see Web References). Their chair has been known to include Brent Scowcroft, an influential member of the US government. According to Deliso, the American membership is represented by an impressive array of military contractors such as Boeing, Bechtel International, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and United Technologies/Sikorsky.

Political writer, John Stanton, has conducted considerable research into the activities of the ATC and its attempts to influence western centers of higher learning (see References).

Popular opinion regularly speaks of a powerful Jewish lobby in the US government: virtually unknown is the role of the “Turkish lobby”. These include Senators John Breaux and John McCain, and many other people of considerable influence including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith (long time chair of the Defense Policy Board and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy), and Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Defense Secretary). The Turkish lobby is now able to overpower the Greek and Armenian lobbies in the US government. This has allowed for the unhindered manipulation of historical scholarship in American universities.

Reports of attempts at manipulating western scholarship began to surface in earnest by the mid-1990s. As reported in the Hellenic Nationalist Page

“Turkey has intensified her attempts to spread her propaganda to internationally renowned universities around the world…in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Amy Magarao Rubin exposes the Turkish attempts at historic revisionism…fraud and influence of appointments is being mentioned…”

Posted by: shiva at October 11, 2007 12:48 AM

Oh I see.

Feeling missish are we today?

Posted by: atheling at October 11, 2007 12:49 AM

I disagree that 18th Century people can be legitimately critiicized for not having 21st Century beliefs. It is as wrong as criticizing the Romans for their technical ignorance and inability to invent the steam engine.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 11, 2007 12:52 AM

Ivan ...

The population of Turkey is approximately 66.5 million (not 80 million as you said) of whom some 80% are turks and 20% are Kurds.

When's the last time you saw a poll in the United States that had 450,000 people? There isn't a statician in the world that wouldn't think that number was a fantastic sample and easily valid to extrapolate to the generatl population.

Most US election polls are based on a 1,000 and are statistically valid to within 3%.

Good night.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 12:52 AM

oooops the link

http://www.rozanehmagazine.com/NoveDec05/AZPa...

Posted by: shiva at October 11, 2007 12:58 AM

Morgaan Sinclair, please do at least a little research. The first permanent English colony was not founded until 1607. African workers were not brought in until a few years after that, and may not have been legally and permanently enslaved until later in the 17th century. Indigo was first planted in the early 18th century. Cotton was not a major crop until after the invention of the cotton gin in 1793. Only about 500,000 slaves were imported to the English colonies in North America. The numbers of slaves in the United States increased in the decades before the Civil War, largely because they were indeed valuable assets and it would make no sense to starve or beat or work them to death.

If you cannot grasp simple historical facts like these, why should anyone take you seriously about anything else?

Posted by: Kate at October 11, 2007 1:00 AM

"It was George Washington who limited slavery in the colonies outside the original 13."

Wrong - Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida, and Missouri were admitted as slave states during and long after George Wasington's terms in office. The question concerning new states entering as slave states was not settled until 1866.

Missouri compromise - Maine is created as a free state and Missouri is admitted as a slave state this done sometime around 1850.

Kansas Nebraska Act - allowed each state to determine lagalized slavery for themselves by referendum. This resulted in turmoil and years of violence and created the term "Bloody Kansas."

George Washington was not a player in the slavery turmoil.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 11, 2007 1:18 AM

Kate:

Slavery began in the United States in 1619. Most Americans trace their sense of American "ancestry" whether in a social or ethnic sense back to about 1620.

It hardly matters if you are "legally" enslaved when the extra-judicial fact is that you are a owned human being who is forced to work for nothing and has no freedom.

Indigo was in production in the colonies by 1637; cotton, far earlier than the cotton gin and was being exported to Britain. Christopher Columbus received cotton balls as a gift on his first voyage to America in 1492, and cotton plants were sent to Jamestown shortly after the arrival of settlers in 1607--though it tobacco rapidly overtook the crop, which was developed in the South where the heat and soil types are better than in Virginia anyhow.

There's no question that the agrarian activities of the South related to cotton, indigo, tobacco and other crops caused slavery to bulge in that area.

BUT NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY DIFFERENCE AT ALL. WHEN SLAVES ARE ARRIVING TO LIGHTEN THE LOAD OF WHITE PEOPLE AS EARLY AS 1619, THE REST OF IT IS JUST MOOT ...

... though some of your facts do seem more than a bit skewed.

Jamestown is wonderful, and yes, I am aware that it was settled in 1607. However, it's that Plymouth Rock business (though it's a myth) from which most folks think of as America's beginning.

Now I'm going to quote you:

>The numbers of slaves in the United States increased in the decades before the Civil War, largely because they were indeed valuable assets and it would make no sense to starve or beat or work them to death.>

This is a totally shocking statement, akin to that of Atheling, in which you are THOROUGHLY TALKING ABOUT HUMAN BEINGS AS COMMODITIES. I can't believe you can hear yourself talk like this and find it in any way acceptable.

