Tsitsernakaberd, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

As you can imagine, the news wires, international media sites and blogs have gone into overload regarding the acceptance of House Resolution 106 which if passed by Congress and the Senate would recognize the massacre and deportation of Armenians living in Ottoman Turkey as Genocide. In particular, the fact that the resolution was accepted by a House Committee on Foreign Affairs despite efforts by U.S. President George W. Bush to prevent it makes the story all the more newsworthy.

Writing on Cilicia.com’s Life in Armenia, Raffi Kojian notes the prominence of this story as a leading item in the world media.

What was very interesting for me this morning, was reading all the news articles, and there was definitely no shortage of them. I opened Google News to search for “Armenian Genocide” to see if it passed, but instead was greeted with “Armenian Genocide Resolution Passes Committee” as the top headline, with 650 stories already on the topic. That’s big news! The coverage and points being raised were quite varied, from the sickening editorial in the Washington Post to widespread calls for doing the right thing. Lantos, head of the committee, summarized the vote beforehand as choosing between acknowledging a genocide, and appeasing Turkey for military reasons. Basically, do the right thing, or give in to the questionable arm-twisting of a supposed ally - though he did not put it in those undiplomatic terms.

In the Diaspora section of the same site, Lori provides her personal opinion on what might well prove to be the biggest story of the day. Indeed, she considers it a huge triumph over the Turkish lobby in the United States as well as over the White House itself.

I’ll never forget this day! How monumental is this? Sitting in California unable to watch the House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting I had my father calling me from Armenia to provide periodic updates since he was able to watch the session live. I can’t even begin to express how I’m feeling right now, I’m happy, proud, relieved, ecstatic, encouraged, hopeful…..Finally, our efforts weren’t in vain. Finally, a president didn’t succeed in shooting this resolution down. I must say that as a Clinton supporter I was disappointed in him, but I expected it from Bush and it feels SO GOOD seeing his efforts to stop this resolution from passing fail. I want to find the 27 members of the committee who voted and shake their hands. I want to thank them for not buying into the threats Turkey made and for not allowing themselves or their ethics to be bought by the Turkish lobby, for not bending over and being Turkey’s puppets.

[…]

Turkey spent so much money in their efforts to get this resolution to NOT pass. They lobbied their little Turkish hearts out and threw out threat after threat to no avail. They have been threatening to close the Turkish/Iraqi border to the U.S. I keep telling everyone that these are all empty threats. Turkey can not afford to lose the U.S. as an ally therefore their empty threats shouldn’t have been taken seriously and I’m glad our politicians called their bluff!

Turkey’s threats will prove to be detrimental to their public image. Their threats just go to show that they weren’t allowing their NATO ally to use the border because it was the right thing to do, they were only doing so only to later use their cooperation as a political bargaining tool. This just shows their true colors.

Overall, what few Armenian blogs are actually covering the story at this stage with specific commentary on the matter rather than just posting links to stories in the international press which everybody has probably read anyway are obviously delighted by the news and optimistic that the resolution will make it to the floor of the U.S. Congress. One of those bloggers is Garo (aka Christian Garbis) at Notes from Hairenik.

[…] the measure to officially condemn the Armenian Genocide will reach the floor of the House of Representatives by the end of the year, despite the fact that Washington is in an uproar. Turkish lobbying groups are just as strong if not stronger than Armenian ones it appears. They even managed to get a former Congressman Richard A. Gephardt, a previous supporter of such resolutions, on their side condemning such an initiative. Several people from virtually all living former and current Secretaries of State to the Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates are condemning the resolution, stating that “it is not the right time” to consider acknowledging the occurrence of genocide—you have to wonder when the right moment would be. The fear is that potentially severely strained relations with Turkey as a result of the passage of the resolution (H.Res. 106) will damage war efforts in Iraq, set back the war on terrorism, and so forth.

In the Turkish blogosphere, of course, the resolution is not met with such enthusiasm. Indeed, as to be expected, the reaction is the complete opposite. Erkan’s Field Diary starts the ball rolling with short but to the point post saying that the Democrats in the U.S. are worse than the Republicans.

27 members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who are the representatives of American citizens are meddling into a past they have no f***** idea, acting as peons of a genocide industry… Well done dudes, this shows very well that a Democrats-controlled Congress is even worse for Turkey. I hope you can do any good for your own people after making Middle East even messier with your anti-Turkish attitude…

Talk Turkey also covers the news, but questions whether the resolution will make it to the floor. This is not the first time that such a resolution has made it through the committee stage only to be stopped later. The blog also notes that some of those previously co-sponsoring the resolution have changed their positions and will vote against it if it does.

