Armenian hopes crushed as Obama decides not to use the word 'genocide'

[alp227]

Source: LA Times

White House officials have decided that President Obama will not use the word “genocide” to describe the killings of more than 1 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks when he commemorates the deaths Friday, the 100th anniversary of the massacres.

The decision, revealed Tuesday in a meeting with Armenian American groups, backs down from a previous Obama pledge.

“As president I will recognize the Armenian Genocide,” Obama said while running for president in 2008.

His decision not to do so now sparked anger from activists.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obama-armenian-genocide-20150421-story.html

[CBGLuthier]

1. America has the best government and the best leaders that money can buy

Turkish threats to shutdown our bases coupled with a few million in lobbying.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. That's disappointing.

[NuclearDem]

3. Ugh.

[renegade000]

4. I don't envy his position on this

On the one hand you can either:

(1) Not use the word "genocide," in which you case you draw the ire of people rightfully outraged about these historical atrocities and the mealy-mouthed way world powers have addressed it, as well as looking like you go back on your word.

(2) Use the word "genocide," in which case you risk the Turkish nationalist government in Ankara throwing a hissy-fit and derailing any anti-ISIS efforts, which would in turn potentially lead to more actual genocidal actions by ISIS against the local ethnic/religious minorities.

Honestly, it's a lose-lose, but I respect Obama's decision in this regard. The Armenian genocide was still a genocide regardless of what we call it, and if hurt image and feelings are all that result from the former choice, that beats the potential harm to people lives that might result if Turkey starts trying to spite us. Hopefully, next year the situation in the Middle East is more conducive to straightforward truth-telling...

[Ken Burch]

7. It will be too late to call it genocide after this.

It won't mean anything if its done any later.

This is the same thing as saying that the intentional slaughter of 1 million people simply isn't important.

It's as bad as Clinton letting the Chinese regime totally off the hook for the massacre of 1989. No greater human good was served by that, either.

We're supposed to be better than this.

[renegade000]

18. Agree with the sentiment, but not the analysis

It's been 100 years since the genocide. I'm not entirely sure why this is the magic number that will render any on-the-record declaration of "genocide" a moot point. Besides, what's more important is that the public at large is becoming increasingly aware and educated to the facts of the Armenian genocide--and the fact that it was indeed a genocide. I suppose I would be more upset if I thought the public's awareness of the history was heavily contingent on Obama's exact verbiage, but I think as the controversy surrounding it demonstrates, that's not the case.

[LeftInTX]

5. The US needs a "Quit Turkey" movement

Kudos to Jackie Speier, however.

[Ken Burch]

20. Would the slogan be "Quit Turkey 'Cold Turkey'"? n/t.

[Ken Burch]

6. Coward. Turkey isn't THAT freaking important.

We kept West Germany as a postwar ally without lowering ourselves to Holocaust denial.

[alp227]

8. West Germany isn't like Turkey.

The post-Nazi German governments actually apologized for/acknowledged the holocaust, even signing a reparations agreement with Israel in 1952, while Turkey has spent a century downplaying/denying the Armenian Genocide.

[PufPuf23]

19. CUP

The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, is quoted on the front page of the 1 August 1926 The Los Angeles Examiner as denouncing the Young Turks and especially the CUP (the "Young Turk Party&quot , saying:


"These left-overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the Republican rule. … They have hitherto lived on plunder, robbery and bribery and become inimical to any idea, or suggestion to enlist in useful labor and earn their living by the honest sweat of their brow … Under the cloak of the opposition party, this element, who forced our country into the Great War against the will of the people, who caused the shedding of rivers of blood of the Turkish youth to satisfy the criminal ambition of Enver Pasha, has, in a cowardly fashion, intrigued against my life, as well as the lives of the members of my cabinet."

A significant proportion of the leaders of the Young Turks (Committee of Union and Progress) were either Sephardic Jews or Donmeh (born Jewish but Islamic converts) from Salonika.

Ataturk is the founding father of the post WWI Turkish Republic so ...

I have no personal stake in the issue (aside from genocide is repugnant) but time and the cloud of the Young Turk coup of the Ottomans and WWI confuse the issue of responsibility.

[vlakitti]

9. Well, this is horseshit...

It's not some arcane dispute from way back in the past.

It was genocide of the type Hitler specifically said he wanted to emulate and every informed person over the past century has known about it. Ernest Hemingway mentions it in one of his contemporary stories about World War I, which is where decades ago I first learned about it.

Obama desperately needs a backbone or some new advisers. Go small, go tiny, go trivial won't cut it in any real world.

For Christ's sake the Pope, with no dog in this fight, was forthright in calling out that butchery in 1915-1916 against the Armenian people as a "genocide".

Who gains what from this pathetic and cowardly nonsense?

[BeanMusical]

10. As president I will recognize the Armenian Genocide, Obama said while running for president in 2008

Another flip-flop, what a surprise.

[BojackFan]

12. That is what upsets me.

Obama thought it was important enough to campaign on it.

[Psephos]

11. a true profile in courage

not

[Nihil]

13. Obama obviously thinks it is Thanksgiving ...

... and has decided to pardon the Turkey again ...

[malthaussen]

14. Sure, it was just a million or so isolated incidents. n/t

[beerandjesus]

15. Perpetrated by a few bad apples......

[Proud Public Servant]

16. I'm going to Armenian Genocide commemoration event

on Capitol Hill tonight. I suspect the anger will be palpable.

BTW, for those of you who are C-SPAN viewers, Rep. Adam Schiff will be on the House floor this afternoon reading a small number of the names of Armenians killed in the genocide.

[BeanMusical]

17. Kick and R.

[eissa]

21. I'm so disappointed with this

That Turkey is able to buy and bully their way out of this acknowledgment is simply disgusting. Our ancestors cannot rest peacefully until the genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks is fully recognized.