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Armenian Genocide Bill 2007


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Am I the only who finds this interesting?

 

Turkish Daily News

Turkish Press Scanner

Sabah

Oct 12 2007

 

Jewish community declaration not printed by Washington Post

 

The Washington Post, one of the largest newspapers in the United

States, did not print a declaration released by the Jewish community

in Turkey, the daily Sabah reported yesterday.

 

Carlos Silva, a spokesman for the paper, is reported to have apologized

to the community's vice chairman, Lina Filiba, for the inconvenience

by e-mail.

 

Silva wrote that the paper was aware of the criticality of the issue

and that the community did everything necessary for the declaration

- which intended to influence the voting on the Armenian genocide

allegations in the House of Representatives - to be printed.

 

Silva added that the advertising system of the paper has just changed

and the declaration would be printed the following day.

 

Giving the technical explanations, Silva said the system should alert

the advertisement service with a red flag, but the declaration went

to the trash bin queue because of a malfunction.

 

The explanation was not received well by the Jewish community,

which demanded a complete and written explanation to answer the many

questions raised about the critical subject in the community the

previous day. It is reported that the community wants reimbursement

for the $43,000, which was already paid to the paper.

 

-----------

Copyright 2007, Turkish Daily News. This article is redistributed with

permission for personal use of Groong readers. No part of this article

may be reproduced, further distributed or archived without the prior

permission of the publisher. Contact Turkish Daily News Online at

http://www.TurkishDailyNews.com for details.

-----------

 

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Sent.

 

I will expect for an answer from them and will post it here.

 

Thanks Domino! Very well concepted letter.

Please everyone. Before you forward the above very informative and to the point letter composed by Domino, do proof read it and correct several words and sentences. There are quite a few typos, spelling errors and liguistice, idiomatic ptoblems which seem to be a matter of "franglais".

Meanwhile, as we are talking about the BBC, here is what its predecessors wrote 90 years ago.

From the archives of the London Times;

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/worl...icle2641064.ece

 

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Wonder what will be the consequences of the fact that 7 of the 8 Jews who voted approved it.

 

Does it include the vote by Lantos? While he was, and still is, working against the genocide bill, surprisingly he voted in favour of the bill. It seems just like Harman and Foxman, Lanto cares about the public opinion -but also wants to keep close ties with the turks.

 

I wonder how far they can go by trying to please everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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US tries to halt Turkey attack

 

 

Diplomats fly to Ankara to stop military move against Iraqi Kurds after 'genocide' resolution

 

Guardian

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor

Sunday October 14, 2007

 

Senior US officials were engaged last night in last-ditch efforts to persuade Turkey not to launch a major military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan to target armed separatists. A team was diverted from a mission to Russia to make an unscheduled stop in Ankara yesterday. Against the background of the escalating diplomatic row between Turkey and the US over a congressional resolution that branded as 'genocide' massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, revealed she had personally urged Turkey to refrain from any major military operation in northern Iraq. The row between the two Nato allies comes against the dangerous background of a threat by the Turkish parliament to approve this week a 'hot pursuit' of the Kurdish separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, across the border into northern Iraq...

 

 

-------------------------------

 

 

The time has came for the Bush adminstration to punish the turks. Instead of showing weakness, Bush must show to the turks who the super-power is. Couple of parasites who run turkey and punish everyone who uses the word 'genocide, must not be let to interfere with the internal life of the United States. The members of the House of Representatives represent the people of United States and not the government officials of turkey.

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I wonder how far they can go by trying to please everyone.

 

 

If this was said about a prostitute maybe I would think for few second.

But, in this case, they, the politicians would take as far as they can take IT to please.

just show them the money!

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Can some speak with their butts, sure they can, here is the evidence.

 

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Azeri press Agency, Azerbaijan

Oct 11 2007

 

 

Azeri NGOs critical of US draft resolution on Armenian genocide

 

 

The Azerbaijani forum of national non-government organizations has

issued a statement in connection with the adoption of a draft

resolution on the so-called "Armenian genocide" by the US House of

Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs.

 

The forum says in the statement forwarded to APA news agency that the

adoption of the draft resolution has caused serious concern and

regret in the forum of national NGOs that unites 460 organizations.

 

"Such an unexpected and unclear step by the legislative body of a

country which is known as a stronghold of democracy and justice in

the world is a blow to the authority of the USA regionally and

worldwide.

 

"There is no doubt that the adoption of this resolution will damage

not just US-Turkish relations, but also US-Azerbaijani relations,

because US Congress has not reacted at all to the appeal of the

Azerbaijani Milli Maclis [parliament] regarding the Xocali genocide

which Armenia committed in front of all mankind on 26 February 1992

and which is backed up by irrefutable evidence.

