According to today's LA Times, the House resolution to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide is bleeding supporters at a rapid pace.  As usual, I feel the need for disclaimers before delving into this topic in any depth...the main one being that I am an idealist, followed by the acknowledgement that I am neither a diplomat nor a scholar of the Middle East.

Indeed, I had to refresh myself on the history of the Armenian genocide before forming an opinion on the resolution.  A quick brush up for those who don't want to wade through the link above.

Prior to and especially during the WWI, the Ottoman government (now Turkey) displaced, relocated, systematically starved, and massacred a religious and ethnic minority in its midst--the Christian Armenians.  Death counts vary between a horrifying 500,000 and an unimaginable 1.5 million.  Armenian goods and property were confiscated as they were evicted from their lands and/or killed.

As of this writing, 22 countries and several international organizations have "recognized" these documented facts as "genocide": "The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political or cultural group." 

At the time, the government justified its actions by claiming that Armenians were helping the Russian enemy; however, conflicts over religion, lifestyle and relative wealth appear to have been at the core of Ottoman-Muslim resentment of Armenian-Christians in their midst.  The resentment matured into imprisonment of intellectuals, sanctioned expulsion and then devolved into death marches and deportation camps.

Turkey has long resisted recognizing this passage in its history as genocide.  Indeed, there is a law on the books against "insulting Turkishness" that has been used to prosecute Turkish citizens who use the term genocide to describe these events.  As recently as January, Hrant Dink, a newspaper editor who had been charged under this law, was assasinated by a Turkish nationalist who said he'd been angered by Dink's views on Turkish history.  After the killing, the assassin was photographed posing with guards in a heroic stance with the Turkish flag.

Clearly, emotions in Turkey run high over this issue.  Which is precisely the reason Condi Rice and past Secretaries of State joined together to urge congress not to pass this resolution.  Passage would, according to them, antagonize Turkey and "harm American troops in the field." 

Turkey is a key ally in Iraq, granting the U.S. basing rights and allowing easier access to Iraq for our troops.  The government has been relatively stable, although (in a related development today), Turkey has authorized its military to cross into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish separatists.  According to Turkey, the separatists are responsible for 30,000 deaths since 1984, using terrorist tactics to establish a separate state for Kurds.

So why push for recognition?  According to Simon Beugekian in The Armenian Weekly recognition will pressure Turkey to admit its past, leading to "healing" and "normalization of relations" between Turkey and Armenia.  But, he admits, recognition is a means to an end rather than an end in itself.  The future goals are reparations and return of contested, confiscated Armenian land.  All the more reason for Turkey to be touchy about the subject.

As pointed out by Condi Rice and her cohorts, the timing on this resolution is not good.  It injects a potential rupture into an already unstable situation, likely alienating an ally and complicating our efforts in Iraq.

And after all, it's history, right?  The U.S. officially recognizing the massacres as genocide does not make it fact any more than our lack of recognition denies the fact.

Yet I am still compelled to support the resolution, despite its inconvenient timing and not being 100% in alignment with the secondary goals of recognition.  Why?  Well, it's the quote that titles this blog. 

"Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"  The person who said this? Adolf Hitler in 1939 as he outlined his plans to kill Polish citizens. 

Pragmatists will argue that the recognition can come at another, more opportune time.  But the idealist in me is haunted by Hitler's unintended message--when we let convenience dictate truth, we open the door to a bleak future indeed. 

Who speaks today?  I do.

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