Will it now make it to the House floor? A similar resolution passed the committee by a 40-7 vote two years ago, but it never reached the full House floor.

House Republican leader John Boehner, noting the critical military and strategic alliance with Turkey, said bringing the resolution to the floor would be “totally irresponsible.”

However, Democratic leaders say there will be a vote by mid-November in the full House. There is a companion bill in the Senate, but both measures are strictly symbolic, and do not require the President’s signature.

And the co-sponsor of the resolution, Congresswoman Jane Harman, Democrat from Los Angeles, California, last week wrote to the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos, Democrat from San Mateo, California, urging him not to bring the ‘non-binding’ resolution to a vote and declaring that she will vote against it if it reaches the floor of the House of Representatives.

The angriest response to the resolution, however, comes from Amerikan Turk. In a self-professed rant, the blogger acts angrily towards acceptance of the HR106 and says that the United States should be aware of what consequences might now occur. It has to be asked too. Will this resolution actually lead to more ultra-nationalism in Turkey, a backlash against Armenia and ethnic Armenian living in Istanbul and elsewhere, and what will this mean in terms of U.S.-Turkish cooperation in the military sphere?

I’m long overdue for one of my foaming rants.. That’s right! Let it get through Congress intact! Why not? No skin off my nose.. I was born 55 years too late to be held responsible.. I’m not a land owner in Turkey.. Nothing to fear and nothing to apologize for! (Tongue in cheek, in case you didn’t notice) Seriously though.. think of what happens to a BEE after it stings it’s victim.. It.. no longer lives. So let the bill pass, so that Armenians will have nowhere left to waste their disposable millions of dollars! More importantly, the Turkish military will be free to do as it sees fit (a la Isreal in Lebanon), to protect Turkish citizens from PKK terrorists! No more restraint! Let the sorties fly! Let the tanks roll! Perhaps the armored vehicles and air cargo and fuel carried by the 3000 US supply trucks originating daily in Turkey, can get to Iraq from someplace else.. or not.. Maybe this could spell the end of US occupation of Iraq- speed up the US troop withdrawel and end the war!

[…]

A BEE dies right after stinging! Let the bill pass so that Turkey is finally immunized from this sickening Armenian venom.. and finally able to thrust it’s sword into any hornet’s nest which begs to be impaled. What better way to ignite some more “unattractive” nationalism?.. you know.. the American equivalent of “patriotic”.. a distinction which makes even a crack smoking, tax evading, magnetic-ribbon-covered-SUV driving American look like a hero, but which has somehow evolved into meaning “child molestor” in Turkey.. Maybe then, Armenians will be happy.. satisfied that they’ve sold their lies to the greatest country in the world. What next? (oops I forgot.. reparations and return of “stolen land”) Will they lobby in China and India for recognition? No worries. Nothing in Turkey will change. Turn this Armenian issue inside-out and all you have is a big black hole.. Let’s get this over with.. so that Armenians can turn off the taps.. stop the millions of dollars from being wasted.. Maybe all of the excess propaganda funding can be diverted to where it’s really been needed for a long time: their HOMELAND! Sadly, the typical Armenian diasapora doesn’t give a squirt of piss about what’s going on back “home” […]

Well, I suppose the reactions from Diaspora and Turkish bloggers is to be expected, but what is interesting is that no local blogger in Armenia appears to have reported the news — in English at least. That will probably change as the day goes on, but what is perhaps more interesting is not the response from Armenian or Turkish bloggers, but rather what others are writing.

Most seem concerned and angry at what they consider to be hypocrisy on the part of the U.S. President, George W. Bush. U.K. Politics, for example, takes a very cynical view of the White House’s position on the resolution. I think most people would agree.

The Armenian genocide or holocaust, is one of the most studied atrocities of this type. There is no question that during the rule of the so-called ‘Young Turks’ (1915-1917), the Armenian people were systematically rounded up, systematically detained in camps and systematically massacred. Only a person willfully blind to historical facts would attempt to argue that no genocide occurred.

George Bush has gotten a lot of things wrong during his Presidency. His gaffs include the small stuff - mispronouncing everyday words in what have become known as ‘Bushisms’. It is also fair to say that Bush is a president who has been known to place expediency above principle. […]

1 Boring Old Man also continues in the same tone. He also points out that Bush is hardly the most appropriate person to offer his opinion on “crimes against humanity.”

