Why Now?

Re: Why Now?

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

As to how powerful the Armenian lobby is, it's powerful enough to create a rift between America and Turkey in the advancement of it's interests. That's pretty powerful. Fie on the notion of persistance. Persistance without power doesn't do much in DC.

The regional concentration of the resolution's co-sponsors does suggest the work of successful community lobbying resp. the influence of a coveted constituency electorate.

Most notably, of the 225 co-sponsors of the House resolution, a full 49 are from California - or in other words, only 4 Californian Congressmen in the House did not co-sponsor it.

Similarly, 2 of the 3 Congressmen from Nevada, 6 of the 7 from Colorado, 13 of the 19 from Illinois, 11 of the 15 from Michigan, 11 of the 13 from New Jersey, 23 of the 29 from New York, 4 of the 5 from Connecticut, both of those from Rhode Island, Maine and Hawaii, and all of the 10 from Massachusetts, co-sponsored the Resolution.

Compare how the Wikipedia page about Armenians in the United States says:

Quote:

California hosts the largest Armenian-American population. [..] The largest concentration of Armenian-Americans is located in Glendale, California, where 26.2% of residents identified themselves as Armenian on the 2000 US Census. Many cities and counties located in the state of California have sizable Armenian communities [..].

The eastern part of the Hollywood district of Los Angeles was named "Little Armenia" on October 6, 2000. Armenian-Americans gather in multiple towns and cities every year on April 24 to take part in a protest for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The largest of such protests occurs in the Los Angeles area.

Other important Armenian-American communities include the Boston suburb of Watertown, Massachusetts, Detroit and northern New Jersey of the New York City metropolitan area. Providence, Rhode Island, and its surrounding suburbs also contain flourishing Armenian-American communities. Providence is home to the Armenian Heritage Park, which recognizes Armenian heritage, culture, and religion. In recent years, Armenian communities developed in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Phoenix, Arizona. [..]

and summarises:

Quote:

Regions with significant populations
California, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Rhode Island, Connecticut

However, regarding whether that makes the Armenian lobby "powerful", I dont know. It obviously scored with this vote. But really, in perspective - three House resolutions in 33 years - with none of them succeeding to get through the Senate as well, and with both the Clinton and GWB administrations curtly dismissing them - a particularly powerful lobby that does not make...

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Why now? I mean it strikes me as obvious enough, they (the demokkkrats) simply are willing to do anything and/or pay any price to prevent George Bush from appearing to succeed at any sort of a major policy initiative, which is what is starting to happen in Iraq.

A better question would be:

Suppose the only way the demokkkrats could prevent George W. Bush from appearing to succeed were to cause or allow my own town or city to be bombed: would they do it?

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nimh wrote:

Halfback wrote:
Maybe this is but a part of the Dem's "feel good" agenda. If it earns them votes amongst the Armenians, so much the better. [..]

If this is indicative of the Democratic Party's version of diplomacy..... I suggest we may have a problem budding here.

Engineer is right, this is not a partisan issue.

Replying to Okie in another thread, I just posted the following information there:

okie wrote:
The latest big accomplishment of the Democrat Congress. They are spending their time condemning what was done a hundred years ago with Turkey, ha ha, now making Turkey mad, great, Nancy, what a genius of a move. [..]

Perhaps you would also like to address your complaint to:

George Radanovich, Republican (CA), one of the two lead sponsors of the resolution;

Joe Knollenberg, Republican (MI) and co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, who was one of the four (two Democratic, two Republican) Congressmen who introduced the Resolution;

Ed Royce, Republican (CA) and senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, who praised the passage of the Resolution;

Frank R. Wolf, Republican (VA), who sent around a "Dear Colleague" letter urging fellow Congressmen to sign on;

The 8 (out of 21) Republicans on the Committee who backed the resolution;

The 61 Republicans in the House who co-sponsored the Resolution, eg: Renzi (AZ), Radanovich, Herger, Nunes, McCarthy, McKeon, Dreier, Lungren, Doolittle, Royce, Miller, Calvert, Bono, Rohrabacher, Campbell, Issa, Bilbray, Hunter (all CA), Musgrave (CO), Lamborn (CO), Shays (CT), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), Bilirakis (FL), Kingston (GA), Kirk, Weller, LaHood, Roskam (all IL), Souder, Miller, McCotter, Camp, Walberg, Rogers, Knollenberg (all MI), Bachmann (MN), Frelinghuysen, LoBiondo, Smith, Garrett, Ferguson (all NJ), Porter (NV), McHugh, Walsh, Kuhl (all NY), LaTourette (OH), Dent, Pitts, Gerlach (all PA), Fortuno (PR), Wilson (SC), Wamp (TN), McCaul (TX), Marchant (TX), Wolf (VA), Cantor (VA), McMorris (WA), Reichert (WA), Ryan (WI), Sensenbrenner (WI) (see here);

Republican presidential candidate and Senator Sam Brownback, who is co-sponsoring a similar resolution in the Senate; and

Republican Senators Allard (CO), Collins (ME), Snowe (ME), Coleman (MN), Sununu (NH), Dole (NC), and Ensign (NV), who are also co-sponsoring the Senate resolution (See here).