 

"Not only is aggressive Armenia, a country that demands the

recognition of the genocide which allegedly happened in 1915, but

which in fact never happened, not punished, but on the contrary, it

has its groundless demands met."

 

Appealing to the US public, Congress and Senate, the forum called on

them to prevent the adoption of this resolution which runs counter to

US national interests and damages peace and stability in the region.

 

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Best article yet.

 

Political Affairs Magazine, NY

Oct 13 2006

 

Bush's Politics of Terror and Turkey's Genocide of Armenians

 

By Norman Markowitz

 

 

A House committee yesterday passed a resolution to condemn the

genocide carried out against the Armenian minority in the Ottoman

Turkish Empire between 1915 and 1917 during World War I.

 

Twenty-one nations by my last reading have formally recognized this

organized mass murder as genocide, and scholars generally regard it

as the second most studied genocide in modern history, after of

course the genocide of the Jewish people of Europe by Nazi Germany

and its fascist allies. That genocide, carried out with the railroad

cars and gas chambers of what were industrial killing factories saw

the murder of a minimum of six million people whom the Nazis

considered Jewish according to their racist ideology, along with many

millions of other civilians who were murdered either for racist

reasons or because they were anti-fascists.

 

The genocide was carried out against the Armenian minority by Pan

Turkish racists and militarists (of the `Young Turk' movement praised

by major capitalist states as `modernizers' before the war) in

control of the collapsing Ottoman empire. As many as 1.5 million

people were killed. But the fact that the perpetrators were largely

forgotten after some fairly limited actions against a few of them

after the war and the events largely buried outside of the Armenian

Diaspora (along with a far less developed record keeping in the

Ottoman empire than in Nazi Germany) makes it more difficult to say

how many people perished.

 

In effect, the nationalist military leader Mustapha Kemal, known to

the world knows at Attaturk, successfully fought off various armies

in the collapsing empire, took power over what became modern Turkey,

and after the war continued the extreme nationalism of the `Young

Turks.' He combined that nationalism with a fierce anti-clericalism

and coercive social reforms, and remains to this day the center of a

huge personality cult in Turkey that connects secularism with an

authoritarian nationalist tradition contemptuous of a any form of

cultural pluralism for non-Turkish minorities in the present Turkish

state.

 

That regime has made aggressive denial of the Armenian genocide into

a prop for its anti-Kurdish policy and its general policy of

suppressing liberal and humanistic criticisms of its treatment of

minorities and denial of civil liberties.

 

It is indisputable that there was a policy of mass forced

deportations of Armenians established by law. The state viewed

Armenians as a "threat to national security" during a war that the

Ottomans were clearly losing. The law ordered the confiscation of

Armenian property, special units acting as killing squads against

Armenian civilians, and policies that led to mass starvation among

the Armenians herded like animals in death marches.

 

These events were big news in the neutral U.S. and allied countries

in 1915. Henry Morgenthau, Sr., U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and father

of Franklin Roosevelt's Secretary of the Treasury (who during the war

fought against the developing Holocaust against the Jewish people of

Europe) played an important and courageous role in disseminating

information about the planned atrocities to U.S. sources and the

atrocities, particularly the mass starvation, became widely known and

commented upon in the U.S.

 

The allied powers condemned the actions of Turkey's military, and the

New York Times wrote in 1915 that the murders were "systematic" and

"organized by the government." Britain and France and Czarist Russia,

the allied powers, had good reason to condemn the mass murder.

Turkey's wartime allies, the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires, on

the other hand, kept silent about the news of mass atrocities against

Armenians. Ironically, some of the best documents historians have

found that confirm the genocide are from German and Austrian sources

who were on hand to witness what was going on as allied reporters

were excluded.

 

One could go on and on, looking at the international denunciations of

Ottoman mass murder, the previous history of anti-Armenian prejudice

which preceded the state organized mass murder, the specific Ottoman

military disasters that were the immediate cause, the humanitarian

campaigns in the U.S. and other countries to save the Armenians, the

Turkish government's initial denials, portraying the Armenians as

subversive agents and tools of its historic Czarist Russian enemies,

with whom it was now at war, the receding of the policy in the wake

of international condemnation and deepening military disaster, and

the post WWI very limited attempts to punish perpetrators.

 

But what is at stake here is the opportunism and the hypocrisy of the

Bush administration and previous U.S. governments whose example it is

now following. The Bush administration playing crude politics with

what was a genocide that prefigured the World War II genocide of the

Jewish people of Europe. (It sought to round up and exterminate

through starvation, forced marches, forced labor battalions and

murder detachments the scattered minority population of a large

multinational empire stretching from Suez to the Balkans.)

