Author: Frangulian Shushan

REPUBLICANS ARE WUSSING OUT TO THREAT FROM TURKEY
By Jim Christian

Metro Spirit, GA
3223363&ShowArticle_ID=11012310070841369
Oct 24 2007

AUGUSTA, GA. – Democrats are oft blamed for the "wussification
of America" – they don’t like dodge ball or eat French food,
and they believe in silly notions such as tolerance. In a
famous-in-the-blogosphere column from 2001, Bill Steigerwald coined
the above phrase and asked, in the ultra-conservative World Net Daily,
"Will we remain the world’s only ‘hyper-power,’ as the French now
grudgingly call us? Or will we become a nation of wimps who’ll someday
be bullied by Iranians?"

Six years later, it looks like the latter is playing out. Iran clearly
isn’t afraid of us. And another little country is making noises with
threats and intimidation. But, ironically, it’s not the Democrats
that are quaking in their boots. Republican overlord George W. Bush
has caved to the Turks. And The Augusta Chronicle is happy to see us
wuss out.

In an interesting turn of events, The Chronicle threw its support
behind a little country seeking to thwart our democratic process. The
issue? Long-overdue recognition of Armenian genocide at the hands of
the Turks during WWI – the Turkish version of the Nazi Holocaust.

Amazingly, The Chronicle calls it "Likely meaningless to most
Americans." Is the Holocaust meaningless to most Americans?

Of course not, and neither should this issue. From 1915 to 1917,
as many as 1.5 million Armenians were massacred at the hands of the
Turks. It’s no "meaningless" issue. Indeed, the event is thought to
have been a great influence on Adolph Hitler’s worldview, you know,
the one that led to 6 million Jews being massacred by the Nazis. So
this event is certainly not meaningless to the million or so Armenian
Americans, and shouldn’t be to the rest of us Americans either.

The resolution currently in the House isn’t new – it’s been wallowing
in committee for years. The Chronicle concedes that it has "been kept
on the political burner for decades by relentless Armenian-American
lobbyists." But it has finally made its way to the House floor,
where our procedures say it must be voted on. Nancy Pelosi promised
Armenian Americans that when it made it to the House, it would be
considered. So, I guess, shame on her for wanting to honor a promise.

But as The Chronicle noted, "Turkish President Abdullah Gul said
that if the full House votes on this issue, there will be major
repercussions involving our access to their country." And that begs
the question: Since when does the Bush administration (and by extension
The Chronicle) kowtow to saber rattling?

The Chronicle tries to point out that this stand by the Democrats
smacks of hypocrisy: "Democrats spend so much time harping about how
the war is damaging the United States’ reputation around the world.

Now, hypocritically, they engage in machinations to damage that
reputation further."

But they’re comparing apples to watermelons. The global war on terror
affects, well, the globe. So it’s a good thing to keep people outside
of our borders happy. But what the Turks are pulling, well, that’s
different. They’re trying to tell us how to run our government,
and that shouldn’t stand.

And while laying it on the Democrats, The Chronicle fails to point
out the hypocrisy of the Bush administration.

Long gone, I suppose, are the days of American hegemony, the days of
"you’re either with us or you’re against us," the days where might
is right. Enter the kinder, gentler Bush administration, I guess,
the Bush administration where our democratic process can be hijacked
by countries in which we’re invested.

The reason we’re friends with Turkey today is that, in exchange for
our use of Turkish airfields and supply lines, they got protection
from the Soviets during the Cold War. So maybe Turkey thinks that
now they’re holding all of the cards. But the Bush of old would have
told Turkey where to stick it. "You’re going to deny us access to your
air fields? Fine. Now that the Russians are acting all bad-ass again,
you’re on your own when they decide to annex you."

But no. A little noise from the Turks and he’s running scared to
Congress, telling them to cool it, lest we piss off the scary,
scary Turks. When we actually need Bush’s backbone to protect the
integrity of our government, and by extension our country, it’s
MIA. And predictably, The Chronicle is falling in line.

GENOCIDE CLAIMING A LARGER PLACE IN MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL LESSONS
By Bess Keller and Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Education Week News, MD
armenian.h27.html
Oct 23 2007

The debate in the U.S. House of Representatives over whether the mass
killings of Armenians that began in 1915 should be declared "genocide"
has been resolved in practice in many American classrooms.