Uh, nimh, you may be conveniently forgetting one thing, don't the Democrats pretty much control the agenda and what comes up to a vote? The question, why now, is a legitimate one. If this is a back door method of Democrats to undermine the Iraq War, thus to undermine George Bush, as the radio talk show pundits are saying, it is really despicable.

Two or three other observations, once this is brought up, who is going to vote in favor of atrocities, so you have congressmen signing on to this without perhaps being aware, or at least fully aware of the negative consequences, or they figure voting for it is better if they think the Turks will not notice or they will soon forget it.

My thought is that not only this, but dredging up anything from a hundred years ago to condemn is fairly pointless, counterproductive, and a complete waste of time, as compared to important things that need to be addressed by Congress.

I tend to agree with Gunga. If it comes down to a choice of Bush and America winning or Bush and America losing, I honestly believe at least some or many of the Democrats would choose the latter, because if Bush wins, Democrats lose and that is absolutely the worst thing that some of them want. They will do almost anything to avert that.

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let not the pot call the kettle black.
Before washing other's dirty linen make your face clean or look at the mirror.
If every country wish to expose the barbaric behaviour, then no one is above board.
100 years back there were no easy chair intellectual, embedded journalist, corporate gangster, cultureless consumers,

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Yes, if Congress turns its attention to condemning bad things in history, there will be no end to it, and there will not be enough volumes to record all the votes. More researchers will also need to be hired to document all of the dirty linen, so that it can be brought before Congress and voted on. But the people should be happy, their representatives will have proven that they care. So nice.

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USA's politics and their politicians are not good example for others to follow.
Start from 1947

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Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Let me chime in and say that I know more then a few Armenian families who have been pushing for this since practically the Clinton days.

At what point during the Iraq war would it be possible to pass such a resolution? Some of you may recall that we had the same sorts of problems as this in the past.

Cycloptichorn

The only relevance of The Iraqi War to this issue is the sensitivity of the Turks as respects a spunky resurgent Kurd nation.

The US has long appreciated the strategic importance of Turkey. During the Cold War it had to do with geography. Now in the Jihad, it has to do with religion.

Resurgent Kurds or not, Turkey has always been touchy about the Armenian Genocide issue, and they will not become less touchy in the absence of a War in Iraq.

So, there seems to be many people that are comfortable with letting Turkey continue to deny that there was Armenian genocide in the early 1900's. It really shows, by comparison, how Germany has western values by facing up to their history. I personally could never feel comfortable with calling Turkey a real ally, inasumuch as they seem to be so sensitive about true history.

Regardless, if this resolution alienates Turkey, and they limit our use of Turkey for supply lines to Iraq, the real question is whether Turkey would also make it more difficult for any possible involvement with Iran? In a way, that would be forcing Israel to go it alone with Iran, if that was ever their decision. Perhaps the stage is being set, possibly unknowingly, to make the current generation of Israelis follow in the footsteps of their parents and fight a big war? This could be the big spin of the roulette wheel with all the chips on one number.

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I feel it will probably at some point in the coming years shape up with almost the entire world pitted against Israel. The Democrats are not very sympathetic to our ally there as well, so who wins Congress and the Whitehouse is very important to the survival of Israel whether they all realize it or not. That is what mystifies me why any Jewish American would vote Democratic?

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okie wrote:

I feel it will probably at some point in the coming years shape up with almost the entire world pitted against Israel. The Democrats are not very sympathetic to our ally there as well, so who wins Congress and the Whitehouse is very important to the survival of Israel whether they all realize it or not. That is what mystifies me why any Jewish American would vote Democratic?

The following is my opinion; some may not agree; that's fine.

Many Jewish Americans vote Democratic because their parents likely voted Democratic and possibly had a photo of FDR on the wall when one entered their apartment/home.

And, in the Civil Rights era, many Jewish Americans were vociferously pro-Civil Rights and pro-integration.

And, since a majority of Jewish Americans go to liberal bastions of higher education, they may feel the liberal agenda reflects their early home life where no one was criticized for one's sexual persuasian, and women's rights were valued, and NO ONE EVER used the "N" word.

The Democratic party just feels like home to many non-Orthodox Jewish Americans (the majority of Jewish Americans).

By the way, I believe this also reflects an additional reason many Christians might marry a Jewish American, since they feel so comfortable with the liberal Jewish family and spouse (as opposed to their own family where criticism of different groups may have been standard conversation). For the first time he/she doesn't feel like an outsider as a liberal.

