Armenia, Turkey, and the Perils of the Politics of Convenience

So. Seems like this country mostly seems to believe the Armenian genocide actually happened. And since most of us don't give two shits about Armenia or Turkey, I say that makes us more or less a neutral judge of matters.

It's not even the politicians that are really contesting whether this happened. It's just this apprehension that Turkey is somehow a "vital partner in the War on Terror".

Let's get a couple things straight. Denial of the Armenian Genocide is a bit like Holocaust Denial. I'm not saying that it's improper to take a critical look at the official story - while many whine about "revisionist" history, the official tale is frequently a study in credulity. The point being that we seem to have a class of "official" tragedies and things like this where it's okay to say they may not have happened or even criticize people publicly for saying they did if it's politically inexpedient to do so.

The arguments against at least recognizing this seem absurd. "Who cares what happened back in World War 1?" Well, for one thing some of the soldiers and plenty of the people who were alive during that time might. Secondly, if it's old enough to be water under the bridge why are the Turks so riled up about it? Thirdly, we blast holocaust deniers, deniers of Japan's rape of Asia, etc freely. We don't worry about our relationship with Japan or Germany, two nations who mean a lot more to us than Turkey does.

The "ally in the war on terror" thing is a tenuous justification at best. Even if it were acceptable to not recognize such a horrible act as genocide because it's convenient not to (and it's not; in fact, it's despicable, and anyone who does such a thing or espouses doing it is a pretty horrible person and ought to think hard and long about what the important things in life are)... Turkey isn't that helpful to us, really. Sure, they're kind of "the sane one" in the middle east, their government is secular, but all that really means little. Their populace is largely set against the government, they're stretched out enough with their own problems, and their actual contributions to the lost cause that is Iraq and the "War on Terror" are really rather negligible.

We shouldn't go out of our way to alienate them but that mostly means not saying stupid shit or declaring them to be part of an "Axis of Evil" or whatever. Acknowledging that in the past their government did horrible things doesn't qualify. If they can't man up to the past, they need to be shouted down like Japan does whenever it gets in a revisionist mood.

So if we're going to be serious about Darfur, be serious about what happens in hellhole countries with tinpot dictators, if we are to maintain credibility for when the U.S. is forced to intervene in such humanitarian disasters as these, we must acknowledge the past for what it is and not mince around waiting for the politically expedient time to do so. Kudos to the Congress for having the balls to push this through, and shame on every slimy little appeasing worm who favors the expedient path over the upright one.

Especially Lou Dobbs. You're a snake, Lou. You run your mouth all day, you injure this country with your hogwash, and you know you only do it for the ratings. You're a shill, you're a worm, you're a traitor-in-spirit.