Democrat Foreign Policy: Drive Away Our Allies and Appease Our Enemies
Last August, Barack Obama said that he was so committed to the War on Terror that he would invade Pakistan without permission, if necessary. When even other Democrats questioned the wisdom of invading an ally—especially a nuclear-armed ally—Obama stood by what he had said.
Now the Democrat-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee has passed a resolution condemning the Ottoman Empire for atrocities committed against the Turks. But the Ottoman Empire doesn’t exist. It hasn’t existed for 85 years. That same chunk of land is now called Turkey.
The atrocities against the Armenians are still a very sensitive topic in Turkey. It is a crime in Turkey to call them genocide, as the government insists that it intended only only to deport the Armenians, not to kill them. So the Turks were not amused with this bit of Democrat moral grandstanding. They have withdrawn their ambassador, and now there are worries that this will hamper our rights to fly over Turkey and use strategically important Incirlik air base.
We’re accustomed to the Democrats trying to demoralize the American public to defeat the US military, but this is far more serious. The Democrats are so determined to make us lose in Iraq that they’re snubbing our allies while appeasing our enemies.
Update 10-18-07: This NRO article gives more historical background to the Armenian deaths in 1915. In summary, the Ottoman Empire was under attack from many enemies, especially from Russia. It was ruled by a triumvirate of incompetent thugs. Some Armenians remained loyal to the empire, while others fought against it with hopes of an independent Armenian state.
Amid this chaos, the government decided to resettle Armenians in the rebellious regions away from the fighting, and was unable to provide them with adequate food, water, and shelter during the journey. So the closest analogy to the Armenian deaths is not the Holocaust, but the Bataan death march: Lots of people died horribly due to governmental incompetence and the natural chaos of war, but there was never a specific intention to kill so many of them.
Update to the Update: I should have pointed out that I’m not claiming the NRO article as absolute truth, just as one side of an insoluble argument. No doubt there are many reputable voices on the other side, such as Spengler.