Below the podcast are my notes for last night. They’re actually a reprint of an earlier post found HERE

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Bush, Pelosi, the Ottoman Empire and Silly Congressional Goings-on

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Here are my note from that post

Congress is in deliberation, for some unfathomable reason, to pass a resolution declaring the murder of at least hundreds of thousands of Armenians, in 1915, a genocide. The President says no, don’t call it that, call it an unfortunate accident.

From the International Herald Tribune:

“We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,” Bush said in a brief statement from the White House. “But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO, and to the war on terror.”

Um … ok. It breaks down like this, in Bush’s “Long War on Words and Proper Usage.” Almost 100 years ago, a bunch of folks from Turkey killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians. But, says Turkey, not so fast:

Turkey has acknowledged Armenian deaths over a period of several years beginning in 1915, as the Ottoman Republic was falling apart. But it vehemently rejects any effort to classify them as genocide. It says that many Turks were also killed at the time.

Um … ok. The fall of the Ottoman Republic was a pretty messy time but I fail to see how you classify the murder of more than a million people as anything less than an attempted genocide. Societal tizzy-fit just doesn’t seem to cover it in the seriousness it deserves. So, why is the Bush administration against the resolution? Easy: We’re kinda busy running around the middle of a three sided attempt to depopulate a country at the hands of the people who live there, among other things.

Turkey has been a vital way-station for fuel and material shipments to U.S. forces in Iraq, and the administration has spared little effort to lobby against the resolution.

Um … ok. We need gas and bullets in Iraq. Setting aside how this President has ignored the lessons of Truman on oversight and honesty, he also seems to forget that the American military can do some amazing things with aircraft. Such as resupplying the combat theater with ares and munitions, for example. Or, fly tens of thousands of sorties to deliver food to Germany because the Russians were being asshats after WWII. You know, stuff like that.

Now, much like America tried to ignore the genocide of the Native Americans and our shameful and prolific involvement in slavery, so to do the Turks want to remain in denial about the proper descriptive of mass murder in an attempt to wipout an ethnic class of people by other people in the neighborhood. You know: Genocide.

The State Department secured the signatures of the eight living former secretaries of state on a letter opposing the resolution. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have been speaking out against it for months.

The Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, wrote to Bush to thank him for his efforts opposing the resolution and to draw “attention to the problems it would create in bilateral relations if it is accepted,” according to a statement from Gul’s office.

Um … ok. President Gul sent a note to the President of America that basically said: “Don’t talk about that thing that happened, or I’ll get pissy,” and the President starts working his ass off to keep Congress from passing the resolution. Now, after all that, after watching our president pussy foot around this, I have a couple of observations and a question:

Observations:

1.) There are at least two current “genocide” - like situations going on the world right now, with several more on the tipping point, inches from numbers of deaths in the hundreds of thousands;

2) This mentality by the administration underlines and defines, partially, the “why” of “why aren’t we [the US] doing something about all of these people being slaughtered?” We blew it in the Congo, in Rwanda, we’re blowing it in Burma, Darfur, Somalia, and on and on, mostly, it seems, because either we’re afraid of words or we don’t care about dark skinned people;

3) We’re in a couple of different wars in a couple of different countries in this very same region, that are looking more and more like a rejected script for “Laurel and Hardy Go To War In The Middle East” co-staring the Keystone Cops;

4) Genocide, mass murder, whatever you want to call it is bad, very, very bad and, if at all possible, should be intervened upon to make it stop, especially the ones happening right now this very moment;

So, here is my question:

With everything we know about what happened then and everything we know about what is happening now, all over the world; and everything we’re involved at this point in time, what the hell is the Democratic Congress doing trying to define a 100 year old genocide a genocide?

From Iraq to SCHIP; from Afghanistan to Burma, to Darfur, to Katrina, to failing infrastructure, to Korean nukes, to the slipping dollar, to the rising Euro, to Linsay Lohan staying in Utah, to the fact that working over 70 hours a week I still can’t make ends meet; to everything in the world that is happening RIGHT NOW:

What in the hell is going on up there?

This is an important issue in the abstract. It’s something we can do in 2009 when we’re running the show. So, please, knock it off and get back to work.

PS: The Senate Site has a post up about Turkey as well, but it’s a little DIFFERENT