On October 10, the House of Foreign Affairs Committee's 27-21 vote is OKing the recognition of the World War I civil unrest and turmoil that Armenians suffered as a genocide, something that happened 92 years ago. The committee fails to recognize the Ottoman civilians that were killed by Armenians during their rebellions and atrocities committed by the Armenian rebels, before 1915.
For some reason millions of tax dollars of American citizens are going to these politicians so they can argue and debate a historical event 92 years ago about a nation that has been in NATO for 52 years and been a key US ally for decades, especially during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Iraq and Afghanistan invasions.
Politician's job is to ensure that everyone's rights are fully represented and their needs are expressed to the leaders of the nation. Their job is not to investigate history, they are not even historians!
What benefit will there be of recognizing the Armenian Genocide through H.R. 106 (House Resolution)? What will change? Let's make a list:
1) Armenian-Americans will rejoice (as they already did on Wednesday night).
2) Turks and Europeans who do not believe in the Armenian Genocide around the world will be angered and start talking badly about the United States and about Armenians.
3) It will damage the Armenian-Turkish relationship even more than it already is. Making the temptation of invading Armenia (since Armenia illegally invaded Azerbaijan in 1992, and occupied 20% of their lands and massacred many civilians) more plausible. Is this what Armenians and Americans want? More wars?
4) The Turkish government will shut down all American air-bases in Turkey which delivers 70% of supplies to American troops.
5) The Turkish government will now be able to completely justify their invasion of Iraq that they had been planning for years, in order to stop the PKK terrorists that have made bases in Northern Iraq, which the Americans have no man-power to stop. This could possibly mean that more American troops will die as there will be new fronts to the Iraqi war, and quite possibly, more Arab countries might start wars, destabilizing the middle east even further!
6) Turks in Turkey and around the world will organize a boycott of American goods as they did when French passed a similar resolution. American businesses will loose billions of dollars and the United States may suffer severe blows to it's economy. In addition to the cost of changing supply routes for the government to continue supplying US troops in Iraq there will be many business losses.
7) Possible recognition of numerous events that the United States Army has been involved in as "genocides". Such as the Native Indians, the Japanese, the Vietnamese, and the Iraqis, all of which have had wars where the US invading troops have created atrocities even if it wasn't state sponsored. What comes around goes around!
Now if any of the items on this list are truly worth the trouble, then please go ahead and ask your representative to vote YES for H.R. 106, if you think H.R. 106 is the silly propaganda that it really is, then tell all your representatives immediately to VOTE NO for H.R. 106. If you are going to tell your representative to vote YES, then you are not a true American, and have ulterior motives and racist notions towards Turks.
In World War I, many Armenians died and suffered, this is very true, Turkish estimates of death toll of Armenians is around 300,000, considering the Armenian population during World War I was about 1.6 million, there couldn't have been a genocide of 1.5 million Armenians. In addition, there were no orders or evidence of a state sponsored genocide. However, many people forget that hundreds of thousands of Turkish civilians were killed by well-armed and Russian supported Armenian rebels and soldiers during World War I that were seeking Armenian Independence!
In fact, the only evidence Armenians have against Turks about the Armenian Genocide is a few propaganda books written during World War I by the British propaganda agencies (in order to win against the central powers) that were later proven to be simply propaganda.
If you do believe in the Armenian Genocide that is your choice, eventually evidence and historians will clear up this dark history and make sure the truth comes out. However, voting on it in Congress will not change history and will not provide any closure or any beneficial outcome to anyone who suffered through World War I. This will only damage Turkey and America, while the Armenians rejoice.