Treachery

Tensions with Turkey are understandably high, (mainly from their point of view) resulting from a deliberate effort by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat majority in congress to antagonise a key ally in the war against terrorists in Iraq.

Turkish forces have been mobilised in the Iraqi border area ready to attack Kurdish separatists, which to their credit in deference to the need for stability in the area they have refrained from doing despite numerous provocations. The Kurdish north of the nation is one of the more stable areas in the country.

A greater danger to the coalition efforts is the threat by Turkey to deny access to Incirlik air base in southern Turkey, a major supply area for the U.S. military and allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Jed Babbin reporting in Human Events.Com had this to say: -

According to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey is the transshipment point for about 70% of all air cargo (including 33% of the fuel) going to supply US forces in Iraq.

 Included are about 95% of the new “MRAP” -- mine-resistant, ambush-protected -- vehicles designed to save the lives of American troops. Turkey wasn’t always this helpful. In 2003, the Turks refused permission for the 4th Infantry Division to enter Iraq through Turkey.

On October 11, Pelosi said, “While that may have been a long time ago, genocide is taking place now in Darfur, it did within recent memory in Rwanda, so as long as there is genocide there is need to speak out against it.”

But the resolution is gratuitous and Democrats’ timing suspicious. It’s gratuitous because, in 1981, President Reagan referred to the Armenian massacre as genocide in a proclamation commemorating the Nazi Holocaust.

Why, if Pelosi is so committed to ending genocide, aren’t she and Senate Democrat leaders doing something about the ongoing genocide in Darfur or the massacres of protesters in Burma?

Speaker Pelosi said, “This isn't about the Erdogan government. This is about the Ottoman Empire." Baloney.

Turkey has a great deal of sensitivity over this to this day, and while such acts are reprehensible the fact that they took place nearly a century ago, few Turks alive today would remember it, and probably none could have taken part in it. 

For this reason the motion is totally gratuitous and serves no purpose other than to push the Democrat agenda against the war. Doing this is a purely political act, and one that endangers troops in the field and as such is dangerous to the point of treachery.

Fortunately it appears that it will fail as reported in the Seattle Times: -

Chances for a U.S. resolution calling the mass killings of Armenians that began in 1915 "genocide" eroded dramatically Tuesday as sponsors dropped off in droves and senior Democrats urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to abandon her support.

The number of lawmakers supporting the bill slipped below a majority as four more withdrew from the legislation. The White House opposes the resolution, saying it will damage U.S. relations with Turkey.

Legislators cited those objections — along with warnings from the Turkish government and from Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Baghdad, that the resolution would cause Turkey to scale back its assistance in the Iraq war — as reasons for rejecting it.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the nonbinding resolution in a 27-21 bipartisan vote last week, but several of those who voted yes have since switched.

With the resolution's chances of passage apparently doomed, senior Democrats were urging Pelosi, who has a large population of ethnic Armenians in her district, to declare victory with the committee vote and move away from the issue.

Regrettably not before a great deal of damage has been done, and a great deal of comfort has been given to our enemies.