What if Congress stirring on the subject of declaring the Armenian Genocide for what it was isn’t the ill-timed blunder it is depicted as in the MSM.
Maybe it’s a simply brilliant diplomatic move that could cut off the ability to expand the war by removing the essential ability to use Turkish bases and airspace.
If de-funding is politically intolerable, then perhaps systematically shutting down the ability to conduct the war may have to suffice.
Maybe it’s also a reasonable first step in sending the world a new message that the US has returned to humanitarian practices.
Or maybe it’s a bungle which potentially exposes Europe to our conflict and lessens our influence in the region?
Or maybe distancing our relationship with Turkey will improve our security longterm and lessen their lobby’s influence over our government (Sibel Edmonds anyone?).
What do you think?
Take the poll..
.
I wonder how the votes were divided in the House Foreign Policy Committee . This is a major blunder to a key NATO ally, which nation is trying to join the European Union. The recent parliamentary election and the appointment of Gul as president shifts the internal politics to a concept of a Muslim majority and future Sharia law?
The popular stance on Turkey’s entry to the EU has shifted from YES to NO in recent years. Also a result of the ill-fated Iraq war and the backlash seen in European politics and the rise of right-wing Islam agitating parties like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Hirsi Ali , now working for the American Enterprise Institute.
Hirsi Ali speaks at Harvard
Turkish Military Poised to Enter Iraq
Turkey Starts Military Operations in Northern Iraq
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I think it is just a dumb move and the timing probably is 100% incidental.
I agree..the use of the word brilliant in conjunction with politicians especially the dems right now is pretty laughable. If this was an end run to try to start ending war that would mean they would have had to gotten together and done some serious ‘stratagizing’ and actually came up with a plan..the odds on this are about zero to none.
I’d go so far as to say that Congress was once again trying to avoid doing any real work and this kind of resolution seemed like an easy thing to get behind with no consequences and now is turning into a bit of an unintended cluster-fuck.
There is 0 chance that members of the foreign relations committee thought that there would be no fallout from doing this.
If there is one, the strategy is that committee members feel confident that Turkey’s threat to cross the border to fight the Kurds is hot air and that they need us more than we need them, so they will make noise, and inconvenience Mr. Bush, but open a second front in the Iraq war.
Or, more cynically, perhaps it is provocation intended to push Turkey into opening a second front for us, now that our own military effectiveness is dampening our ability to stay permanently. The leverage that those who know what Sibel Edmonds knows have over our foreign policy is probably pretty great, and they want war with the Kurds, so this could all be conjured justification for the second front.
Most days, I’d say it’s the latter point. But for some reason I had hope when I wrote the above. It’s Monday now and the second front feels imminent.
Really?!!?