 

The nationalist Turkish government created by Attaturk, often in

reality a de facto military dictatorship with political parties

serving the military and threatened with removal if they challenged

military prerogatives, has for generations refused to acknowledge the

genocide, sought in recent years to sponsor genocide denial

scholarship, and use diplomatic and economic forms of blackmail and

retaliation against those nations which have formally condemned the

genocide That is what the present government, in which a clerical

party plays a leading role, is doing at the moment.

 

The official Turkish government positions minimizing both the number

of Armenians killed and explaining the killings as a regrettable

response to anti-Turkish Armenian rebellions in which Turks also died

are not worthy of serious discussion (even though the Turkish

government has bought scholars who do will make some version of those

arguments). The fact that some left forces in Turkey, opposed to U.S.

imperialism rhetorically, have found it useful for themselves to

identify with the Turkish nationalism of Attaturk and support the

genocide denial argument of right-wing Turkish nationalists is also

not worthy of serious discussion (such opportunism is both

unprincipled and almost always politically unsuccessful for left

parties and movements).

 

The Bush administration, in opposing the House resolution has in

effect taken the Turkish government position. "We deeply regret the

tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915," Bush

said, "but this resolution is not the right response to these

historic mass killings and its passage would do great harm to a key

ally in NATO and to the war on terror."

 

Morally and ethically, although those are not terms one would usually

use for the Bush administration, this would be like a U.S. cold war

government, having established a West German state after World War II

in which German militarists and open supporters of the Hitler regime

played a much more direct and leading role than they did in reality

and contended that the genocide against the Jewish people during

World Wa rII was greatly exaggerated and also the result of Jewish

pro Soviet and pro Communist activities against Germany (a version of

Hitler's contentions) supported that West German government's

campaign to keep the U.S. Congress from passing a resolution

denouncing the Holocaust.

 

The Turkish government, which has praised Bush's position, has used

its denials over the generations to, in effect, bolster and sustain

deep racist prejudices against Armenian people, prejudices which are

very similar to the historic prejudices that existed against Jewish

minorities in European states, that is, members of a minority

religion loyal to their own members, controlling the economy, the

traditional scapegoats for the problems and failures of Muslims and

Turks.

 

One could of course mention that the Bush administration, which has

done so much to aid fundamentalist Christians and undermine the

separation of church and state, has now counseled against the U.S.

Congress joining other civilized nations in a formal condemnation of

a genocide carried out against a Christian minority. One might also

mention that Bush is by no means the first to do this - successive

U.S. governments in effect winked at the Armenian genocide as part of

a policy of supporting Turkey as a NAT0 state and military ally

against the Soviet Union through the cold war era.

 

The racist denial of language and other cultural rights to Turkey's

Kurdish Muslim minority was also not a problem for these governments

as for that matter Saddam Hussein's persecution of the Iraqi Kurdish

minority was no problem for the Reagan administration when they

supported his regime in the1980s in its war against Iran. (Iran of

course had and has its own history of abuse against its Kurdish

minority, but this has never been an issue in U.S. policy toward Iran

and isn't today.)

 

 

 

But the issue should be to support and pass this resolution and then

have Bush speak to the world, if he would dare, in condemning it. How

can Turkey become a state that is worthy of support if it continues

to support and subsidize genocide denial internationally and take

repressive actions against those Turkish citizens who acknowledge the

Armenian genocide? How can Turkey be in the long run an ally against

the ultra-right clerically based terrorist groups in the region if it

sustains policies of separation and ethnic religious hatred that

these groups feed upon? It does the Turkish people no good to

continue to wink these historic crimes against humanity in order to

use the Turkish military for U.S. ends, which essentially has been

the policy of successive U.S. governments.

 

Theodore Roosevelt, a former Republican president called the mass

killings against Armenians "the greatest crime of the war." In

reality, it there was a much greater international outcry against the

Armenian genocide during World War I by the Allied powers and neutral

states than there was against the WWII genocide directed against the

Jewish people of Europe (perhaps because the victims were Christians)

and this may have played a role in limiting the extermination policy.

 

 

But the existence of a post World War I Turkish state, in which

nationalism and military elites have played a leading role, led to a

situation where these real crimes against humanity can be denied or

at least hidden by the government of the United States for its own

geopolitical reasons. And that is not a small thing. In 1931, Adolph

Hitler, two years before the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship

said "we intend to introduce a great resettlement policy....remember

the extermination of the Armenians." In 1939, in advocating a policy

of mass killing in Poland to take the "Living Space" for Germans, he

said privately to his officers, "who, after all speaks today, of the

annihilation of the Armenians.

 

Who does? Civilized people throughout the world for whom human rights

aren't an empty slogan. But not the Bush administration, its State

Department, and its policy planners who have gone from one disaster

after another in the Middle East and everywhere else.

 

Hopefully, the U.S. Congress will remember.

 

Norman Markowitz is a contributing editor of Political Affairs.

 

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/ar...iew/5990/1/289/

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If this was said about a prostitute maybe I would think for few second.