That era has become intertwined with lessons on the Holocaust in the
history curriculum.

With an array of new curriculum resources, and spurred in some cases
by advocates’ public-awareness campaigns, teachers are finding ways to
give their students a more comprehensive look at genocide historically
and in current events.

Human rights is one of the themes being highlighted in the annual
conference of the National Council for the Social Studies next month,
and more than a dozen sessions-the most in recent years-will take
up teaching about genocide, according to the council’s president,
Gayle Y. Thieman, a professor of history education at Portland State
University in Oregon. The council has also crafted sample lessons
for teachers on a variety of human-rights issues, she added.

"When we’re teaching about the Holocaust, I think it’s important
for students to realize it’s not something that happened once in our
history, but that genocide is an issue that erupts around the world
in situations of intense racial or ethnic conflict," Ms. Thieman said.

The United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as any act committed with the
idea of destroying in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial,
or religious group. Though killing is the ultimate destructive
act, it isn’t the only one, according to the convention. Forcefully
transferring children from one group to another represents one element
of genocide.

The New York City-based International Association of Genocide Scholars,
a global, nonpartisan body that studies the causes and consequences
of genocide, formally recognizes the Armenian genocide at the hands
of the Ottoman Empire and considers it undeniable.

State Directives The attention to genocide in part is the result of
state policy.

Eleven states direct schools to include materials about the Armenian
genocide in history courses. More than 30 recommend or require teaching
about the World War II-era destruction of European Jews by the Nazis,
or genocide generally.

But teachers are also responding to the almost instantaneous knowledge
of extreme human-rights violations around the world.

Advocacy groups help keep alive the concern even when interest of
the news media has waned.

Explicit attention to the Holocaust has been a staple of secondary
school history and literature classes-think Anne Frank’s The Diary of
a Young Girl or Elie Weisel’s Night-for two decades or more. Courses
or units within courses focused explicitly on mass atrocities linked
to racial or ethnic identity, however, are mostly a more recent
phenomenon.

In her now nine-plus years of teaching at Mountain View High School in
suburbanizing Stafford County, Va., Susan Roeske has always included
discussion of genocide, even the one year she taught American
history. In the past few years, she has devoted a unit to genocide
in her global-issues classes, using materials from the Choices for
the 21st Century program at Brown University’s Watson Center for
International Studies. That curriculum now encompasses even the crisis
in the Darfur region of Sudan.

"I snagged it immediately," she said of the Choices program’s
3-year-old genocide curriculum. "I often show [the students] the
units I have prepared, and it’s always one they say they would like."

Middle School Topic Ronald Levitsky, who teaches 8th grade U.S. history
at Sunset Ridge School in Northfield, Ill., spends about a week on
the Holocaust and also takes time to explore the Armenian genocide
and that of the Pontian Greeks, also committed by the Ottoman Turks,
when his class studies World War I.

If handled right, he said, the subject is perfect for 8th graders.

"You don’t want to horrify them, but you do want to reach their
maturity level, and they can handle the concepts and the affect,"
he said, referring to the emotions stirred up. "That’s how you reach
them-the affect."

Sara Cohan, who heads teacher professional development for the
San Francisco-based Genocide Education Project, said the ongoing
situation in Darfur-in which an estimated 200,000 to 450,000 people
have perished as a result of tribal warfare fueled by the Sudanese
government-has generated demand for genocide studies among students
and teachers. Ms. Cohan’s group was founded to help educators
understand the Armenian genocide after California, which has a large
Armenian-American population, mandated its teaching in 1987.

"Any workshop I do, I mention about Darfur," she said.

Ms. Cohan, whose family includes survivors of both the Holocaust and
the Armenian genocide, said she personally supports the nonbinding
resolution on the Armenian genocide. It calls on the president to
"accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of
1.5 million Armenians as genocide," and has been vehemently protested
by the Turkish government. She also approves the step the California
legislature took two decades ago in directing the state school board
to include the Armenian genocide in its curriculum framework.

