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October 17, 2007
Confused Americans for Truth - A Pointless Resolution With Dangerous Side Effects
One of the first acts of the 110th Congress was a resolution condemning the Iraq surge. Shortly after the Democrats won control of the Congress in the 2006, the conventional wisdom was they would vigorously pursue means to get us out of Iraq. The non-binding resolution is, to the great disappointment of many, the Democrats' only real victory against the President on the whole Iraq thing.
There are, however, times when pointless non-binding resolutions can actually have an effect. An example is House Resolution 106, which condemns Turkey for the massacre of Armenians in the run up to World War I. This resolution is directed against an Ottoman government that no longer exists; however, the Turks are still upset. Right now they are looking for any excuse to break with the United States: they have their own terror problem, and they believe that problem is caused by Kurds hiding in northern Iraq. Their solution: invade Iraq and kill a bunch of Kurds.
The Kurdish rebels have put the United States in an untenable position. We cannot afford to have the Iraq war engulf the entire Middle East, but we also cannot condone terrorism. This means we're reduced to hoping the rebels stop the violence and work for a peaceful resolution to their problems. Sadly, the specific group carrying out terrorism in Iraq-- the PKK-- is steeped in Marxist ideology, something that rarely lends itself to compromise and reason.
It is the Iraqi Kurds who need to step up to the plate here. A Kurdish homeland is a nice dream, but terrorism is about destroying, not building. If the PKK is not stopped, Kurds may have to choose between a third world war or being entirely absorbed by the Turks. Neither outcome will hurt the PKK; it will only hurt the peaceful Kurds who just want to carve out a life for themselves.
The House Resolution is, sadly, part of the same twisted world-view practiced by the PPK and other terror groups like Hamas. In this view, the world is divided into ethnic groups who have varying degrees of political power. If a government slaughters its own citizens, it's a bad thing, but if the slaughter is along ethnic lines, it's genocide, which is Really Bad. The truth is that a death is a death, and there is not one iota of difference, philosophical or ethical, between killing 200,000 people and killing 200,000 Armenians. The only thing sillier than splitting this particular hair is devoting time and energy to a government decree about the proper words to use in describing the event.
In the meantime, I wish the law enforcement authorities in Turkey good fortune in finding and stopping the PKK, and I hope that the Kurds living in Turkey are able to live in peace and build their own lives. I hope these things because I hope all people can be released from the threat of terrorism and can pursue their own happiness. Perhaps if the 110th Congress stopped obsessing over ethnic issues they could help. That would be a good thing.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Wed 11:35 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (0) | More Confused Americans for Truth | Tags: Armenian massacre Congress conservative Democrats Iraq Kurdistan marxism Ottoman Empire philosophy PKK racism Turkey
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