But, in this case, they, the politicians would take as far as they can take IT to please.

just show them the money!

 

I understand your poin. But what Lantos does is behind imaginable. He was given food and shelter in the United States of America. In return, he goes out of his way to destroy the same value system which guaranteed his survival. When Foxman made a cynical comment about the western world being against the jews, no one took him him seriously. When Harman played dirty, we understood why she does it for. With Lantos what I see, ...doesn't make sense at all. Unless you got a big ego, and unless you listen to a rabbi and belive you are the chosen one and all the others are animals, you must never treat others the way he does. It just doesn't make sense.

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Turkish army chief says U.S. ties at risk

 

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's powerful military chief said on Sunday if the U.S. Congress approved a resolution branding the 1915 killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks genocide ties between the NATO allies would never be the same again. Ankar

is a crucial ally for Washington which relies on Turkey as a logistical base for the war in Iraq.

 

"If the resolution that has passed in the U.S. committee is accepted by the assembly of the House of Representatives our military relations with the United States can never be the same again," chief of General Staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, told newspaper Milliyet.

 

 

-----------------------------

 

 

 

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=15...t=0&start=0

 

 

This is the same general who came to United States and started to intimidate the U.S. citizens. Enough is enough! The Bush adminstration must act-and they must act soon to punish these bloody bastards. The turks must be reminded that Article 301 has no place in the U.S. law books.

 

 

 

 

15.02.2007

 

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “I have a complaint about Turks in U.S.,” said in Washington General Yasar Buyukanit of the Turkish Armed Forces, reports Hurriyet newspaper. He addressed the Turkish community last night, chiding them for not enough action in working for Turkey's interests. General Buyukanit called on Turks in the diaspora to work harder in the face of the ongoing push by the Armenian diaspora to have the Armenian Genocide bill passed in the U.S. Congress. Said Buyukanit, "Whatever happens from now afterwards is linked to you. Don't the people living outside the Turkish Republic have to come together and work harder to protect Turkey's national interests? Now I would like to address a complaint I have about you. If the voice of the Turks living in the diaspora would only rise as high as the others in the diaspora, the Armenians' claims of genocide would not have come out this way, nor would Turks have to face what they do now. Yes, please excuse me, but I have a complaint about you. The Turkish Republic would be that much stronger if people would gather to support the country's interests, rather than working against them."

 

 

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27 Representatives who said YES to Genocide Bill

 

 

 

 

Gary Ackerman - Democrat NY

 

Howard Berman - Democrat CA

 

Gus Bilirakis - Republican FL

 

Steve Chabot -Republican OH

 

Jim Costa - Democrat CA

 

Joseph Crowley - Democrat NY

 

William Delahunt - Democrat MA

 

Eliot Engel - Democrat NY

 

Eni F. H. Faleomavaega - Democrat

 

Elton Gallegly - Republican CA

 

Gabrielle Giffords - Democrat AZ

 

Donald Mansullo - Republican IL

 

Michael McCaul - Republican TX

 

Donald Payne - Democrat NJ

 

Dana Rohrabacher - Republican CA

 

Edward Royce - Republican CA

 

Linda Sanchez - Democrat CA

 

Brad Sherman - Democrat CA

 

Albio Sires - Democrat NJ

 

Christopher Smith - Republican NJ

 

Diane Watson - Democrat CA

 

Lynn Woolsey - Democrat CA

 

David Wu - Democrat OR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21 Representatives who said NO to Genocide Bill

 

 

 

Gresham Barrett - Republican SC

 

Roy Blunt - Republican MO

 

John Boozman - Republican AR

 

Dan Burton - Republican IN

 

Russ Carnahan - Democrat MO

 

Jeff Flake - Republican AZ

 

Jeff Fortenberry - Republican NE

 

Luis Fortuno - Republican PR

 

Ruben Hinojosa - Democrat TX

 

Bob Inglis - Republican SC

 

Connie Mack - Republican FL

 

Gregory Meeks - Democrat NY

 

Brad Miller - Democrat NC

 

Mike Pence - Republican IN

 

Ted Poe - Republican TX

 

Illeana Ros-Lehtinen - Republican FL

 

David Scott - Democrat GA

 

Adam Smith - Democrat WA

 

Thomas Tancredo - Republican TX

 

Joe Wilson - Republican SC

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Turks are digging their own grave. Just like Saddam and the shaw of Iran before him, the turk generals will be punished for becoming a destabilising force and for threatening the american interests.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resource Investor, VA

Oct 14 2007

 

 

Turkish Outrage a New Risk Factor for Oil Prices

 

By Stephen Clayson

14 Oct 2007

 

 

LONDON (ResourceInvestor.com) -- As the U.S. House of Representatives

prepares to vote on a resolution officially terming the Ottoman

massacre of Armenians during 1915-17 genocide, Turkey is poised to

act as a new destabilising force in the Middle East.