The Genocide Education Project, however, is careful to steer clear
of political positions in its work, she stressed.

Some education experts, nonetheless, are concerned about the role of
advocacy groups and lawmakers in shaping curricula.

"I don’t think legislators should mandate what to teach," said
Diane Ravitch, an education historian at New York University and
the author of The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What
Students Learn. Expert opinion in a discipline should determine what
is embodied in academic standards and taught in the classroom rather
than legislative mandate or interest-group power, she argued.

At the same time, Ms. Ravitch said, she was not questioning the
historical accuracy of an Armenian genocide. When she sat on the
federal board that governs the National Assessment of Educational
Progress-a series of tests to measure student achievement nationally-a
Turkish parent objected, in the end fruitlessly, to a question about
that genocide, according to Ms. Ravitch.

"The staff did considerable research and concluded the question
[as it stood] was historically accurate," she said.

‘Transformative’ Effect Other experts raise a possible red flag about
history courses that rely heavily on thematic approaches-employed,
for instance, in the curriculum materials produced by Facing
History and Ourselves. The group, which is based in Brookline,
Mass., but has several regional offices, was founded 30 years
ago to help precollegiate teachers address the Holocaust in their
classrooms. It is now widely influential in teaching about genocide
around questions of the role of identity in social life and the need
for moral responsibility and civic engagement.

"It’s a question of how it’s handled and how much students bring to
the table," said Martin A. Davis, a senior writer and editor for the
Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, which undertakes reviews
of state standards and generally endorses a traditional approach to
teaching history. A chronological framework should be in place before
students launch into questions that skip through different eras,
Mr. Davis contended.

But the former high school history teacher said he’d have no particular
problem with an elective for students well along in their study of
history that focused on questions surrounding genocide.

Adrianne Billingham Bock taught such a course for five years at
Lexington High School in Lexington, Mass. She used the framework
designed by Facing History and Ourselves.

"I’d begin by talking about identity, asking students questions about
themselves-who was in their ‘universe of obligation,’ who they’d stick
their neck out for," she said. "When you talk about the history in
the context of human behavior, it hits them in a different place,
and they really begin to think about the choices they make in their
everyday life."

Ms. Bock said the course "totally transformed" some students and
brought back to life a student chapter of Amnesty International, the
human-rights watchdog group. Students raised money for a "healing
center" in Rwanda, the site in 1994 of the slaughter of perhaps
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus sympathizers, and for the Save
Darfur Coalition, said the educator, who now works as a teacher-coach
for the Facing History program.

Teachers stress that the availability of accurate and thoughtful
curriculum materials has helped them strike the right balance between
sophisticated understanding and moral engagement. "Many students
like to think if we [the United States] could just invade, everything
would be fine," said Sarah C. Kreckel, who helped write the Choices
for the 21st Century curriculum on genocide and has taught middle
school history. "One of the things we do successfully is help the
students understand the complexity of the issues, and in the end,
that makes them better advocates of their position."

The Choices curriculum gives teachers the equivalent of oven mitts
to handle very hot topics, added Andy Blackadar, the chief author of
the curriculum. "We’re not trying to be overly dramatic. … We’re
always going to talk about the other sides of the story."

The Facing History approach in particular gets high marks from
teachers anxious to hold their student back from a cliff of fatalism
and helplessness as they contemplate mass atrocities.

"There are tremendous resources to support the teaching of these
really difficult histories, much more today than when I first started
teaching [about genocide]" seven years ago, said Wendy Garner, an
English teacher at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, Calif.,
east of San Francisco Bay. The teacher offers an elective in social
justice that includes a unit on genocide.

"You can approach it in terms both of deep roots and small steps that
make a difference."

Staff Writer Vaishali Honawar contributed to this story

Photo: Survivors of the 1915-1923 mass murders of Armenians listen
to speeches from members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on
a measure that would characterize the killings as a genocide. U.S.

lessons on the atrocity are often intertwined with teaching about
the Holocaust.

