President Bush recently recommended that a House committee not vote to label the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces during World War I as genocide. I figured that nothing good would come from putting such a label on atrocities that occurred over ninety years ago! The people who did the killing are no longer alive. The only thing that could possibly come out of voting for this is to antagonize Turkey, one of our allies. And now, since the House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted for the genocide label, Turkey has recalled its ambassador to the U.S.
I heard someone earlier today say that we shouldn't only condemn such atrocities when it doesn't inconvenience us, such as the genocide in Sudan. However this seemed like a poor example since this is something that is happening now! If genocide in Turkey were happening today, or maybe a bit more recently than ninety years ago, it might make more sense to condemn them, but it doesn't recall accomplish anything to do so now. Now we have Turkey, one of our allies upset with us, and while I don't think we should be in Iraq, that doesn't change the fact that we are. With a great portion of the supplies being sent to Iraq from the United States passing through Turkey, it would seem to me that pissing off the Turks wouldn't be a good idea.
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