 

Turkey, the only member of NATO with a majority Muslim population and

a key ally to the U.S. in the occupation of Iraq, is threatening

retaliation if the resolution, which carries no punitive measures

other than condemnation, passes. It already carries the approval of

the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

 

The provision of the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey is the

country's main way of assisting with the occupation of Iraq. If it

really wanted to, Turkey could deny the U.S. the use of the base,

which is a key logistical hub for U.S. forces in Iraq. Its loss would

be a severe inconvenience as well as an embarrassment.

 

At the same time, Turkey is threatening to strike across the Iraqi

border at Kurdish rebels using northern Iraq as a base to attack

Turkish targets.

 

Already, fears that Turkey will cause difficulties in Iraq have

forced oil prices up to a new record level of more than US$84 a

barrel. How far could things go?

 

Well, looking to a worst case scenario, the loss of Incirlik Air Base

and skirmishes between Kurdish rebels and Turkish forces in northern

Iraq could be too much for an incoming U.S. president in 2009,

precipitating a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

 

This would leave Iraq at the mercy of Iranian provocateurs and would

probably lead to its division along sectarian lines, with a Shiite

section backed by Iran, a Sunni section backed by Saudi Arabia, and a

Kurdish section out on its own.

 

And who knows whether this state of affairs could be reached without

conflict between any of the nations having stakes in the outcome,

which would have the obvious potential to disrupt oil exports from

the region as a whole. Exports from Iraq would likely be disrupted

anyway.

 

What about a best case scenario? Even if Turkey invades northern

Iraq, it likely won't stay long. Selective cross border raids against

Kurdish rebel bases are more likely. Also, the oil production of

northern Iraq is only a small proportion of the country's output.

 

How exactly having the Ottoman massacre of Armenians called genocide

is significantly worse than having it called a massacre will be

confusing to many, but the Turks take it seriously. Turkish

nationalist sentiment is already inflamed in the wake of several

attacks on Turkish troops by Kurdish militants based in Iraq, which

the U.S. is supposed to be in control of. Bear in mind though that 22

other countries have so far declared what happened to the Armenians

to be genocide.

 

The distant threat of supply disruption as a result of Turkish ire

has already moved oil prices. Although it is most likely that little

will come of Turkey's displeasure at having the Ottoman massacre of

Armenians declared genocide by the U.S., even if the House of

Representatives approves the resolution in question - we won't know

for sure until the vote, which is due anytime before the end of the

year.

 

But whether the resolution passes or not, definite news of Turkish

incursions into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels will serve

as a separate bone of contention.

 

So deteriorating U.S. relations with Turkey look like being one more

ongoing contributor to the significant risk premium in today's oil

price.

 

 

 

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=36558

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Uruknet.info, Italy

Oct 14 2007

 

Who's behind the Armenian genocide resolution?

Xymphora

 

 

October 14, 2007

 

Who's behind the Armenian genocide resolution? Tom Lantos (D-Tel

Aviv) is involved, so you could take a wild guess. We're told it has

something to do with the strength of the Armenian Lobby! Juan Cole

says its the pro-Kurdish branch of the Israeli Lobby winning out over

the pro-Turkish branch of the Israeli Lobby. He lost me there. On

its face, it looks like a big Lobby loss, as the Lobby protects

Israeli ally Turkey, and has its own reasons for downplaying the

importance of any holocaust that doesn't involve the Chosen People.

There's a sort of holocaust beauty contest going on, and other

genocidal mass murders diminish the beauty of the winner.

 

Who's behind the Armenian genocide resolution? Its pretty simple,

isn't it? It is the timing that is odd, so the timing should tell us

something. Why stir up this issue and cause problems with

Turkish-American relations at this particular time, when Iraq is a

mess and the Kurds are making the Turks very nervous? The keystone

to the Zionist Plan for the Middle East is breaking Iraq into three

parts. The rupture was supposed to occur almost immediately after

the American attack. Since that didn't happen, the 'surge' was

created to cause massive additional violence with the idea that the

country couldn't hold together under the strain. Unfortunately for

the Zionists, the 'surge' has actually made the Iraqis even more

united, as they don't want to give the Jews the pleasure of seeing

Iraq destroyed. State Department diplomacy is the only thing calming

the Turks down enough to keep them from a full-fledged attack on

Kurdistan. The resolution has so enraged the Turks that it is the

Zionist hope that the State Department will no longer be able to stop

the Turks from attacking. Putting Kurdistan into play is intended to

cause Iraq to fall apart. The Israelis have decided to instruct

their American operatives that breaking Iraq up is so important to

Zionist colonialism that Israel is prepared to sell out both its

supposed allies, the Turks and the Kurds (not to mention the

Americans!).