Wall Street Journal
GLOBAL VIEW

By BRET STEPHENS

A Kurdish Lesson

October 23, 2007; Page A18

A debate among U.S. military brass over whether to declare victory
over al Qaeda in Iraq coincides with threats by Turkey to strike
terrorist camps in northern Iraq belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’
Party, or PKK. Note the irony: The PKK, which in recent days has
killed scores of Turkish soldiers, was itself declared dead as a
terrorist group in 1999.

There are excellent reasons to avoid pronouncements concerning AQI’s
defeat. One is to deny the group the chance to offer testaments in
blood to its own resilience. A second is to avoid another political
embarrassment of the "Mission Accomplished" kind. But the main reason
is that the experience of terrorist organizations world-wide shows
that even in defeat they are rarely truly finished. Like Douglas
MacArthur’s old soldiers, terrorist groups never die. At best they
just fade away.

Some examples: In its heyday in the 1980s, Peru’s Maoist Shining Path
was every bit as brutal as al Qaeda. The 1992 capture of its
charismatic leader, former philosophy professor Abimael Guzmán, was
supposed to have dealt a fatal blow to the group’s capacity to
operate, as was the capture seven years later of his successor, Óscar
Ramírez. Yet as recently as last year, the Peruvian government was
forced to declare a state of emergency in the Huánuco region to deal
with terrorist activities by the group.

Or take the Taliban. In April 2005, American Gen. David Barno told
reporters he believed that, with the exception of a few bitter-enders,
the Taliban would be a memory within two years. The opposite happened.
In 2006, the rate of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan soared, and the
Bush administration was forced to deploy 6,000 additional troops to
recover territory lost to the Taliban and turn back their anticipated
spring offensive.
[Abdullah Ocalan]

What about the PKK? Late in 1998 Turkey massed troops on its border
with Syria, with the declared intention of expelling the PKK and its
leader Abdullah Öcalan from Damascus if the Syrians didn’t do so
themselves. (A banner headline in the Turkish paper Hurriyet declared
"We’re going to say ‘shalom’ to the Israelis on the Golan Heights.")
The late Syrian strongman Hafez Assad got the message, and sent Öcalan
packing. He was eventually captured by Turkish intelligence in
Nairobi, and sentenced to death by a Turkish court (commuted to a life
sentence when Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2002). Öcalan has
since apologized to the Turkish people for the 37,000 deaths he caused
in the 1980s and ’90s and called for a peaceful solution to the
Kurdish issue. The PKK itself declared a ceasefire.

That should have been the end of it. As Turkish analyst Soner Cagaptay
of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy observes, Öcalan was
a cult-of-personality figure in an organization that, unlike the
cellular structure of al Qaeda, was run along strictly hierarchical
lines.

For the next few years the Turkish government made real, if limited,
strides in accommodating peaceful ethnic Kurdish cultural demands in
education and broadcasting. What remained of the PKK — 5,000 or so
fighters — mainly retreated to northern Iraq, where their bases were
attacked by Turkish forces no fewer than 24 times.

So might things have remained had the U.S. invasion of Iraq not
rearranged the strategic chessboard. The Turks did not help themselves
by failing to support the war, which caused strains with Washington
and prevented them from carrying out further cross-border raids. That,
in turn, created an opening for Iran, which until then had been the
PKK’s sole remaining state sponsor. Concerned about its isolation in
the region, and sensing an opportunity to make common cause with the
moderately Islamist government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Tehran
abruptly switched sides, going so far as to shell PKK positions in
northern Iraq. Not surprisingly, the Turks began to take a more
favorable view of Iran.

The U.S. role is scarcely more creditable. The Ankara government has
been pressing the Bush administration to hit PKK bases for at least
four years. The administration has responded with a combination of
empty promises of future action and excuses that U.S. forces are
already overstretched in Iraq. For the Turks, who contribute more than
1,000 troops to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, U.S. nonfeasance is a
mystery, if not an outright conspiracy. "How is it that Turkey fights
America’s terrorists, but America does not fight Turkey’s terrorists?"
is how Mr. Cagaptay sums up the prevailing mood.

