 ouyangwulong says: Turkey is a lose lose situation for us. There's no way we'll pull them off of the Kurds through appeasement. Of all the times Bush stood strong, this is the time for a little bravado, where did it go? What kind of President caves in on issues like genocide? He just took away Pansy of the Week award from Gordon Brown! The president has chosen political expediency over what is morally right. A choice which, like so many others, the country will come to regret. This man has lost his moral compass. The creepy thing is that his rhetoric shows he knows exactly where his moral compass should be pointing, but his actions show he isn't using it as his guide. There is a long long list of great ideas that Bush has put forward in his speeches. He embraces many humanitarian virtues and noble causes. The most terrifying prospect is that he is saying these things because he knows they are right and knows that they will convince us, but that he deliberately choses to ignore what he knows is right, and does what is wrong out of convenience, greed, megalomania, or just habit. Not to belittle the Armenian genocide, but is this really an appropriate question for the U.S. Congress to decide? And why is now suddenly the right time? I haven't really been following the story too closely, but frankly I find the sudden concern baffling. How about doing something about Darfur? Well, the problem with the Armenian Genocide is that it is not unlike the Japanese Comfort Women issue, in that a country that was our ally committed grave crimes against humanity, and now forcefully rewrites history, absolving themselves of any guilt. America exerts two major influences on the world: one is as a role-model of idealistic nobility, and the other is as the archetype of arrogance and personal exceptionalism. While Bush certainly spreads the later, it is my hope that the former is not yet completely lost. I would cautiously hope against hope that congress now picks up the banner that Bush so pointedly dropped. We can make a stand, and say that although we can offer forgiveness... Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I have a hard time seeing the timing as entirely innocent. Couldn't this just be a move by a Democratic congress to embarrass Bush, since he is so dependent on Turkish goodwill at this point? Although I certainly take your point and appreciate what you're saying, I have some difficulty believing that this is the issue on which this Congress has suddenly decided to take a principled moral stand, after demonstrating a complete lack of spine on practically every other issue, as far as I can tell. But you're better informed than I am and I defer to your judgment. Could be, but it could just as easily be a response to Turkey's intense build up to what promises to be a war of annihilation against the Kurds. This isn't something that suddenly came up either. Realistically, this issue was no small part of what earned Orhan Pamuk a Nobel Prize last year. The Turkish government's sudden sensitivity about this issue, as well as the sudden international interest in it strikes me as a response to the prospect that history might repeat itself in Kurdistan. This looming crisis is something I've been clipping for some time, and it's getting more and more serious. The Bush administration has stood by and let the genocide in Darfur happen. I think there is ver... Of course, if what you way is right, all though it may be categorically imperative to expose genocide, wouldn't doing so to achieve a political purpose use the victims of the tragedy as a mere means? This then would violate the other Categorically Imperative rule: The Rule of Mere Means: that no person should ever be used by another as a means to an end that does not benefit them. Chew on that Kant! |
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