Turkish genocide

Without making much effort to learn anything on my own I've simply believed that the Armenians were the victims of genocide. I can't remember how I first heard about it or where that view came from, probably a high school history teacher. Wherever that opinion came from I've never read or heard anything to counter my perception of what happened in 1915.

So, last week when a House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to condemn the mass killings as genocide I figured it was about time. But, why now? Does the US really want to annoy Turkey right now?

President Bush didn't seem too keen and now, in what can only be described as an amazing about-face, a lot of folks in the House don't seem too keen either.

Until Tuesday, the measure appeared on a path to House passage, with strong support from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It was approved last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But by Tuesday evening, a group of senior House Democrats had made it known that they were planning to ask the leadership to drop plans for a vote on the measure.

Uggh. Either do the right thing or shut up, but don't antagonize the Turks and then pull back from making a stand.

By the way, thanks to the NY Times recent move to free, you can read about a similar effort in the Senate in 1990. Kind of interesting to read what President Bush (the first), Senators Dole, Byrd and others had to say back then. It seems like it's never a good time to do the right thing when it comes to the Armenian genocide.