 

 

 

The resolution has nothing to do with appeasing the powerful (!)

Armenian lobby, and does no favors to either the Turks or the Kurds.

The only beneficiaries are Zionists who want to use a Turkish attack

on Kurdistan to break up Iraq.

 

http://uruknet.info/?p=m37191&s1=h1

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The Hill, DC

Oct 14 2007

 

 

Pelosi: I would not give Congress high marks on ending the war

 

By Klaus Marre

October 14, 2007

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday that she would not

give Congress high marks with regard to ending the war in Iraq,

adding that she understands voter dissatisfaction on the issue that

has sent the congressional approval rating tumbling.

 

Pelosi said Democrats are `doing all we can to change the debate' but

stressed that they do not have the kind of power that the White House

has.

 

The speaker, in an interview aired on ABC's `This Week with George

Stephanopoulos,' stated it was ironic that, as an outspoken opponent

to the Iraq campaign, anti-war activists are targeting her now.

However, Pelosi added that she understands and respects the

frustrations of the Democratic base.

 

`We will continue to pass legislation to make that point [that the

war should end],' she said. `And we happen to be blocked by a 60-vote

hurdle in the Senate, but the public doesn't want -- care about that.

They just want us to end the war.'

 

Pelosi also said that she would not bring up to a vote language that

designates Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist

organization. The measure had passed in the Senate earlier this year.

 

She restated, however, that the House would take up a resolution

labeling the mass killings by Armenians early last century `genocide'

over the strong objections from the administration and the Turkish

government.

 

Pelosi said that President Bush had never raised the issue with her

in person to make his case against the resolution. The administration

is concerned that passing the language would have negative effects on

the mission in Iraq, pointing to the importance of Turkey as an ally

in the campaign.

 

Pelosi said now is the time to take up action on the Armenian issue

because the last of the survivors are dying.

 

`Some of the things that are harmful to our troops relate to values

-- Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, torture. All of those [are] issues about

who we are as a country,' Pelosi said. `And I think that our troops

are well-served when we declare who we are as a country and increase

the respect that people have for us as a nation.'

 

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pelosi...2007-10-14.html

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Tracy Press, CA

Oct 14 2007

 

 

Genocide resolution sends vital message

 

Tracy Press / Saturday, 13 October 2007

 

An op-ed by Assemblymen Greg Aghazarian and Paul Krekorian

 

 

This week, members of the House Foreign Relations Committee sent a

powerful message heard around the world that brutality and inhumane

acts will never be tolerated by the land of the free and the home of

the brave.

 

Members of the committee stood together and courageously voted to

pass House Resolution 106, important human rights legislation

authored by Congressman Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, and co-sponsored by

members from both parties.

 

HR 106 will put the U.S. government on record once and for all in

recognizing the atrocities committed by the Ottoman Empire following

the onset of World War I for what they were - a mass genocide

conducted against an innocent people in an act of ethnic cleansing.

Those who voted to support the resolution courageously ignored a

vocal and intense opposition, and some not-so-idle threats from the

Turkish government, to do the right thing for our country.

 

What occurred during that dark period in world history is without

question. Between 1915 and 1923, the Ottoman Turks expelled nearly 2

million Armenians from what had been their homeland for more than

2,500 years. More than 1.5 million men, women and children were

brutally murdered, targeted for no other reason than who they were as

a people.

 

Another 500,000 Armenians were sent fleeing from their homes and

lives into exile around the world. Many of these exiles eventually

settled in the U.S., and we're proud that so many eventually called

California their home.

 

At the time, the leaders of the Allied Powers - England, France and

Russia - called the actions by the Ottoman Turks `a crime against

humanity.' The U.S. ambassador at the time, Henry Morgenthau,

described it as a `campaign of race extermination.' Even the post-war

Turkish government took action against the Ottoman leaders involved

in the acts of barbarism against the Armenians, trying and convicting

them for these massacres.

 

We are pleased to see Democrats and Republicans in Congress finally

stand with us in California in honoring the steely resolve of the

Armenian people and remembering this tremendous atrocity that

needlessly claimed the lives of so many innocent people. For years,

the state of California has gone on record in condemning this

barbaric act of genocide by the Ottoman Turks. This year, we were

pleased to jointly author Assembly Joint Resolution 15, which called

upon Congress to join the California Legislature in recognizing the

Armenian genocide.

 

Standing up for human rights and defending freedom at home and around

the world is not a partisan issue. Every year, lawmakers from both

parties in the California Legislature set aside our differences and

join together in a solemn ceremony in solidarity with the survivors

of this horrible atrocity. Two years ago, the Legislature unanimously

passed Senate Bill 424 by former Sen. Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno, to

declare in state law that, in California, April 24 each year will be

officially designated as a day of remembrance for the Armenian

genocide.

