Our country is murderous and unrepentant and we are hammered about the head and shoulders constantly to make more money so we can buy more stuff, so I guess that's a fitting observation, Bud. If we're going to change our policies, we'd be wise to turn that microscope inward first.

You are absolutely right.
For example (and there are many others) in the name of stopping the spread of communism we supported or did some horrible things in Guatemala, Zaire, Iraq…
And to be honest, we turned a blind eye to Saddam gassing Kurds and Shiites so that we could collect the data on the use of chemical weapons to help improve our weapons.

And when Albanian terrorists stirred up trouble in Serbia, attacking the police (that prompted crack down), we had flash backs to the early 1990’s. We bombed the s*** out of Serbia, invaded Kosovo, caused a humanitarian crisis and ripped out a sovereign part of Serbia to form a new country. Then we have to audacity to wonder why our embassy in Belgrade was burned when the United States was the first to recognize Kosovo as an independent country.
I could go on and on about the United States and all the charming things we have done in the name of spreading democracy around the world.

Yuppers. Osama bin Laden was a product of CIA efforts to arm and train the Mujahideen to fight against the Soviets when they occupied Afghanistan.

We have a habit of creating our own enemies: bin Laden, Hussein, Ortega, Norega, Ghadaffi, and Duvalier were all trained or at least supported by the U.S. to fight against our enemies or propogate our ideology and all ultimately turned out to be enemies of the state.

I do take exception to the Osama bin Laden. We did fund, train and supply the Mujahideen, but Osama struck me as being this rich guy from Arabia kind of outside of the Mujahideen that wanted to build this elite Arab fighting force to throw out infidels from Muslim lands. I am sure we helped him from time to time, but during the Mujahideen in Afghanistan he was someone outside of the fold.

Yeah, maybe I crossed the line there into supposition. Many people, going all the way back to the Carter Administration, have provided circumstantial evidence that bin Laden was directly trained by the CIA, but it is, at the end of the day, still circumstantial evidence. And post-9/11, I doubt that our government would ever allow hard evidence to be unearthed if the allegations were indeed true.

An unsubstantiated claim, even a widely-held one, is still an unsubstantiated claim. Point conceded.

Cold_Zero wrote:Your absolutely right, we have gotten to the point in our society that we no longer hold any values or principals (except for that of materialism and narcissism) that we can ally ourselves with unrepentant murderous peoples/countries. That is all.

Unrepentant murderous peoples? You mean like every society in existence today?

If we shunned every nation that never acknowledged or apologized for screwing over some other group of people, we'd be the international equivalent of the bubble-boy. Only we'd have psoriasis, too.

Doesn't mean we have to go out of our way to be friendly to them. That's a slap in the face to their victims.

It's no different than the offensiveness of Holocaust deniers. How many of THOSE are in public office?

So, is your problem that we're crafting our official declarations not to offend allies in a region where we're currently engaged in armed conflict (notice the time periods in question: 1991 and 2007... where did we have troops in each of those years?), or is it that there might be folks in Washington who don't believe it happened?

I'm not a big fan of selling out Americans to avoid offending people who don't give a damn about us. I'm not one to concern myself with maintaining "proper' appearances, nor do I like to mince words - big surprise, I know.

What "bad" could come of calling it is what it is? What are they gonna do?

p.s. They're not our "allies". That's spin.

Airbase, again.

What makes you say they're not our allies?

Allies assist. They tolerate.

We can put an airbase where we please.

How does it benefit humanity to keep denying the truth? Or are we, as a nation and as an Administration, condoning said atrocities?

Call me "butthurt", but something tells me this wouldn't be an issue if the atrocities had been committed against Goldbergs and Mendels and Liebowitzs, rather than Manoukians and Parseghians and Kardashians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_ ... an#Turkish

I don't think anybody is arguing that we shouldn't pass the resolution because failing to do so is beneficial for humanity, Greg. And I don't think we're condoning said atrocities; at best, you can argue that when it happened, we did condone it, but that's not what you're aiming for, and I don't know that you could successfully argue it.

I won't call you "butthurt." I'll call you a "drama queen."

Far from it.

Absent condoning it, and knowing it would be "The Right Thing To Do", what's the problem?

Fear? Like, the kind that masquerades as deferential respect for puppet dictators?

Self-interest.

I want to get out there that I'm fine if Congress acknowledges it tomorrow. Take care of it like a band-aid, you might say. Deal with the pain now and we'll ask forgiveness later.

But with that in mind, I'm not going to pretend like there aren't legitimate reasons for wanting to leave that bandaid on.

Ok. I can accept (not like) that.

Perhaps I put authenticity and integrity above self-interest... which is probably why I don't feed at the same trough as the Washington slobs.

Give them some credit; the "self-interest" is the nation's, not their own.

