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Bush urges lawmakers against Armenia genocide bill (1st Update)
Oct 10, 2007, 17:17 GMT
US President George W Bush EPA/JULIAN ABRAM WAINWRIGHT
Washington - US President George W Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to abandon plans to declare that the killing of more than 1 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide.
Bush warned that the resolution would severely damage relations with Turkey and undermine US policy in the Middle East and the war effort in Iraq.
'This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror,' Bush said.
'We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915,' Bush said.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee was expected to take up the measure on Wednesday to label the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923 genocide.
The Bush administration has made a late push to see the resolution defeated. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates have privately met with lawmakers to urge them to drop the measure.
'The passage of this resolution at this time would, indeed, be very problematic for everything that we're trying to do in the Middle East because we are very dependent on a good Turkish strategic ally,' Rice said.
Gates said the bill would undermine the US war effort in Iraq because Turkey is a transit point for most of the military equipment and supplies shipped into Iraq.
'Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be very much put at risk if this resolution passes and the Turks react as strongly as we believe they will,' Gates said.
About 70 per cent of air cargo into Iraq and 30 per cent of the fuel used by the US military goes through Turkey, Gates said.
The bill, however, appears to have broad support in the House. Representative Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California whose district includes a large number of Armenian-Americans, introduced the bill.
'How can we take effective action against the genocide in Darfur if we lack the will to condemn genocide whenever and wherever it occurs?' he said.
The Turkish government vehemently opposes the resolution. Its embassy in Washington took out a full-page advertisement in the Washington Post last week calling the pending legislation 'one-sided' and warned it would 'affect relations between the United States and Turkey.'
Bush telephoned Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last Friday to express his strong opposition to the bill. At the same time Bush administration officials have emphasized that there opposition to the bill does not recognize the tragedy of the mass murders.
'This was not to ignore what was a really terrible situation,' Rice said. 'And we recognize the feelings of those who want to express their concern and their disdain for what happened many years ago.'
Bush has previously called the slaughter 'forced exile and murder' but has not used the term 'genocide.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
Exactly. How come it was genoside when jewish were slaughtered. So id Iranian president questions the number of jews dies then it is a crime on the other hand USA wants to vote so its ally is not upset. Wow. What a justice? How USA can cry to the world community about others conduct when itself can't.
is this any way to talk about our idiot in chief?
wow, another holocaust denyer. Bush, have you no shame? Oh, I forgot, You're texan. You have no conscience. Or brain. Mark Twain did say of the Texan: 'Ah, yes, the lowest form of humanity.'
genocide is labeled genocide, George Bush will use that to declare his war a loss. He only needs a reason to say it, he's known it for years. Bush's policy in the ME is already a huge, undo-able mess so this being declared genocide will only help the Bush effort, which is to get through his second term alive, rich with stolen money, and not in jail.
One thing we need to do is greenlight some kind of empty motion like this, and reap the colossal benefits.
Go ahead...piss off the one group of folks who have stood at our side for decades over something they actualy had no hand in, for no other reason than an empty gesture, to a government who was never in power at the time.
I guess we never learn.
Bush managed to create greater enemies out of existing enemies at that time, and seems to have absorbed the fact that creating greater frictions only leads to greater hatreds.
Worse relations with Turkey are the last thing we need right now, as the Turks prepare to vote to give themselves the right to invade Iraq.
The Turks get really upset when you mention the fact that they mass-murdered the Armenians. Guess that's because the truth hurts, huh?
Thing is, they were just obeying their Islamic scriptures which forever command the killing of Infidels so they're damned if they do, damned if they don't. Such is Islam.
Bushes should be indicted for Muslim in general and Shiite genocide in particular!
Re. 'Bush the Butcher of Muslims'
Oh, that's rich! Nobody kills more muslims than muslims. Their religion is all about murder and the daily body count proves it.
Check out thereligionofpeace.com, 9700 Islamic terror attacks in the last six years! Islam is all about murder, Islam is responsible for rivers of blood these last 1400 years, long before Bush was around to blame
So when Bush tries to stop congress from declaring that Muslims committed genocide he is somehow against muslims?
What about keeping the U.S.'s nose out of everyone else's business. Does there need to be a declaration to make it right or wrong - empty words!!
thinkprogress.org/2007/10/10/bush-armenian-genocide/
But when Bush was running for president in 2000, he wrote a letter to the Armenian National Committee affirming that the Armenians were “subjected to a genocidal campaign.” He promised that if “elected president,” he would make sure that the United States “properly recognizes” the tragedy.
From his letter:
'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.'
page: 1
Wm GavinOct 10th, 2007 - 17:43:17
Bush and Rice together don't make pimple on a smart person's ass.
If what happened to the Armenians wasn't, and isn't, genocide then what is/was it? Somebody ask that fool Bush that question point blank.
I suppose that what Hitler and Stalin and the Arabs did to the Jewish people wasn't genocide either.
Germany is still apologizing for what they did, while the Russians and Moslems are still doing it. It seems that Bush and Rice are again buddying up with the Moslems and Russia.
Thak Go_ only one more year and he'll rtetire to Mexico.
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