US to debate Turkey genocide bill

[wm]

There's going to be a whole lot of seriously pissed off congresscritters over this one, because there's more than a few of them who feel they got blindsided over this issue. They had no idea how this would escalate, how this would come across to the nation of Turkey (not just the government), and all the sudden, it's being presented as a "Supporting the Troops" issue.

I find it hard to accept that members of Congress could be so clueless about international sensitivities as to get "blindsided" like this.

Maybe the "No Child Left Behind " program ought to focus some attention on senior lawmakers' education.

Good news is that in a week it will be over. Notice didn't say "Forgotten".

Bad news is that the damage has already been done. You are right it will not be forgotten, but those who won't forget are natioins whose support America needs now and in the future.

[tequila]

I find it hard to accept that members of Congress could be so clueless about international sensitivities as to get "blindsided" like this.

Why would this be surprising? This is an institution (the House) which Tom DeLay, a man whose Middle East policy prescriptions are largely dictated by the Left Behind series, ran for years. House Reps especially are elected primarily to focus on domestic issues. I don't know how anyone can be surprised at Congress' ignorance on the most basic issues, much less the nuances of Turkish nationalism and its response to Armenian-American grievances.

To his credit, Reyes, a kindly, thoughtful man who also sits on the Armed Service Committee, does see the undertows drawing the region into chaos.

For example, he knows that the 1,400- year-old split in Islam between Sunnis and Shiites not only fuels the militias and death squads in Iraq, it drives the competition for supremacy across the Middle East between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

That’s more than two key Republicans on the Intelligence Committee knew when I interviewed them last summer. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Va., and Terry Everett, R-Ala., both back for another term, were flummoxed by such basic questions, as were several top counterterrorism officials at the FBI.

...

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”

“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Predominantly — probably Shiite,” he ventured.

...

And Hezbollah? I asked him. What are they?

“Hezbollah. Uh, Hezbollah...”

He laughed again, shifting in his seat.

“Why do you ask me these questions at five o’clock? Can I answer in Spanish? Do you speak Spanish?”

“Poquito,” I said—a little.

“Poquito?! “ He laughed again.

“Go ahead,” I said, talk to me about Sunnis and Shia in Spanish.

Reyes: “Well, I, uh....”

...

On the day in 2003 when Iraqi mobs toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, Bush was said to be unaware of the possibility that a Sunni-Shia civil war could fill the power vacuum, according to a reliable source with good White House connections.

...

Trent Lott, the veteran Republican senator from Mississippi, said only last September that “It’s hard for Americans, all of us, including me, to understand what’s wrong with these people.”

“Why do they kill people of other religions because of religion?” wondered Lott, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, after a meeting with Bush.

“Why do they hate the Israelis and despise their right to exist? Why do they hate each other? Why do Sunnis kill Shiites? How do they tell the difference?

“They all look the same to me,” Lott said.

This is not a Congressional problem --- it is, at base, an American problem.

[wm]

Why would this be surprising?

I wasn't expressing surprise. My comment was more a personal statement of my unhappiness that Congress seems to be populated by so many clueless individuals, which by BTW was how I started off this thread last week.

This is not a Congressional problem --- it is, at base, an American problem.

We are reaping the benefits of Jacksonian democracy.

[Tacitus]

I find it hard to accept that members of Congress could be so clueless about international sensitivities as to get "blindsided" like this.

I could walk outside this building and conduct a simple experiment. With a world map or globe, I would just ask passersby to point out the nation of Turkey and where generally Armenia is. I can't predict exactly how many could find one or both, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say about 20% for Turkey, and 1% for Armenia. These Congress Critters don't come from Mars, they come from here, you know. It wouldn't surprise me at all that few would even have a clue where Armenia is and what the circumstances in WWI were for the conflict between the Armenians and Turks.

My own representative is not a man who has ruminated long and hard about world affairs. I have no idea how he is leaning on this, but his decision is most certainly not as a result of having a good knowledge of WWI in the Ottoman Empire. He got there by pledging to uphold the sanctity of marriage against an onslaught by Godless homosexuals, stressing his pro-life bona fides, commitment to tax cuts, opposition to socialized medicine, and dedication to victory--not "cutting and running.") That's it, boys. That's a fact.

I don't know if this is a fault of Jacksonian democracy or just basic ignorance of world history in our citizenry. Most don't know, and don't even want to know. It is just apathy.

[tequila]

I could walk outside this building and conduct a simple experiment. With a world map or globe, I would just ask passersby to point out the nation of Turkey and where generally Armenia is. I can't predict exactly how many could find one or both, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say about 20% for Turkey, and 1% for Armenia.

Don't be so optimistic.

[Tacitus]

Don't be so optimistic.

Tequila,
You're probably right. 20% is probably way too high.

You might as well have posted a link to Miss Teenage South Carolina, who when asked why 1/5 of Americans could not locate the U.S. on a world map gave her legendary answer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

You know, some people out there do not have maps. Er, the Iraq...


I gave that figure off the cuff, mainly because there is bound to be some people who have looked at a map of the Middle East, which usually accompanies a Bible, tracing the journeys of the Apostle Paul. So they at least have maps!

Mark Twain once wrote that war is God's way of teaching America geography. Apparently, even war doesn't even work anymore.

[goesh]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21553151/

"Boosted profile for ‘emboldened’ Kurdish rebels
Kurdistan Workers’ Party in spotlight after years of drifting, factionalism
..................
Now the Kurdistan Workers’ Party has commandeered debate over Turkey’s Kurdish ethnic minority with attacks that goaded the government into threatening a cross-border offensive against separatist hideouts in Iraq.
..................
The PKK, estimated to have 5,000 fighters, could benefit politically from an Iraq campaign by claiming to be the champion of all Kurds in the face of an invader with a history of human rights abuses. "

an invader with a history of human rights abuses (ouch)