Yet the real mystery isn’t U.S. behavior, which was mainly dictated by
a desire not to rock the boat in what was (at least until this month),
the only relatively stable region of Iraq. It is the forbearance shown
to the PKK by Massoud Barzani, Kurdistan’s president, who has
otherwise sought to cultivate better relations with Ankara and Kurdish
moderates in Turkey, and who would have much to lose if an invading
Turkish army turned his province into a free-fire zone. One theory is
that Mr. Barzani wants to use the PKK as a diplomatic card, to be
exchanged for Turkish concessions in some future negotiation. But all
that depends on his ability to rein in the PKK at the last minute and
avert a Turkish invasion. Yesterday’s kidnapping (or killing) of
another eight Turkish troops puts that in doubt.

Meanwhile, the PKK has fully reconstituted itself as an effective
fighting force under the leadership of Murat Karayilan, who was canny
enough to see Congress’s Armenian genocide resolution as an
opportunity to take scissors to the already frayed U.S.-Turkish
relationship. The resolution was turned back at the 11th hour, but it
remains to be seen whether it has already done its damage.

All the more reason, then, for the U.S. to pre-empt the Turks by
taking the decisive action against the PKK it has promised for too
long. But the story of the PKK’s resurgence should also remind us of
the dangers of premature declarations of victory against terrorist
groups, especially when such declarations foster the illusion that you
can finally come home. Against this kind of enemy, there are no final
victories, and no true homecomings, and no real alternatives other
than to keep on fighting.

Write to [email protected].

Source: .html

PRESENTATION OF COLLECTION "HERE AND THERE" BY AMERICAN ARMENIAN WRITER MARY KANDALIAN-ASLANIAN TAKES PLACE IN YEREVAN

Noyan Tapan
Oct 22, 2007

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 22, NOYAN TAPAN. American Armenian writer Mary
Kandalian-Aslanian is one of the writers creating in a foreign
language, who cannot leave out the subjects of Armenian Genocide,
Armenian Cause, and Western Armenia from her creations. Levon
Ananian, the Chairman of the Armenian Union of Writers, said
this at the launching of the publication of the first, bilingual,
Armenian and English collection of stories "Here and There" by Mary
Kandalian-Aslanian. The launching took place on October 22 at the
Armenian Union of Writers. L. Ananian said that M. Kandalian-Aslanian
has been elected a Diasporan member of the Armenian Union of Writers.

In the words of writer, publicist Artur Andranikian, the publicist
does not present her heroes as Genocide victims, but tries to see the
Armenians in a new way. He said that M. Kandalian-Aslanian was afraid
of presenting her works to the public, but the forum of Armenian
writers creating in foreign languages organized in Yerevan gave her
strength to publish her collection as soon as possible.

M. Kandalian-Aslanian’s stories and essays have been published
in Armenian and foreign press. Some of her stories have received
the first prize of the Association of Armenian Arts in different
years. The publicist made the broadcasts of San Francisco’s Armenian
radio for 10 years.

TURKISH AMBASSADOR RETURNS TO USA

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
Oct 22 2007

"TURKISH AMBASSADOR TO USA RETURNS TO HIS OFFICE" – AA headline

WASHINGTON D.C. (A.A) -Turkish Ambassador to the United States Nabi
Sensoy returned to his office in Washington D.C. on Sunday.

Sensoy was recalled to Ankara for consultations following approval
of the resolution regarding Armenian allegations on the incidents of
1915 by the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs
on October 10th.

Meanwhile, sources said it was up to US House of Representatives
Speaker Nancy Pelosi whether or not to bring the resolution onto
agenda of the full House.

US President George W. Bush called on Pelosi not to bring the
resolution onto agenda due to national security. On the other hand,
some supporters of the resolution withdrew their signatures while
Sensoy was in Ankara.

Earlier, John Murtha of the Democrat Party told a news conference after
Sensoy was recalled to Ankara that he was opposed to the resolution.

DRAFT MILITARY DOCTRINE TO BE DISCUSSED OCTOBER 24

armradio.am
22.10.2007 12:23

October 24 the draft Military Doctrine of the Republic of Armenia
will be submitted for public and expert discussion at the National
Strategic Research Institute after Commander Drastamat Kanayan of RA
Ministry of Defense. The process of its elaboration, structure and
content will be presented by Defense Minister Michael Harutyunyan.

Representatives of RA state agencies, scientific and educational
institutions and non-governmental organizations will participate in
the discussion, MOD Press Service reports.