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But back to the Armenian question, the real questions are "is it our place to do this" and "are we ever going to do this?"

On the second question, Turkey is an friendly nation and there will always be a reason not to poke them in the eye. Reagan did it when he labeled it a genocide in the 80's during the cold war and everyone got over it. If Congress passes this, Turkey will be pissed for a while (a couple of months) and then everyone will get over it. Bush is hosting the Dali Lama today, something that pushes China's buttons a lot more than the Armenian genocide does to Turkey. China considers the DL to be the leader of an active separtist movement. Doesn't the same argument hold for China? Don't we need them to help resolve the N. Korean nuclear issue? Wouldn't it be better to wait there as well? Pelosi makes has a point when she says there will never be a good time to do something like this.

For the first question, we have a lot of baggage in our past, but I do see some validity is saying that it might take us 100 years, but we will eventually call it as we see it. Hopefully, we'll call the next genocide early enough to do something about it.

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I just don't understand why we have to concern ourselves with what another country did to other people so many years ago. I mean surely through out history horrible things took place between countries, yet we don't have to start pointing fingers years later. Now if Turkey wanted to own up to the genocide; that is a good thing and more comparable to the Germany situation than the US making a resolution about the genocide. And the situation with China is also fraught with potential trouble. Don't we have enough on our plates now without sticking our noses into everybody else's business? Why don't we acknowledge our own misdeeds of the past before pointing fingers at other people? Such as slavery or running the Indians off their lands?

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NO!!! The Liberal thinking of those like Bella Pelosi FEEL it is our DUTY to apologize for any and everyone's misfortune since it must have been our fault.

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revel wrote:

I just don't understand why we have to concern ourselves with what another country did to other people so many years ago.

Don't try to understand it. It isn't understandable. Don't let somebody convince you it makes sense, so trust your instincts, common sense is common sense. Secondly, I don't think you or anyone elected congressmen to go to Washington to spend alot of time on what happened 100 years ago.

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So many sensitive countries. Do we need politicians or "nation therapists"? It's so hard to be a super-power when there are countries/nations that suffer from historical self-esteem issues.

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Right on that, Foofie. And when a country achieves new heights of standard of living and all the rest, human nature begins to envy, and before long that country is to blame for almost everything.

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Foofie wrote:

Do we need politicians or "nation therapists"?

that is the best idea i've ever seen you post! we can find out why america has such aggressive tendancies, and why it has a need to control everyone else. i'm sure it all started with its motherland.

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okie wrote:

Uh, nimh, you may be conveniently forgetting one thing, don't the Democrats pretty much control the agenda and what comes up to a vote?

True, and I am ambivalent myself about the wisdom of that move. Pelosi is certainly responsible for having made it -- she could have kept the resolution off the floor.

(Then again, how democratic would it be to keep a resolution that is supported by a majority of Congressmen from being voted on? Wouldnt that just be wrong too?)

I was merely responding to Halfback's suggestion that "this is indicative of the Democratic Party's version of diplomacy" and the way you dismissed the resolution as "the latest big accomplishment of the Democrat Congress". Considering the widespread support the resolution has received from Republicans, and the big role that Republicans have played in pushing this resolution, it just doesnt make any sense to say this is just a Democrats' thing.

okie wrote:

The question, why now, is a legitimate one. If this is a back door method of Democrats to undermine the Iraq War, thus to undermine George Bush, as the radio talk show pundits are saying, it is really despicable.

I think Soz is closer to the truth - the Armenian-Americans have pushed for this resolution for decades. They partially succeeded before, in 1975, in 1984, almost in 2000 again. Now they have a leader of the House whose constituency includes many Armenians and who has herself long been a champion of the cause, so for whom it would be hard to backtrack. It was an opportunity they couldnt miss, and they would have taken it pretty much no matter what the international context.

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okie wrote:

The Democrats are not very sympathetic to our ally there as well

Check out Hillary's positions on Israel, she is somewhere to the right of the Israeli government...

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You haven't seen the pictures of the Clintons and the Arafats?

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I honestly hadn't thought of this when I first posted this topic, but now I have to wonder.

It has been hard for many of us to believe that the Armenian Lobby is powerful enough to have brought this to a head, and I don't buy, at all, the notion that their ineffectual but persistent efforts have just now paid off.

Quote:

If Congress has gone nearly a century without passing a resolution accusing the Turks of genocide, why now, in the midst of the Iraq war?

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this resolution is just the latest in a series of congressional efforts to sabotage the conduct of that war.

Source

I hope this isn't the case, but then perhaps some who oppose the war feel that such a ploy is justified - patriotism, not treason.

I tend to hold the the opinion expressed thusly

Quote:

The resolution represents local interest-group politics wedded to moral exhibitionism, with tendentious, strategically blinkered justifications thrown on top.

Webpage Title

Almost as bad, but not quite.

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