[…] My post is about our President standing on the White House lawn saying, “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.”

I doubt that Mr. Bush knows where Armenia is unless someone briefed him recently, or knows anything about the Turks and the Ottoman Empire, or knows who Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was or of his place in Turkish history, or has read anything [even Wikipedia] about the Armenian/Turkish struggles, or cares much about any of these things. All he knows is that it is not polically expedient for our country to acknowledge the Armenian mass killing as a genocide because it will infuriate the Turks who are NATO Allies. His deepest understanding is to do the politially expedient thing.

President Bush invaded Iraq [based on a deceit] and deposed the government - resulting in the killing or execution of Iraq’s leaders. He’s authorized the perpetual incarceration of Iraqi prisoners of war and their torture. In this endeavor, a million or so Iraqi Civilians have died. […]

[…]

He’s no person to be entering the debate about the Armenian Genocide. First, he doesn’t know anything about it. Second, the issue is way too close to home for him to be objective. He cites his “War on Terror.” What he doesn’t mention is his own Terrorism…

Winter Patriot agrees.

[…] As far as I can tell, it boils down to a question of language. We’re not supposed to call a historical crime against humanity by its rightful name because that would put a crimp in the current crime against humanity, which we are also not supposed to call by its rightful name.

The conversation, debate and argument in the blogosphere will continue for days if not weeks to come, I’m sure, but only The Distant Ocean mentions one aspect to the use of the word “Genocide” that few remember or mention. That is, the man responsible for the phrase actually used the massacre and deportation of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as an example.

George Bush, explaining why the Armenian genocide–the event that actually led to the coining of the term “genocide” by Raphael Lemkin–should not be designated as such by Congress:

[…]

You know, it’d be more direct if he’d just wear a T-shirt that said “I AM A CYNICAL, POSTURING, HYPOCRITICAL BASTARD.” At least then the press might report on it (or they’d have a hard time cropping it out of their photos, anyway).

The only real question is why the Bush administration has chosen to ramp up the rhetoric on Darfur now, and the only certainty is that it has absolutely nothing to do with “human rights.” […]

Others, however, are not so convinced. One of the few dissenting voices is Crunchy Con who believes that the resolution is too idealistic and more pragmatic concerns should be considered instead. However, Rod Dreher doesn’t dispute the historical reality.

Did the Ottoman Turks commit genocide against the Armenians? No doubt. Is it shameful, bizarre and outrageous that the Turks today not only won’t acknowledge their nation’s historical guilt in this atrocity, but persecute Turks (like Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk) who dare to say so in public? Absolutely. Would it feel great for Congress to poke the Turks in the eye by passing the resolution now before both houses, officially recognizing the 1915-17 ethnic cleansing as “genocide”? Oh, you bet.

But to do so would be shockingly irresponsible. The Turks are crazy about this stuff. It’s hugely important to them, emotionally. And the US absolutely cannot afford to antagonize Turkey now. The Turkish government is dealing with a population that’s overwhelmingly anti-American, and has been since the Iraq war started. Ankara has threatened to cut off US access to Incirlik, the air base that’s absolutely vital to our Iraq and Afghanistan war effort, if Congress passes this nonbinding resolution. Can we afford that? And given that Turkey is on the brink of launching a (justified) war against Iraqi Kurdistan for deadly cross-border raids carried out on Turkish territory by Kurdish guerrillas — a war that could conceivably have US and Turkish troops, NATO allies, shooting at each other — well, is it really a smart idea to stoke the fires of Turkish nationalism right about now?

Don’t get me wrong: the Turks ought to be made to answer for what they did to Armenian Christians, and I would love for the disgrace of their actions, and their absurd denial of it, to be shoved in their government’s face. But this resolution would accomplish nothing substantive, except for doing a great deal of damage to vital US interests. Not everything that’s true needs to be said, or said by Congress. I think we’ve learned a lot this decade about what can happen when the US acts on moral idealism without fully thinking through the real-world consequences.

This much for now, but I’m sure there will be plenty more reactions from bloggers the world over as the day progresses. In particular, it will be interesting to read more of what local Armenians as well as Turks think about the resolution. This isn’t to belittle the Diaspora, but rather because the reaction there is predictable. What is interesting about the blogosphere is what others think.

Please post a link to any relevant posts in the comments section below if you stumble upon anything of note.