Bush Stands Up for Genocide

Bush today vigorously opposed a congressional resolution to finally recognize the Turkish slaughter of more than a million Armenian Christians as genocide. Bush declared: “We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915. This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror.”

It’s a helluva thing when a war on terror supposedly requires the U.S. Congress to pretend that genocide didn’t occur. Bush’s assertion that “we all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people” is a lie. Most people either don’t know or don’t care about the carnage.  And Bush apparently wants to keep it that way.  

The Washington Post editorial page was even more contemptible than Bush. They railed this morning that the resolution “endangers present-day U.S. security.” The Post states, “The subject is a serious one — more than 1 million Armenians may have died at the hands of the Young Turk regime between 1915 and the early 1920s.”

May have? Oh. Perhaps it was all a misundertanding.

Ironically, Bush and the Washington Post editorial page are gung-ho on threatening massive bombing of Iran in part because the Iranian president is seen as denying the Nazi Holocaust.

The U.S. government is supposedly obliged to help the Turkish government cover up its sordid past, and is also entitled to kill thousands or millions of Iranians because of that country’s figurehead’s denials of past atrocities.

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11 Responses to Bush Stands Up for Genocide

  1. Original Steve October 11, 2007 at 4:04 am #

    Yes, suddenly non-binding resolutions do carry a punch with him. Is it 2009 yet?

  2. Joe October 11, 2007 at 8:10 am #

    Jim, I don’t understand why this is being brought to the forefront 90 years after the fact, except that it appears to be at the request of the Elie Wiesel Foundation (according to Wikipedia). The genocide was and is deplorable, but isn’t this another form of state interventionism and political grandstanding? What role did people in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, some states in Brazil, and the United States have in the genocide? I suspect none, but that the only reason for the official recognition is because these countries and states maybe have a sizable Armenian population.

    As for the “may have” comment, Wikipedia states the genocide was “the forcible deportation and massacring of hundreds of thousands to over 1.5 million Armenians”. So I don’t think the Post was doubting the genocide but expressing uncertainty about the actual figures.

  3. Mace Price October 11, 2007 at 9:43 am #

    …all Genocides are equal, but some Genocides are more equal than others.

  4. Jim October 11, 2007 at 1:03 pm #

    Mace – great line!

    Steve – no, it’s not 2009 yet – that may be a war or two away.

    Joe – I think the evidence on the Armenian genocide is far stronger than Wikipedia suggests. (Wonder who edited that entry).

    But I would absolutely oppose any response to the genocide that would impose penalties for denying that it occurred. France passed a law criminalizing denial of the Armenian genocide, which is as idiotic as the Turkish law criminalizing asserting tht the genocide occurred.

    Governments cannot be trusted to determine the truth.

    But Bush has been playing the genocide/holocaust threat card to ramp up his saber rattling against Iran.

  5. Jim October 11, 2007 at 1:03 pm #

    I also posted this blog over at Antiwar.com, where it is generating such lively debate.
    http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/10/10/bush-stands-up-for-genocide/

  6. Jack Ely October 11, 2007 at 4:28 pm #

    Maybe the Turks should issue a proclamation condemning American war crimes in the Philippines from 1899-1902. The estimated number of dead is about the same.

  7. Mace Price October 12, 2007 at 11:38 am #

    …not very many Americans know the lyrics to that old song either Jack—But I do.

  8. Marc October 13, 2007 at 12:27 am #

    Perhaps a century from now Congress, should it still be in existence, will consider a resolution recognizing the Iraq war/occupation as an “unfortunate error”. No doubt, no mention will be made of the millions of Iraqis that had been killed, maimed, and displaced for fear of offending some future constituency or military ally.

  9. Tory October 14, 2007 at 8:33 am #

    Fifty years into the future politicians will shake hands with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

    Contact your political hacks and ask them to support Ron Pauls HR 2424 – tell them to listen to Paul speak in the House – he’s a genius.

  10. Jean October 14, 2007 at 9:49 am #

    This isn’t the first time this resolution has been brought up. The House has passed resolutions concerning this same issue twice before. The Senate on both times turned it down.
    However I have a better idea that Congress could pass instead.
    The only reason this genocide was allowed to take place was because the Turks has passed gun laws, and forced the Armenians to give up their weapons.
    Without anything to defend themselves, they were marched off to the slaughter camps.
    Why doesn’t Congress pass a resolution condemning Gun Control. Yeah, I know, wishful thinking.

  11. Dirk W. Sabin October 14, 2007 at 12:24 pm #

    This is but another example of the wages of cockeyed ideology in service to Empire. Everytime I hear a member of our government expound upon international human rights while we continue to shred our own rights and reputation while running that charming little Gulag on Castro’s island or giving high-paid mercenary centurions a sanguinary playground in Mesopotamia, I am reminded of the many times we have watched as some tearful televangelist blubbers on about the weakness of his mortal flesh…… after he pooched a comely supplicant at a Five Star Resort…and was caught.

    One does have to admit that their timing remains, well…..like the batting average at the School For the Blind.

    Maybe they’ll all come to write books and hit the road for “big-time fees” on the lecture circuit like their leader Deeciderputshut I. Paying good money to listen to this President or any member of the current Congress speak is akin to paying money to watch the patients expire at a cut-rate rest home. Never has there been so much wonderous talk about the already known.