Holocaustics

Just days after the great gnashing of teeth over Ahmadenijad-the-Holocaust-denier, complete with dramatic mugging for the cameras by Bush, rabbis in Brooklyn and the president of Columbia, now we have half of Washington trying desperately to figure out a way to keep discussion of the mass slaughter of Armenians away from the dinner table. Since it was our allies the Turks who massacred them, we’re not to discuss that.

Our valiant Congress chose this time to declare itself against the murder of thousands of people 90 years ago in lieu of doing anything about the thousands it’s responsible for killing in the last four. A Turk sitting behind me in a movie theatre Saturday said it was because Nancy Pelosi has Armenians in her district, which sounds about right for this sorry band of moral pygmies.

The timing has created a problem for the Bush warmaking strategy in Iraq, and for that reason alone I applaud Congress in all its glorious opportunism. The Turks don’t like to have that particular mirror held up to them and are threatening to stop cooperating and force the U.S. military to fall back on support from coalition members like Azerbaijan, Estonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Meanwhile, did anyone notice the public tongue-lashing Putin gave Condoleeza Rice and Pentagon chief Gates at their little confab last week? Putin kept them waiting at the door, then lit into U.S. plans for missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. All Rice’s stunned press people could say later was, He has a really nice personality in private. It’s a sign of the steady collapse of U.S. power and influence that Bush’s envoys can be stiffed and humiliated with such impunity.

For the record, the Ottoman Turks slaughtered over a million Armenians just as their empire was being crushed during World War I. The Turks’ efficiency in transporting the victims in railway cars was observed by German military officers posted to the region, who made note of the technique and, need I add, used it later. The Turkish state and fascist nationalists refuse to acknowledge this history, and I think it’s great when it gets thrown in their faces. That said, the U.S. congressional action is still pathetic. Stop funding today’s slaughter, THEN pass pious resolutions about other people’s crimes.