The American government is now one step closer to recognizing one of the bloodiest events of human history: the Armenian genocide. In 1915, about 300,000 to 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Turks for the sin of not being Turkish or Muslim in a Muslim nation. This happened before the Jewish Holocaust, and is a shadow of what would happen at that dark time.
To date, the Turkish government still refuses to recognize the genocide. They even revise history to accommodate their denial. Remember the reporter who recently died in Turkey? He was outspoken of the Armenian genocide, and was killed by a fanatic who was offended by the truth.
Critics of this recognition, which includes President Bush and Condoleeza Rice, did not want America to lose ground on what they see as strategic military ground in Turkey and tried to block it. Nevertheless, brave congressmen and congresswomen voted 27-21 to pass H. Res 106, recognizing the Armenian genocide.
This act, however, was not without repercussion. Turkey responded by pulling out its ambassador in the United States. America, may face the war on terror with one ally down. Yet why work with allies that hypocritically go public against the excesses of radical Islam, while at the same time guilty of perpetuating the same crime!
So I salute the brave people of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who voted to recognize the genocide. I know that bill still has a long way for formal recognition to take place, but in time I hope even Turkey would recognize its sin. And I urge everyone who has read this post to remember the past, and hope that the future would not spur out another Holocaust.
May we not forget…
PS For more info on the genocide, check out these sites:
http://www.genocide1915.info
http://www.anca.org/genocide/index.php
October 12th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Actually part of the problem is the verbiage of “Turkish Genocide”. The current republic of Turkey is not the nation or government that committed the atrocity. Turkey was still under Ottoman rule at that time.
October 13th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Thank you for clarifying this, but I just find it weird that even though Turkey has a different government, it still won’t recognize what the Ottomans did.
October 13th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Politics, my friend, politics! How many people would use the past “regime’s” abuses against the current regime? Add to that the “bad behavior” currently being done by the Turkish government – google “mountain turk” or Cypress – and you have the recipe for a defensive government.
There’s also the current issue involving the Kurds in Iraq and the Kurds – google “mountain turk” again – in Turkey. Some of this is just excuse crafting for extraborder operations
June 7th, 2010 at 8:31 am
in the season of joy I present my sincere wishes and kind thoughts. May the kind of Christmas outshine all the rest.