October 07, 2007

Beautiful Christian music from Kurdistan



Fakepolitik
If Realpolitik is "diplomacy based primarily on practical considerations, rather than ideological notions", then it's almost funny that letter written by EIGHT former US Secretaries of State asking Speaker Pelosi not to introduce the genocide bill has to be fakepolitik. Why fakepolitik? Well they cannot even show a real, concrete, practical consideration which would make you think that recognition of the genocide would be bad for US interests. What reasons do they site for not wanting to see the bill passed? In their own words, no doubt written by someone paid by Turkey:

We are writing to express concern that H. Res. 106 could soon be put to a vote. Passage of the resolution would harm our foreign policy objectives to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia. It would also strain our relations with Turkey, and would endanger our national security interests in the region, including the safety of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, let's analyze this shall we?

# They are concerned with harm to promoting Turkish-Armenian reconciliation???? This is of course the richest of all their reasons. There is nothing close to a reconciliation, or even a process, or even relations that could develop into reconciliation. This is of course all thanks to a Turkey which refuses to establish relations with a country it is mad at for not disappearing off the face of the earth during WWI like it was supposed to. Do they think they can't promote reconciliation once the historical facts that everybody already knows are recognized by a congress Turkey knows very well the US President and State Department can't control? Has it occurred to them they can better promote it once the bill passes?
# Strain relations with Turkey. This one of course is the reason they really want to drive home. Scare Congress with Turkey's reaction, just like they scare Americans out of their rights, simply by hinting at a possible threat of terrorism. What is Turkey realistically going to do? It's going to cry and whine a bit, and cancel contracts, just like it did with France and Switzerland. Then it will move on and get over it, in true Realpolitik style, and face the fact that everybody in the world recognizes the genocide, despite all their crying and threatening and huffing and puffing.
# The safety of our troops in Iraq AND Afghanistan is threatened? By what? The only possible lever Turkey would realistically use is the temporary closure of Incirlink air base. So what? The US has over a hundred thousand troops in Iraq, let them keep their planes there too.

Anyway, the fact that this letter was even written makes me wonder what upheaval is going on in Turkey, and the State Department. But in any case, bravo to the Armenian Government (in the person of Vardan Oskanian) for slamming these former secretaries. He quite rightly states that "I regret to say that there is no process in place to promote normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey. Expressing concern about damaging a process that doesn’t exist is disingenuous", and goes on to say that he'd like to "express our deep concerns and to dismiss as unfounded any implication that a resolution that addresses matters of human rights and genocide could damage anyone’s bilateral relations."

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