This is posturing and pandering by the most corrupt government in the history of mankind. It is meant to dispel the guilt and shame the members share (with us) for the grievous injury they (and we) have done our country and the world. Like all neurotic gestures, it will prove unavailing.

A better plan would be to inform people about the events of 1915. Notice how little mention there is in any of this debate about what actually was happening in that world. If we know anything about this event at all, we know only that some large number of Turks killed some large number of Armenians. There’s a good deal more to know than that, and an official day of reflection on the events of 1915, maybe accompanied by a recommended school curriculum, might help people learn some lessons and put them to use for today and tomorrow. A Congressional resolution of condemnation, by contrast, is a transparent and cynical fraud. Don’t fall for it, and don’t pat anybody on the back for it either.

I think the Armenians have a legitimate purpose in asking for a resolution on the “genocide” that happened in 1915. You say it is not appropriate method to end the war.

Turkey is on the fringe of some kind of sectarian violence with the Kurds and if they threaten our access to their air and land, so be it. They are just waving their arms. There chances for entry to the EU will also be damaged with these threats.

Any condemnation, however late, is better than none. What if the genocides against the Jews were forgotten? How long do you think that would go on? And that happened some 60+ years too.

We cannot forgot or allow atrocities be done on anyone, no matter what. Your argument that it happened so long ago does not wash.

Maybe at some time in the future, the Iraqis would want the U.S. to be condemned for the atrocities done to them, killing their children, mothers, fathers - ruining their antiquities and infrastructure where civilization was to have started.

Your premise that the Democrats are passing futile measures that are provoking Turkey, and in so doing, to end the war, is not their motive. .

Remember, this is only a non-binding resolution, the same type of resolution to end the war that the new Congress recently passed. Maybe we need a resolution for the atrocities we did to our Indians and still do.

Peace,

Tom George

Steve, there’s another perspective here that I think everyone is missing. I really don’t know Pelosi’s motives, but I did live in Turkey for a year and know how racist the Turks are toward those short, dark-skinned “animals,” as they are wont to call them, the Kurds.

My take on what’s going on here is that Turkey is thumbing its nose at the US by planning a massive invasion of Kurdish Iraq. The US needs the support of the Kurds, and the Kurds know that if Turkey comes in, it’s because the US let them come in. “Whose occupation is this, anyway?” It’s no coincidence that we’re calling a 90-year-old massacre a “genocide” just as Turkey gets Parliament and the artillery warmed up for a massacre of the Kurds.

I actually think Pelosi might be inoculating the public and intimidating Bush and Turkey about the Kurds, making any invasion by Turkey into Kurdistan a much more controlled action (less murderous of civilians) than it might otherwise be. Somehow, the US needs to get this “ally” under control, and not get blamed (rightfully) for another Turkish genocide.

Since the start of the Iraq war, I’ve been convinced that sooner or later, the Kurds in Iraq are going to take it on the chin. The only reason they’ve gotten any support in the past from the US is their opposition to Saddam. Otherwise, the concerns of the Turks and the Russians (now Armenians, ironically - the Kurds were used extensively by the Turks to kill off the Armenians in the genocide) would have led already to a decimation of their forces. Before this is over, the Kurds will have to be brought to their knees one way or the other, and really, there’s only one way. If Turkey doesn’t get the green light to do it for us, then we’ll do it, or maybe let the Russians and the Turks do it after we leave, but they just can’t be left there to foment revolution in four countries.

see map:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/kurdistan/kurdistan.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/kurdistan/&h=286&w=300&sz=11&tbnid=R9UXtgc7WqIO-M:&tbnh=111&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmap%2Bkurdistan%26um%3D1&start=3&sa=X&oi=images&ct=image&cd=3

STEVE (AND OTHERS): ANYthing that disrupts Cheney’s expanding war plan is worth doing, especially when it is based on truth. Just like Israel in Palestine, the Turks and the holocaust they created and persist in trying to ignore (slaughter of Armenians AND Greeks, including my spouse’s granddad) need to be openly acknowledged, AT LONG LAST. They are unworthy allies, emphasized by their treatment of Kurds. But they are natural allies for a corrupt U.S. Administration.
George Beres