Text 5320, 109 rader
Skriven 2007-10-25 15:53:00 av BOB KLAHN
     Kommentar till en text av ALAN HESS
Ärende: dumb timing
===================
 AH> As has been said, the House did not have to come up with
 AH> this resolution now. ****

 AH> www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.rubin16oct16,0
 AH> ,5944470.story baltimoresun.com

 AH> Nice timing on the Armenia 'genocide' resolution, Ms. Pelosi

 AH> October 16, 2007

 AH> What were they thinking?

 AH> No doubt members of the House Foreign Relations Committee
 AH> felt righteous about the nonbinding resolution they passed
 AH> last week condemning World War I massacres of Armenians in
 AH> Ottoman Turkey as "genocide." They sloughed off the

 ...

 AH> Yet this is a case of self-proclaimed moral intentions run
 AH> amok.

 AH> The timing of this resolution couldn't be worse. About 70
 AH> percent of the military cargo sent to Iraq is flown through
 AH> Turkey's Incirlik Air Base or on air routes over Turkey.

 Which is the weaker arguement against the resolution.

 ...

 AH> Equally disturbing, the resolution comes just as Turkey is
 AH> considering a large-scale military invasion into northern
 AH> Iraq to wipe out Turkish Kurd terrorists (known as the

 What so many commentators do not recognize, it was the refusal
 of the US to make stopping Kurdish attacks part of our Iraq
 policy that led Turkey to refuse to support the invasion of
 Iraq.

 ...

 AH> Henri Barkey, a top expert on Turkey. "Now the Turks have
 AH> no choice."

 Yeah they do, though they likely will not chose to excersize
 it.

 AH> One has to ask why this resolution was so urgent. It's not

 One also has to ask why Bush did not press Pelosi to stop it.
 Well, that's really pretty obvious. Bush rules by fiat, without
 consideration for the opinions of others, or respect for other's
 experience, knowledge or authority. Calling on Pelosi for
 restraint on foreign relations issues might require Bush to
 actually talk to her, which could lead to him actually haveing
 to listen to her, then maybe actually have a real discussion.

 ...

 AH> of the empire. And it is shameful that Turkish law still
 AH> prohibits open discussion of the issue.

 No more shameful than the fact that French law forbids denying
 the genocide. Whichever side anyone takes on the issue, the
 right to express his opinions should not be fettered by
 criminalizing dissent.

 ...

 AH> What's most dishonest about the House move is the claim it
 AH> won't hurt U.S.-Turkish relations.

 What's more dishonest about almost everything in Washington is
 how much it is all for political show. We have had 6 years of
 Republican political show, whatever the democrats do will be
 hard to hold as more dangerous.

 AH> In 2003, a Turkish
 AH> parliament outraged by the coming Iraq war refused to let
 AH> the U.S. military use its ports and territory to enter
 AH> northern Iraq. This cost the U.S. war effort dearly.

 Most Americans don't realize how close that vote was. It
 actually got a majority vote for the aid, in the Turkish
 parliament, but it was a majority of the vote, not of the total
 members. Those absent made up the difference, to meet the
 majority of members in favor that was required to enact the
 motion.

 If all the members had voted, and voted in the same proportions,
 it would have passed. If Bush had included stopping attacks on
 Turkey from Kurdish Iraq as a part of the anti-terrorism plan it
 almost certainly would have passed overwhelmingly.

 ...

 AH> Trudy Rubin is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
 AH> Her column appears Tuesdays in The Sun. Her e-mail is
 AH> trubin@phillynews.com.

 AH> Copyright + 2007, The Baltimore Sun


BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.
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