aaahh...Lables

Yay for a thoughts post...on heavy stuff.

Armenian Genocide. Good times, huh? Pelosi is promising to bring the measure to the floor of the House for a vote. I find myself of two minds on two separate topics on this: 1. Do i want the house resolution passed? 2. Do i think it will get passed?

Question one is, i think, the easier of the two to answer, because, lets face it, i like politics, but i live in the real world. Turkey is a valuable ally in the middle east, and something like 70% of traffic into Iraq is funneled thru Turkey (i can give you the source on that, if you really want it). Its a lifeline of our supply lines to our posts in Iraq. But, come on...its a simple choice, really. Turkey will always huff and puff, but it boils down to this, and it sounds like a theme in Harry Potter:

Do you go with what is easy? Or what is right?

Voting against the resolution is easy. Its hard to lose political support over it, you get to keep Turkey as an ally, they won't shut off our ability to go thru their borders and airspace (like they did with France last year for passing a similar measure), and you don't have to do any sudden planning to fix supply lines in Iraq.

But voting for it is what is right, in my opinion. Or, as my Armo friend said "umm...its about time?" People might bluster about it not mattering, its just a word, a label, and you risk upsetting our power in the middle east blah blah blah mrr. But it is important. It is a recognition of a period of suffering that one people caused another, and it is important that we are able to look back on such times and reflect on how they effect us now, what we can learn.

Ok, that was my optimistic part. The cynic on my shoulder says "yeah right. Like humans ever learn from looking at the suffering in history." mrr.

And now for number 2. Do i think it will get passed? Like i said, of two minds. I'm no political scholar, but lord knows i spend enough time reading about it (i mean, come on. Did you look at the sites i spend my time on?). I think Dems will push for it for two reasons. A, its the morally right thing to do, and many survivors of this tragedy won't be around for much longer. And B, its a backhanded way of impeading the war in Iraq without looking like you're doing it.

The consequences, and they are very real if you look at what Turkey did to France after France passed resolution making it an offense to refer to the tragedy as anything other than a Genocide, are multiple. Firstly, we lose a key ally (read as: one of our few) in the middle east, with all that entails. Then, Turkey may go ahead and launch attacks into Kurdish northern Iraq - they are voting whether or not they should very soon - which would destabilize one of the few peaceful regions of Iraq. (and its peaceful because, lets face it, there are few Shia or Sunnis there. Yay ethnic living habits!) And we certainly don't want nothern Iraq to go all unstable on us, because its already producing problems by selling its oil contracts to Western companies (Kurdish Iraq has muy le oil fields). Messy indeed.

So, as i say, Dems will push for it, because no one looks bad for fighting for the recognition of a tragedy. Bush/GOP leadership will oppose it because its "not the right time," and it will hurt us in Iraq. But hey, at least we aren't talking about SCHIP anymore, huh?

But like i said. Do you do what is easy? Or what is right?