George Bush Denies a Holocaust

George Bush in 2000:

"The twentieth century was marred by wars of unimaginable brutality, mass murder and genocide. History records that the Armenians were the first people of the last century to have endured these cruelties. The Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension and commands all decent people to remember and acknowledge the facts and lessons of an awful crime in a century of bloody crimes against humanity. If elected President, I would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people."

http://www.anca.org/press_releases/press_releases.php?prid=3

Bush Flip Flops:

"We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915. But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings. Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21221278/from/RS.2/

The Facts:

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocidefaq.html

What is the Armenian Genocide?

"The Armenian Genocide was centrally planned and administered by the Turkish government against the entire Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. It was carried out during W.W.I between the years 1915 and 1918. The Armenian people was subjected to deportation, expropriation, abduction, torture, massacre, and starvation. The great bulk of the Armenian population was forcibly removed from Armenia and Anatolia to Syria, where the vast majority was sent into the desert to die of thirst and hunger. Large numbers of Armenians were methodically massacred throughout the Ottoman Empire. Women and children were abducted and horribly abused. The entire wealth of the Armenian people was expropriated. After only a little more than a year of calm at the end of W.W.I, the atrocities were renewed between 1920 and 1923, and the remaining Armenians were subjected to further massacres and expulsions. "

Who was responsible for the Armenian Genocide?

"The decision to carry out a genocide against the Armenian people was made by the political party in power in the Ottoman Empire. This was the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) (or Ittihad ve Terakki Jemiyeti), popularly known as the Young Turks. "

How many people died in the Armenian Genocide?

"It is estimated that one and a half million Armenians perished between 1915 and 1923. There were an estimated two million Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of W.W.I. Well over a million were deported in 1915. Hundreds of thousands were butchered outright. Many others died of starvation, exhaustion, and epidemics which ravaged the concentration camps."

Photographs of the Armenian Genocide:

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/photo_elder_view.html?photo=orphanboys.jpg&collection=elder&caption=Armenian+orphans

Funny how the dims will waste time on another NON-BINDING resolution about something that HAPPENED IN THE PAST, but refuses to deal with IRAN in the present.

The Turkish President warned us a few days ago that if this Resolution does go forward then the chances are high that Turkey might stop one of the main lines of supply to our troops in Iraq through Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.Pelosi knows this but allowed the Resolution to go forward anyway. This Resolution has been floating around for many years and I think that the bitch did this just to cause problems for Bush and the troops in Iraq.

You cannot have it both ways-- call it a waste of time and then wring your hands at the prospect that this action is effective. It is but one of many tactics to derail Bush's war. Clearly, there are presently not enough votes in Congress to off funding to the war, but that could change after the 2008 elections. After all, 40,000 Americans had to die in the Viet Nam war while there was a draft before it dawned on Congress that stomping through rice paddies in the name of democracy perhaps wasn't the best idea.

So what to do? Until the votes materialize, the only hope is to attack on the periphery and indirectly. Thus, there will be investigations into recruiting, VA hospitals, military contracts, private defense firms, and the draft dodging our the Republican candidates (except for McCain). The weakening of our so-called allies in this so-called war on terror is just one fight in the broader war against the Republicans. This would have never happened in WWII, because there was a national consensus that it was the right war. The outing of a CIA operative and the disclosure of the al Qaeda video provided to the White House by SITE along with Petreaus' testimony are just a few examples of how politicized the war has become. The goal of the Democrats is to make the war the issue of the 2008 election make Bush and Cheney the Republican's phantom candidates.

The loss of the support of Turkey is a small price to pay if it will bring to and end one day earlier the Iraqi war.

GW denied a holocaust? He says it didn't happen? Where did you come up with that?

While I am a Zionist, I will also assert that the word holocaust is not a trade mark of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or any one else. It can refer to any genocide or mass murder aimed at the liquidation of any entire people. Besides the Shoah, other holocausts include the Africans, the Native Americans, the Asians under the Japanese Empire, the Ukranians, and others. What George Bush has done is exactly what many Nazi revisionists do. They allow that there was suffering and even mass killings of Jewish people and others but they disassociate those killings from any governmental authority or intentionality. Thus, a Nazi revisionists would say that the people died because of bombings or disease, not as part of a systematic planned program of extermination. Bush is effectively asserting the same dishonest lie-- that, yes, Armenians died, but only as a consequence of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, and not because of a policy of eradication by the Turks.

Certainly it would piss off the Turks and if the Turks were pissed off enough to withdraw basing rights would shut down the war pretty decisively. But it would be a lousy tactic to that end because it would be unbelievably messy.

You make a good point. I think however the Democrat think this will apply pressure to the White House without causing the Turks to close down the bases and lines of communciation. The military scenerio that to me is more alarming is what happens if the center doesn't hold and it appears that collapse of Ameriraq is eminent? The first to withdraw will be the private militias, such as Blackwater. We are pinning much of Iraq's security on a civilian agency with no accountability to our military. My guess however is that our involvement will end with a whimper due to the Democrat's death by a thousand cuts-- a restriction here, and investigation there. But I also think the war will not end until after Bush leaves office.

The wild card of course is Iran. I see an involving alliance between Russia, China, and Iran against the US and its Iraq war allies primarily with the goal of maintaining a buffer between their countries and the war and also in defense of its own resource-related interests. China and Russia are both starting to flex their economic muscles and it will only be a matter of time before they extend that push for influence geo-politically.