OSCE MG FORMER CO-CHAIR ADVISES NOT TO OVERESTIMATE PASSAGE OF RESOLUTION ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BY US HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE SO FAR

ArmInfo
2007-10-22 12:28:00

The former co-chair of OSCE Minsk Group on settlement of Karabakh
conflict Vladimir Kazimirov advises not to overestimate the approval of
House Resolution 106 on Armenian Genocide by House Foreign Relations
Committee so far. Envoy V. Kazimirov made the above statement in an
interview with ArmInfo.

‘One should not overestimate this rather procedural decision by the
House Foreign Affairs Committee before the voting at the House of
Representatives if it ever takes place. Even if passed by the House,
it will become just a recommendation to the US President. ‘ Vladimir
Kazimirov said. The Envoy believes it obvious that US Administration
is not concerned about the fair assessment of the events of 1915-23
but cares for its interests in the region. He said the nervousness
in Turkey is clear, while that in Azerbaijan was less natural
and dictated by Armenophobia. ‘It is unlikely to change anything
in Karabakh conflict’s settlement since it has already faced a
deadlock! Although national radicals in both countries may even more
aggravate the tension,’ Vladimir Kazimirov said.

CONGRESS MUST PUT OWN HOUSE IN ORDER BEFORE VOTE ON GENOCIDE
Byron Willilams, [email protected]

The Argus, CA
9
Oct 21 2007

IN recent days much has been made of Congress’ proposed resolution
condemning the Armenian genocide in Turkey. It seems, however, that
Speaker Nancy Pelosi does not have the votes to pass the perennial
resolution.

Over the years, the Armenian genocide resolution has taken different
forms with similar results. It has been particularly noteworthy this
time around because Turkey is one of our few allies in the region.

Turkish officials dispute the genocide claims.

The 2007 version of the resolution states "the Armenian genocide was
conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923."

An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died, the resolution states.

Like its predecessors, the Bush administration, opposes the measure,
calling it an insult to a key ally. Strategic reasons also play into
the president’s thinking, as an estimated 70 percent of U.S. military
cargo bound for Iraq goes through Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

"Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic
ally in the Muslim world, especially one that is providing vital
support for our military every day," the president opined at a press
conference last week.

The president is absolutely right!

For starters, they could begin the process of returning our government
to the pre-Sept. 11 days where there were three equal branches of
government in its actual implementation, which would augment what we
currently have today.

Under the leadership of the vice president, the Bush Administration
has made good on its efforts to expand the powers of the executive
branch. Since taking office, the Bush Administration has made it
their mission to reclaim the power, usurped by Congress, as a result
of Vietnam and Watergate.

Using the Sept. 11 attacks and fear in the most Machiavellian
sense, the administration enacted legislation, passed by Congress,
to become more powerful, more secretive, and worse, more dismissive
of Congressional oversight.

The process began when Vice President Dick Cheney was allowed to
create energy policy behind closed doors. But that was merely the
tip of the iceberg. The Geneva Conventions, habeas corpus and the
Constitution itself have been demoted to ideals better suited when
one is not engaged in a perpetual war on terror. The U.S.A. Patriot
Act justified the type of domestic spying unimaginable even to Orwell.

Last month, a U.S. District Court judge struck down two provisions
of the Patriot Act, ruling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act as amended by the Patriot Act, was unconstitutional because they
allow search warrants to be issued without showing probable cause,a
violation of the Fourth Amendment. The judge’s ruling has restored
some equilibrium to our checks and balances system, but Congress must
go further.

It is dangerous to the republic if Congress fails to roll back the
power the president has amassed. And this must be done before the
next president takes the oath of office in 2009.

The human condition has demonstrated throughout history difficulty in
placing limits on its own power. No president, regardless of party,
will volunteer to relinquish authority.

I can’t help but speculate whether Democrats, who now control Congress,
are feeling a Democrat will also reclaim the White House.

It is equally difficult for those aligned with a particular party
to demand such change. Republicans could not do it, and there is no
reason to suspect that Democrats will fair any better if they are
temporarily given the reigns of Congress and the White House.