Isaac,
Did the Germans officially recognize, apologize and make reparations for the Holocaust? Yes, to this day the Federal Government makes payments to Jewish groups. The problem with Turkey is, they CANT EVEN RECOGNIZE THAT WHAT THEY DID WAS GENOCIDE. Worse yet under Article 301, you are thrown in jail for insulting Turkish National Pride for calling the Armenian Genocide, genocide.
Yes, every civilization has committed atrocities, even our own. But stop being foolish, there is a big difference in dealing with Post War Germany who has repented for killing the Jews, Roma and political dissidents and a Post War Germany that throws people in jail for calling the Holocaust genocide.

And yes, much of the problems in the Balkans and Middle East are related to the legacy of Ottomans/Turks. So if you want to suck their d!ck so that we can have an Air Base in Turkey to bomb the s*** out of Iraq, Iran or Syria or just stick it to Israel (who has better relations with Turkey than it does with other Near Eastern countries) that is fine. I say f*** em.

AZhitman wrote:Call me "butthurt", but something tells me this wouldn't be an issue if the atrocities had been committed against Goldbergs and Mendels and Liebowitzs, rather than Manoukians and Parseghians and Kardashians.

IBCoupe wrote:I won't call you "butthurt." I'll call you a "drama queen."

Apparently B'nai B'rith, the JAA, the Anti-Defamation League, the Zionist Organization of America and Hadassah are all "drama queens" as well.

I, again, restate the title of this thread. Perhaps Ms. Rice has had too much privilege to comprehend such things as integrity and accountability. If Black America knew what I know, they'd revoke her Black Card.

Cold_Zero wrote:Isaac,
Did the Germans officially recognize, apologize and make reparations for the Holocaust? Yes, to this day the Federal Government makes payments to Jewish groups. The problem with Turkey is, they CANT EVEN RECOGNIZE THAT WHAT THEY DID WAS GENOCIDE. Worse yet under Article 301, you are thrown in jail for insulting Turkish National Pride for calling the Armenian Genocide, genocide.

Bud, I'm not sure what your point is. I'm not saying any of that is good.

Cold_Zero wrote:Yes, every civilization has committed atrocities, even our own. But stop being foolish, there is a big difference in dealing with Post War Germany who has repented for killing the Jews, Roma and political dissidents and a Post War Germany that throws people in jail for calling the Holocaust genocide.

And I bet I can go to Google and find an atrocity for which a government has not apologized. For any government. That was my point. You can go ahead and say that there's something special about the Holocaust or the Armenian Genocide, but I'm not buying it. A f*** up atrocity is a f*** up atrocity, and to put into jeopardy our relationships with allies because they haven't yet accounted for all of theirs is a childish way to look at the world.

Turks are not killing Armenians today. Don't forget that.

Cold_Zero wrote:And yes, much of the problems in the Balkans and Middle East are related to the legacy of Ottomans/Turks. So if you want to suck their d*** so that we can have an Air Base in Turkey to b0mb the s*** out of Iraq, Iran or Syria or just stick it to Israel (who has better relations with Turkey than it does with other Near Eastern countries) that is fine. I say f*** em.

As I wrote, I really don't care that much which way we go, but I'm not going to pretend like we don't have an interest in not needlessly pissing off our friends.

AZhitman wrote:Apparently B'nai B'rith, the JAA, the Anti-Defamation League, the Zionist Organization of America and Hadassah are all "drama queens" as well.

If they're all saying that we'd care more if they were Jews? Yeah. Drama queens.

IBCoupe wrote:Turks are not killing Armenians today. Don't forget that.

Because they CAN'T FIND ANY.

IBCoupe wrote:As I wrote, I really don't care that much which way we go, but I'm not going to pretend like we don't have an interest in not needlessly pissing off our friends.

There you go again, thinking they're our "friends". Earlier, it was "allies".

Your characterization of it as "needless" tells me all I need to know. Just because it doesn't affect you (or you're uneducated on the topic) doesn't mean that the people who ARE are "drama queens".

We're not enslaving Blacks anymore, but still, I hear the whining about their "plight". At least THEY still have a heritage, a language, a home.

What presses our need to piss of the Turks? What do we gain by doing it? What can't we live without?

That's what I mean when I say "needlessly."

I asked it before - What do we LOSE by being honest? What threat is there?

Right now, the answer to your question: Our integrity.

You'd have made a terrible Revolutionary, my good friend.

Probably why I've never been keen on revolutions. I prefer calm.

What do we lose by being honest? Airbase, trade, intelligence, an ally in the Middle East, any hope of gaining Turkish support for Iranian sanctions; take your pick.

I'd trade those.

A lunatic administration that proclaims allegations of genocide a "dishonor" against the country, punishable by law, is not the kind of "ally" we need.

Are you sure you're not French?

You work with the world you have, not the world you want.

I used to have a client who said that. He'd grown so accustomed to having his butthole traded for packs of cigarettes while serving 4 years that he pursued it as a "career" once he got out.

Never fought back.

This has nothing to do with fighting back. Turkey's not oppressing us. They're not squeezing anything out of us. You're making mountains out of molehills. For this one little thing of not saying something that doesn't actually need to be said, we get political capital.

You'd have us abandon the prospect of political capital because saying it gives you warm fuzzies.

No, they're not. What's done is done.

It's not a molehill.