EDITORIAL: THE HOUSE GENOCIDE RESOLUTION: AND THE POINT IS . . . ?
Philadelphia Inquirer, PA
Oct 18 2007
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) rose to the highest office
in the U.S. House of Representatives and the third highest in the
land, she was obliged to set priorities that are in the nation’s
best interest.
She can do just that by pulling a very ill-timed resolution from a
full House vote. Former backers are running away from it in droves,
as they should.
The nonbinding resolution would have labeled as genocide the 1915-1923
slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians in what is now called
Turkey. Passage last week in the House Foreign Affairs Committee made
a full vote possible – and caused the Turkish government to warn of
ominous consequences for bilateral relations if the House votes to
pass it.
Why did anyone think this resolution was a good idea now? It’s a bad
idea for three reasons: (a) it’s gratuitous, almost a century late,
and will do little or nothing; (b) it could alienate an ally in a
crucial area of the world, i.e., next door to Iraq; and thus (c)
could endanger U.S. troops.
When a state tries to eliminate many or all of an identifiable group
or class of people, that’s genocide. Evidence is strong that the
Young Turks government of the time set out to eliminate Armenians
through a variety of means. The leaders of modern-day Turkey refuse
to acknowledge that history; by Turkish law, it is a crime to "insult"
Turkey by saying that the slaughter of Armenians was a genocide. That
refusal has infuriatied many people.
The community of nations is not supposed to tolerate genocide, the
most extreme form of barbarity. It has a moral obligation and a legal
responsibility under international law to denounce it and to stop it.
But the right time for a nation to make that official designation
is when the crisis is taking place. If a country that has signed the
1948 U.N. genocide convention (as the United States has) designates
an action as genocide, the legal basis is set for nations to intervene.
Denunciation isn’t enough by itself. In 2004, the Bush administration
said the violence in Sudan’s Darfur region was genocide. This week
brought new reports of another massacre there. The world stumbles
in response.
So if an official designation of genocide won’t do much for present
violence, why a denunciation – especially now – of a slaughter of 92
years ago?
A House resolution won’t make Turkey’s leaders slap their foreheads and
acknowledge the truth. Twice before, the House has passed an Armenian
genocide resolution, and neither has led the Turkish government to
own up to this dark period.
One impact of the whole misguided adventure: to antagonize one of
America’s closest Muslim allies. Turkey’s help with neighboring Iraq
is irreplaceable. An angry Turkey could deny the United States access
to an air base in southern Turkey used to deliver military supplies.
That would endanger every U.S. soldier in Iraq.
More: Turkey is considering a cross-border military operation into
northern Iraq against Kurdish rebel groups that have been attacking
the Turks. A hostile Ankara (which recalled its ambassador to the
United States last week) would be less likely to heed Washington’s
calls not to launch the operation.
Turkey has every right to defend itself against assault, as the Turkish
parliament declared yesterday in a vote authorizing an offensive. The
question is how to quell rebel attacks without inflaming the situation
in Iraq and causing even greater havoc in the region. The answer
requires a calm deliberation that the controversy in the House is
helping to make impossible.
Pelosi and other U.S. officials have said the Armenian slaughter of
the early 20th century was genocide. For now, that ought to be enough.
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