Not the right response to these historic mass killings

The Turkish government has issued an order to crush the Kurdish PKK, including military raids into Iraq. The order refers to the PKK as “the terrorist organization.” Speaking of scary words, Turkey is also pressing the US very strongly not to use the word “genocide” to describe the Armenian Oops, Shit Happens Event of 1915. The Turkish ambassador says, “You cannot expect any nation to accept that kind of labeling.” Not even Germany?

Update: Bush this morning publicly told Congress that he doesn’t want it to recognize the Armenian genocide... no, actually it’s worse than that: he wants the proposed resolution to be voted down, which would mean not just passively ignoring the genocide but actively refusing to acknowledge it. He says passage of the resolution “would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror.” So we’re going to fight terror by whitewashing genocide. Gates and Condi also spoke against the resolution.


Bush insisted “This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings”, but failed to say what the right response actually is. Later, Dana Peroxide informed us that the right response – indeed the only response that should emanate from any part of the American government – is Bush’s feeble annual declarations, which never use the word genocide or assign any blame for the events of 1915, preferring to say that many Armenians “lost their lives,” which was darned careless of them (see my posts on the last two of these declarations, which link to their texts). Perino said, “He’s been on record every single year through a presidential message. I encourage you to read it. It’s quite long; I won’t bore -- I won’t read it all for you here.” She also helpfully suggested that “the Turks and the Armenians should have a discussion and work this out amongst themselves.”