However important it may be to publicly acknowledge Armenian genocide,
it is more important that we put our own house in order.

Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
October 17, 2007 Wednesday

Armenian genocide resolution won’t pass, opponents say

By Michael Doyle, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON _ Key congressional opponents of an Armenian genocide
resolution claimed Wednesday that they had the votes to kill the
measure, as one-time supporters continued to abandon the
controversial declaration.

With White House and Turkish pressure escalating, lawmakers on both
sides acknowledged momentum had turned against the resolution, which
describes the Ottoman Empire massacres of 1915-1923 as a genocide.
The Capitol Hill endgame could now conclude by week’s end, some House
of Representatives members predict.

"If it were to run today, it would not pass," Rep. John Murtha,
D-Pa., said at a late-morning news conference Wednesday. "I think the
decision has been made by the members; (the resolution supporters)
don’t have the votes."

Murtha chairs the House defense appropriations subcommittee and is
one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s chief advisers. An adroit vote
counter, he’s been fighting against Armenian genocide resolutions
since he helped turn back a 1987 proposal by a 201-189 vote. He
joined with Florida Democratic Reps. Robert Wexler and Alcee Hastings
in publicly opposing the measure Wednesday.

While not yet conceding defeat, the genocide resolution’s authors
admitted that they were losing altitude. Seven House members withdrew
their co-sponsorship of the resolution on Monday, another four did
the same on Tuesday and additional defections were considered likely.

The genocide resolution had 214 co-sponsors recorded as of late
Wednesday afternoon. With 432 members of the House at present, the
resolution would need at least 217 "yes" votes to pass if everyone
showed up to vote.

"Right now, we’re below the number of co-sponsors needed to assure
passage," Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif., said Wednesday. "I think
the consensus of the Congress is that it would not pass right now."

Radanovich’s co-author, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., added that "we’re
working hard to gauge where the members are," and he indicated that a
final answer was likely to become apparent by Friday. The number of
undecided House members, Schiff noted, is "still significant, but
that number is declining."

Of the 214 listed co-sponsors, one died in April, one is a Puerto
Rico delegate whose vote won’t count if it affects the outcome and
one is a lawmaker who has declared it is the "wrong time" for a vote
now. Others are also considered likely to bolt.

"Some of those co-sponsors may not be as solid as we like,"
Radanovich noted. "It’s a little iffy."

The Armenian genocide resolution has taken different forms in
different years. But it primarily exists to put the congressional
imprimatur on the genocide characterization. Turkish officials
dispute the charge, saying that many died on all sides.

This year’s version of the resolution states that "the Armenian
genocide was conceived and carried out by the Ottoman Empire from
1915 to 1923." An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died, the
resolution states, while 500,000 were expelled, resulting in "the
elimination of the over 2,500-year presence of Armenians in their
historic homeland."

The Bush administration, like administrations before it, opposes the
measure as an insult to a key NATO ally. The U.S. occupation of Iraq
has further intensified White House concerns, as upward of 70 percent
of U.S. military cargo flowing into Iraq goes through Incirlik Air
Base in Turkey.

"Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a
democratic ally in the Muslim world, especially one that is providing
vital support for our military every day," Bush said at a morning
news conference.

Resolution supporters say they won’t seek to have the resolution
brought up for a House vote if they know they’ll lose. Although she
is a resolution supporter who has previously promised to bring the
measure for a vote, Pelosi on Wednesday left the door open for
retreat.

"Whether it will come up or not, what the action will be, remains to
be seen," Pelosi said.

Red State
Oct 19 2007

Pelosi/Hoyer’s Armenian genocide resolution worse than firing on Fort
Sumter

Imagine the October 2007 conversation that took place between The
Speaker of the House and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer prior to the
introduction of the resolution condemning the 1915 acts of genocide
by Turkey against Armenians.

Then imagine the conversations that took place in South Carolina and
across Dixie in 1861 prior to the firing on Fort Sumter.

Those that took part in the later did so after publicly declaring
secession from the United States of America.

Those that took place in the former sought to sabotage the armed
forces of the United States of America while still occupying
positions of power in the USA.

What are patriots to do when elected officials of one’s own
government adhere to the enemies of one’s country?