The Armenian Genocide resolution.

Posted in Politics


Photo: NYPL
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1916: Armenian refugees rescued from Turks by French cruiser arrive in New York, March 9th. 14 year old Peter Gragosian, and three leaders of the refugees arriving in this country.

Why would it take 90 years for the US to recognize, officially, the Armenian genocide, perpetuated by the Turks? More gravely, how could a nation like Turkey not understand or accept its role in the annihilation of another people, a minority group within its boundaries?

The US has long accepted the responsibility of various times in our national history when we mistreated groups of people (blacks, Native-Americans, Asians). The former fascist states of Austria and Germany, and most of Europe, including the Catholic Church, will discuss and openly debate their own role in the Holocaust and the deliberate murder of six million Jews.

But the Turks seem to hold up their “national honor” as a greater principle than that of the truth. Whether they intended to kill off every last Armenian, or merely killed millions as a result of a civil war, does not excuse or exonerate them from admitting their murderous ways. A forced death march (of Armenians) may not be the gas chambers, but the result is still the same.

The intersection where the West meets the East is fraught with danger. We seem to again be proceeding down that realpolitik road where we temporarily align ourselves with a Muslim dominated nation in a stupid alliance of convenience. If we fail to pass the Armenian genocide resolution, so that we can gain the temporary support of the Turks, we will fail the larger responsibility of moral leadership.

7 thoughts on “The Armenian Genocide resolution.”

  1. Thank you for posting this…as the grandchild of Armenian Genocide survivors. We as Armenian Americans live with the issue daily and its impact on our families are immense.
    I wish Americans would understand that we need to return to a truthful world view and reject a war that was founded on lies and is being supported by more and more lies.
    Why is the truth so dangerous?

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  2. Do you notice that we don’t dispute that the genocide took place, but rather speaking of it might somehow cause us to lose our “ally” in the “war against terror”, Turkey? Such moral blindness is also used to justify our alliance with the military dictatorship of Musharif in Pakistan. Trying to muff debate about the genocide resolution will eventually harm us, not help us.

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  3. It has less to do with the Democrats trying to stop the war then the Democrats trying to appease a large population of Armenians in California (500k, with many of them in Glendale).

    It’s long overdue that US stake this claim and that Turkey admits to its crimes — no matter what our motivation. That said, the timing couldn’t be worse for the US to do it now.

    I guess better now than later or never. Would have been better earlier, though.

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  4. This is an act by the democrats to get Turkey to stop supporting bush’s war in iraq. The democrats hope to piss Turkey off so they won’t allow the U.S. to use the country to refuel and help supply the troops.
    Anything real Americans can do to screw bush and his neocons is good news for the country.

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  6. How far are people going to go back with this genocide thing? Fifty years from now I wouldn’t be surprised if kids are dressing up as Hitler for Halloween, the same way they might dress up as Genghis Khan or Napoleon now. I think that the Armenians pressing this issue are trying to jump on the “Holocaust Bandwagon”… insensitive as sounds. I know the original idea of hyper-publicizing the Holocaust was to inform us all of the cruelty humanity is capable of and to shine a light in that dark corner to insure it won’t happen again. But at this point with the availability of information being what it is, anyone with an open mind is fully aware of the violent past of most nations. And those with closed minds won’t be moved by a congressional resolution. So what is the point of being outraged by something that happened in 1906 with so many modern outrages being done currently by our own nation?

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