There are posts on this board that shock me as an American, and yours is one. You're parsing slavery, a crime against humanity and the THEFT AND DISPOSAL OF A LIFE, as if it were a BUSINESS MATTER. Or, as Atheling referred to it, a "peculiar custom."

I thought as a country we were further along on this issue. It makes me ashamed to hear other white people talk in this way.

I'm completely shocked at both of you.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 1:29 AM

I find it surprising the some people do not know that Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland were states where slave ownership was allowed. They were slave states but did not secede in 1861.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 11, 2007 1:29 AM

For Atheling and Kate.

I would like to hear your opinion of the business savvy and "peculiar customs" of the Sudanese and the Mauritanians who have been selling Christians into slavery.

How does it make you feel to know that their masters will revel that, YOUR WORDS, The numbers of slaves in [will] increase ... because indeed [they are] valuable assets and it would make no sense to starve or beat or work them to death.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 1:32 AM

Washington ...

George Washington was born into a world in which slavery was accepted. He became a slave owner when his father died in 1743. At the age of eleven, he inherited ten slaves and 500 acres of land. When he began farming Mount Vernon eleven years later, at the age of 22, he had a work force of about 36 slaves. With his marriage to Martha Custis in 1759, 20 of her slaves came to Mount Vernon. After their marriage, Washington purchased even more slaves. The slave population also increased because the slaves were marrying and raising their own families. By 1799, when George Washington died, there were 316 slaves living on the estate.

The skilled and manual labor needed to run Mount Vernon was largely provided by slaves. Many of the working slaves were trained in crafts such as milling, coopering, blacksmithing, carpentry,and shoemaking. The others worked as house servants, boatmen, coachmen or field hands. Some female slaves were also taught skills, particularly spinning, weaving and sewing, while others worked as house servants or in the laundry, the dairy, or the kitchen. Many female slaves also worked in the fields. Almost three-quarters of the 184 working slaves at Mount Vernon worked in the fields, and of those, about 60% were women.

The workday for slaves was from sun-up to sun-down, six days a week. Sunday was a day of rest.

Although George Washington was born into a world where slavery was accepted, his attitude toward slavery changed as he grew older. During the Revolution, as he and fellow patriots strove for liberty, Washington became increasingly conscious of the contradiction between this struggle and the system of slavery. By the time of his presidency, he seems to have believed that slavery was wrong and against the principles of the new nation.

As President, Washington did not lead a public fight against slavery, however, because he believed it would tear the new nation apart. Abolition had many opponents, especially in the South. Washington seems to have feared that if he took such a public stand, the southern states would withdraw from the Union (something they would do seventy years later, leading to the Civil War). He had worked too hard to build the country to risk tearing it apart.

Privately, however, Washington could -- and did -- lead by example. In his will, he arranged for all of the slaves he owned to be freed after the death of his wife, Martha. He also left instructions for the continued care and education of some of his former slaves, support and training for all of the children until they came of age, and continuing support for the elderly.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 1:33 AM

Okay, everybody

Can we get back to the Turks and Armenians?

Posted by: Infidel Pride at October 11, 2007 1:34 AM

Can we get back to the Turks and Armenians?

I'm getting back to bed.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 11, 2007 1:40 AM

Re: Washington, Jefferson, and the end of slavery

The historians who are resident at the Mount Vernon and the Washington Monument will be able to help you further with this, but both Washington (they insist) worked with Jefferson on the slavery act of 1784, which passed, and the Jefferson act of 1800, which failed by one vote.

It was Washington who was determined that slavery not spread beyond the colonies which practiced it in his time, urging the government not to allow it to spread to Western territories like Ohio.

When people are saying that Washington wouldn't touch it because it was an entrenched problem, they are right -- and that had nothing to do with Kate's cotton gin theory.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 1:42 AM

Infidel Pride, Pelayo ...

You want to get back to the Turks and Armenians. OK. Say something about it!

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at October 11, 2007 1:43 AM

I wonder if the Spanish Civil War stirs as much emotion among Spaniards as the American Civil War does among Americans?

Now to bed.

Posted by: Pelayo at October 11, 2007 1:44 AM

Infidel Pride

In some strange way I am amazed how this thread ended up on early colonial slavery.

Oh by the way what is your view of the The Teapot Dome Scandal?

:)

Posted by: greatcometof1577 at October 11, 2007 1:45 AM

On the resolution itself, I agree with GreatComet - if the Administration is conceding that mass murders took place, it is somewhat semantic as to whether they call it genocide or not. That said, looking at Turkey as an a