 

We commend our colleagues in Washington, D.C., for taking this

historic vote, and encourage the entire House to quickly follow their

purposeful example. Not only will this allow the few remaining

survivors to finally heal the emotional wounds that they have carried

with them for a lifetime, but it also reinforces the moral authority

of the U.S. as a beacon of freedom and democracy.

 

It is shocking to think that such inhumane acts could have occurred

less than 100 years ago. That's why passing legislation like HR 106

is so important. Going forward, it is up to us - the survivors, their

descendants and freedom-loving people around the world - to ensure

that never again will innocent people be persecuted because of their

ethnic background, country of origin or religion.

 

- Greg Aghazarian, R-Stockton, represents the 26th Assembly District

and Paul Krekorian, D-Burbank, represents the 43rd Assembly District.

They are of Armenian descent.

 

http://tracypress.com/content/view/11709/2244/

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Commercialappeal.com , TN

Oct 14 2007

 

Cohen's Turkey stance a puzzler

 

By Wendi C. Thomas

Sunday, October 14, 2007

 

Unless he changes his mind, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen is about to sack

his budding reputation as a human-rights crusader. And he'll do it

with a vote against a resolution to officially label as genocide the

World War I era massacre of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the

Turks.

 

His stance on a resolution with broad bipartisan support is an

unfortunate yet avoidable deviation from socially conscious positions

Cohen has selected to stake out in his first year as a congressman.

 

 

Wendi C. Thomas

 

And it calls into question whether Cohen is the principled

politician he portrays himself to be....

 

 

...He's a Jewish man, which makes his denial of the 20th

century's first holocaust unconscionable, says Dany Beylerian, whose

grandparents survived the Armenian genocide.

 

Denial, Beylerian says, is the last stage of genocide. It thwarts

complete mourning and inhibits healing.

 

Adolf Hitler, Beylerian points out, admired the Turks' systematic

slaughter of Armenians and the absence of any punishment after the

killing stopped. "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of

the Armenians?" Hitler is quoted as saying in 1939. Just a few years

later, his "final solution" had killed six million Jews.

 

But never mind the compelling moral arguments. All that matters,

according to Cohen, is that supporting this resolution would rile a

key ally in the Middle East.

 

"I regret whatever happened," he says, careful not to label the

"whatever" as genocide, "but this is not the right time."

 

Military officials have said that passage of House Resolution 106

could threaten the safety of U.S. troops in Iraq, which rely on

supplies trucked through Turkey.

 

Despite opposition from the Bush administration, the House Foreign

Affairs Committee approved the nonbinding resolution Wednesday. It's

expected to come before the full House within weeks.

 

Turkey's already stomping its feet; it has told its ambassador to

come home and is threatening to withdraw support for the Iraq war.

 

Cohen has other reasons to mollify Turkey, not the least of which is

the $256 million in goods Tennessee exported there in 2005.

 

Turkey is Memphis in May's honored country for 2008. That month, the

U.S.-Turkey Study Group, a passel of leaders from both countries,

will convene here. "I've got to factor in that I'm their host," Cohen

says.

 

Under the guise of Southern hospitality, Cohen will bow to the

arm-twisting Turkey exacts on all who broach the Armenian issue.

 

In Turkey, where Hitler's autobiography "Mein Kampf" is a bestseller,

the democratic government is still struggling with the concept of

free speech; Article 301 makes it a crime to insult "Turkishness."

Suggesting that the Turkish government is guilty of genocide

qualifies as such an insult. Article 301 has been a sticking point

between Turkey and its attempts to join the European Union.

 

The government maintains that blood was shed on both sides and that

the death tolls have been hugely inflated.

 

Among scholars, though, "there's about as much debate about the

Armenian genocide as there is about the Holocaust," says Beylerian, a

graduate of Rhodes College.

 

In the early 1900s, U.S. ambassador Henry Morgenthau witnessed what

was happening in what was then the Ottoman Empire and described it as

"racial extermination." In 1915 alone, The New York Times wrote 145

stories about the massacres.

 

With historical evidence on his side, Beylerian expected at least a

neutral reception when he and nine other people of Armenian descent

met in August with Cohen.

 

Instead, the group was shocked to hear Cohen suggest that Armenians

started a rebellion -- the same denialist arguments Turkey advances.

 

As Ara Hanissian, a local doctor also at the meeting, listened to

Cohen, he wondered, "How could something factual be so offensive?"

 

"He was suddenly a cold, real political kind of guy," says Beylerian,

an inventor and diplomatic consultant who supported Cohen's

congressional campaign. "I was deeply saddened that he took this

position.

 

"We didn't ask him to go against the majority. We didn't ask him to

go against his party. We didn't ask him to sponsor the legislation --

we asked him to be the 227th co-sponsor."

