Garin Hovanessian doesn’t know what he’s talking about. His argument is a typical right-libertarian argument, and like all right-libertarian true-believers, he pushes the small government and the so-called “unitary executive” (read, the president is my father) agenda into every discussion about every issue, no matter if its flora or fauna.

That’s how state recognition of the Armenian Holocaust is bizarrely enough a question of small government for him. He’s wrong. History is a matter of public concern, and for all practical purposes, congress giving its weight to the recognition of the genocide is, it goes without saying, a victory for the Armenians.

But, no, according to Garin Hovanessian, that’s just not right: roll it all back, kill the bill, nullify the work of the ANCA and AAA, because the road to the success of Armenian issues can only, must only, pass through the Executive, never mind that the reality is that success has already happened without Dear Father in the White House. What is this, North Korea?

Armenians have built a house with all of the tools—legally—available to them, and Garin Hovanessian is suggesting they tear it down and rebuild it using only a hammer, because that is the one thing in the world that his right-libertarian dictionary calls a “tool.” The absurdity of this idea is painful and the fanaticism involved in pushing it is astounding.

I very strongly doubt anybody is going to take this guy seriously.

The argument that the bill should be abandoned because “we are in a difficult position right and Turkey is a key ally,” and so on, is also, not only flawed, but cowardly. It unthinkingly takes Bush at his word: that the US desperately needs Turkey and that Turkey is some kind of key ally. The reality of the matter is that Turkey, like all other nations, does what the US tells it to, and if it doesn’t, its looking for a nice, big economic bitch-slapping that it hasn’t since the few there who could were writing right-to-left.

To boot, Turkey’s threat of going into N Iraq is probably bs. Turkey going into Iraq would be like the US going into Iran, except worse. There is every indication that the political situation in Turkey is unstable and getting more so by the day; their recent electoral crisis is one such indication, and the totally bizarre affair involving the censoring of Wordpress, in toto, in Turkey is another. And many, many Turkish parliamentarians are actually Kurdish. Let Turkey go into Iraq, and, indeed, the rifts could become explicit and at a time when the army would be engaged in N Iraq with a well-armed (by the US), battle-hardened, and committed population that isn’t going to lie down, exactly.

So what Bush means by “US interests” is, unsurprisingly, his interests and the interests of his cronies. Turkish intelligence at a very high level is corrupt and is involved in all kinds of lucrative smuggling operations, sort of like Pakistani intelligence, which benefit the Israel, US, Pakistan, and Turkey right-wing Axis of corrupt madness. It is this relationship with Turkey that would be harmed. It is these very lucrative and very illegal relationships between very corrupt and very high level government operatives that are threatened. If you want to know who these people are, you need look no further than the members of the American Turkish Council and other Turkish lobbies and their contacts in the US, with people like generals and congresscritters.

Otherwise, recognizing the Armenian Holocaust can not but benefit everyone because, well, because it happened. It isn’t going to damage US-Turkey relations in any significant way, unless they feel suicidal. And just because this recognition is through the legislature doesn’t make it irrelevant; no, what’s really irrelevant is right-libertarian ideology.

Trivializing genocide

Riding a strong summer wave of good press just before Congress takes a holiday, the Armenian National Committee of America is sparing no trick in effecting a vote on House Resolution 106: The Armenian genocide resolution is, quite simply, the raison d’etre of the Armenian-American lobby — the horizon event that has, since the genocide in 1915, animated and inspired the million-strong crew of our clipper ship. Yet on the eve of our final paddle, this lonely sailor is harboring some doubts.

[…]

As an heir, moreover, of an American tradition of limited government, I am annoyed that the legislature is poking into a sphere in which it has neither business nor experience: the province of truth. It is bad enough that a committee of aristocrats governs the conventions of politics, economics and human rights. We the citizens scarcely need to sign over the laws of nature, too, lest gravity be repealed and the whole race goes floating about the universe.

[…]

Congressional symbols of good faith will not do the job. When Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul flies into Washington to smear the resolution as a “real threat to our relationship” and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slobbers back that Turkey is a “global partner (that) shares our values,” it isn’t House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s problem. U.S. foreign policy should be sobered up and called to honesty by the institution that directs foreign policy: the president of the United States. Only his leadership, and not the dubious decrees of congressmen with Armenian constituencies, can beget real victory for Armenian hopes and American principles.

[…]

But should the Armenian genocide resolution pass, we will at least enjoy the consolation of some high comedy. As imperious Turkey runs away from the West and then reluctantly returns, and as the Armenian lobby revels in its final success before the inevitable existential crisis, bad congressional resolutions might well begin to sound like good Philip Larkin: “Sexual intercourse began / In nineteen sixty-three…/ Between the end of the Chatterley ban / And the Beatles’ first LP.”

The full opinion piece is here.

http://luckyfrown.com/2007/07/30/trivializing-genocide/

I think the recognition of the fact of the Genocide that set off a chain of Genocides - that are continuing to this day - is very important. Not only for Armenians, but also for the Turks. I think that the Turks really have every reason now to accept it as fact. The Turks that are living today were not alive at that time, and I do not believe in the biblical sense that the sins of the father are vested onto the sons. I think that it would be healthy and redeeming if they were to accept the Genocide and that the Turks should take a lesson from the Germans who have in a very positive way - both on a governmental level and a personal level among the German people - found it redeeming to accept the fact that the Holocaust occurred. In the case of Germany, of course, they invested heavily in Israel. There were reparations and so forth.

Turkey is a poor country and Germany is one of the richest countries in the world, and perhaps they are afraid that formal acceptance of the Genocide will lead to demands that they can not meet. I think that from a moral and psychological standpoint acceptance is necessary for Turkey. Turkish and Armenian representatives should sit down together and really work something out that acknowledges the events that have set off a series of Genocide that unfortunately continues today - not more than 200 miles from the Turkish border.

The full interview is here.