 

Cohen sees no contradiction between his bold introduction of the Jim

Crow apology, his staunch support of the hate-crime bill and his

refusal to join his party and the majority with the Armenian genocide

resolution.

 

"I don't think there's any corollary," he says. The first two affect

his constituents; keeping Turkey calm is a matter of national

security.

 

Cohen acknowledges that his failure to back the resolution could cost

him votes, even though Beylerian estimates there are fewer than 100

people of Armenian descent in Memphis. But if people remember that

Armenia is recognized as the first Christian nation in the world, the

political fallout could be severe.

 

"He has transformed from a sensitive historian-civil libertarian into

a heartless pragmatist in a mere nine months," says Hanissian, whose

grandmother escaped the massacres by fleeing into the hills.

 

"To waver so dramatically from such strong positions on human rights

smacks of hypocrisy."

 

 

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/...ance-a-puzzler/

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Chicago Sun-Times, IL

Oct 14 2007

 

 

Take pride in slave past?

At least this country admits shameful history, something Turkey won't

do

 

October 14, 2007

BY NEIL STEINBERG Sun-Times Columnist

Opening shot

 

 

You want to feel good about this country? Talk about slavery.

 

How, you may ask, can this shameful peak of human cruelty, whose

lingering bad effects are felt to this day, be a source of pride to

the nation that tolerated its existence for nearly a century?

 

Because at least we recognize it. We are aware of it; we teach about

slavery in schools. We can talk about it. And if we don't face facts

as much as we should, then at least debating them isn't against the

law.

 

Compare that to Turkey. A nation of 72 million people, Turkey is the

most westernized Muslim state in the world. And yet, a Turkish writer

would commit a crime and risk prison just by writing this sentence:

"in 1915, Turks oversaw the murder of 1.5 million Armenians, the

largest European genocide before World War II."

 

To Turkey, this is slander. So now, our alliance is endangered --

Turkey has recalled its ambassador, and is threatening to stop

helping us wage our losing war in Iraq -- just because a House

subcommittee voted to label the 1915 deaths a "genocide.''

 

Why do they act this way? National pride, and inability to process

difficult truths. A too common problem in this world. The United

States might have its moments of shame, like any other land. But at

least we can talk about them. We should be proud of that.

 

http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/602...tein14a.article

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The Hill, DC

Oct 14 2007

Pelosi: I would not give Congress high marks on ending the war

 

By Klaus Marre

October 14, 2007

 

Pelosi also said that she would not bring up to a vote language that

designates Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist

organization. The measure had passed in the Senate earlier this year.

 

She restated, however, that the House would take up a resolution

labeling the mass killings by Armenians early last century `genocide'

over the strong objections from the administration and the Turkish

government.

 

There is one big mistake on the above highlighted paragraph, it should be:

 

"the House would take up a resolution labeling the mass killings to Armenians early last century 'genocide'."

 

 

 

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Ankara started to execute threats? Armenian citizens being arrested in Turkey

15.10.2007 15:22 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia’s representative in the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, Karen Mirzoyan (residence in Istanbul), confirmed that Armenian citizens are being arrested in Turkey. “I have got information proving this fact. However, I am not competent for such kind of issues and cannot furnish a more precise information,” Karen Mirzoyan said, RFE/RL reports.

 

Irish Times newspaper reported that some 100 Armenians - illegal migrants - were detained in Turkey for further deportation to the homeland. “Their deportation is viewed as revenge to adoption of the Armenian Genocide resolution by the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee,” the newspaper said.

 

Meanwhile, Karen Mirzoyan said that Armenians who illegally resided in Turkey were detained “with a purpose of deportation over violation of visa regime.”

 

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The Times re-published article on Armenian Genocide dated October 8, 1915

15.10.2007 19:20 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ British The Times re-published article on the Armenian Genocide dated October 8, 1915. The article titled “The Armenians Massacre. Exterminating a race. A record of horrors.” tells about systematic massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, about atrocities of Turkish gendarmes exiling and killing Armenians, about Kurds who raided into Armenian villages, about crowds of injured and starving Armenians whipped across Ter Zor desert, about women, children and old people who could not survive the torture…

 

The Times reminds of attempts of the American and European diplomats to procure some alleviation of the lot of Armenians, however in vain.

 

It also cites Talaat ***** saying, “The Armenians are a…race; their disappearance would be no loss.”

 

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Turkish Minister of trade cancels U.S. trip

13.10.2007 17:11 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail In Russian In Armenian

 

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A conflict between Turkey and U.S. over the Armenian Genocide resolution is swelling. The Turkish Minister of Trade, who was scheduled to participate in a business conference, cancelled his U.S. visit after the House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved H.Res.106, Finmarket reports.

 

Earlier, Turkey had recalled its ambassador for consultations.

 

Ankara warns of more serious consequences if the resolution passes in full House.

 

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