Rep. Ilhan Omar and the Armenian Genocide.

[lpetrich]

Graham blocked Armenian genocide resolution upon request from White House | TheHill

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) blocked a Senate resolution that would have officially recognized the Armenian genocide following a request from White House officials, he told Axios on Sunday.

Graham said he blocked a resolution previously passed by the House because Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was in town to meet with President Trump at the time. Turkey vehemently opposes recognition of the genocide, which was committed by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917.

...
"Senator Perdue objected due to concerns that passage of the resolution would jeopardize the sensitive negotiations going on in the region with Turkey and other allies," the spokesperson said.

Two Republican Senators obstructed that resolution. Sick.

 

[Derec]

Two Republican Senators obstructed that resolution. Sick.

Maybe Ilhan Omar should switch parties?

 

[lpetrich]

The Armenian genocide might become a big issue again soon. Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks online talk show is running for Katie Hill's vacated seat, and he has a history of being an AG denier. He was born in Turkey and his parents immigrated to here.

There is an interesting complication. He has a cohost, Ana Kasparian, and she is the daughter of two Armenian immigrants. Some Armenian-Americans outraged at CY's AG denial have called AK a traitor to her ancestry.

 

[Derec]

The actual difference is that Omar, like BLM, actually does speak out against abuses regardless of skin color, ethnicity, and the like.

LMAO! #BLM is all about black people and pretending they were "murdered" even when the shooting is justified. That and wanton rioting and arson.

"All Lives Matter" is really not a movement or organization at at all, but rather a cynical slogan for people who generally, but not always, rush to defend any violence against black people - much like "white pride" and "It's okay to be White" are in fact phrases commonly used by white supremacists, rather than by white people demanding that they be treated exactly the same as black and Native American people are. This is why the phrase gets so much pushback when uttered by a democrat.

The reason it gets so much push back is that the #BLM types do not think that being white is ok or that all lives really matter.
For example, this racist, black-supremacist tweet was recently posted on the #blacklivesmatter hashtag. And despite Twitter being very censor-happy with non-PC tweets, they have not removed it or suspended the user. Because black racism is considered socially acceptable.
They think that every black thug shot by police was "murdered" and that cop-killer and racial terrorist Joanna Chesimard is somebody to be emulated.

 

[Derec]

The Benjamins comment was taken out of context... it was purposefully spun out of any sensical meaning that 'Jews only care about money'. If the Palestinians had such a good lobby, the GOP might support them more.

It wasn't. The context is her ongoing hatred of Israel. Remember the "Israel has hypnotized the world" tweet? Also, Benjamin is a Jewish name, to wit the name of the current Prime Minister of Israel, so she got a double ententre in there too.

 

[marc]

The Armenian genocide might become a big issue again soon. Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks online talk show is running for Katie Hill's vacated seat, and he has a history of being an AG denier. He was born in Turkey and his parents immigrated to here.

There is an interesting complication. He has a cohost, Ana Kasparian, and she is the daughter of two Armenian immigrants. Some Armenian-Americans outraged at CY's AG denial have called AK a traitor to her ancestry.

Which is ridiculous as they have explained on the show repeatedly that Ana had gone over the evidence with Cenk, who now accepts the Armenian genocide as a fact. Most recently on the interview where Ana questioned Cenk as a candidate.

 

[laughing dog]

The Benjamins comment was taken out of context... it was purposefully spun out of any sensical meaning that 'Jews only care about money'. If the Palestinians had such a good lobby, the GOP might support them more.

It wasn't. The context is her ongoing hatred of Israel. Remember the "Israel has hypnotized the world" tweet? Also, Benjamin is a Jewish name, to wit the name of the current Prime Minister of Israel, so she got a double ententre in there too.

Especially with his indictment for corruption. She sure is prescient.

 

[Derec]

Especially with his indictment for corruption. She sure is prescient.

Prescient? He had been under public investigation for years.
Nevertheless, Omar's beef with Bibi is not any internal corruption but that he is defending Israel against Islamofascist terrorists. Just today they fired another rocket at Israeli civilians, violating ceasefire.
Israeli military says rocket launched from Gaza

 

[laughing dog]

Especially with his indictment for corruption. She sure is prescient.

Prescient? He had been under public investigation for years.

Get your sarcasm meter checked.

 

[blastula]

Trump and Omar sitting in a tree...

Trump says Armenia massacres were not genocide, directly contradicting Congress - BBC News

 

[lpetrich]

Looking through Rep. Zoe Lofgren's Twitter feed, I found out that the Senate has approved a parallel resolution acknowledging the Armenian genocide.

H.Res.296 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
Sponsor: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA-28)
Orig. Cosponsors: 76
Cosponsors: 141
It got cosponsors all the way up to the vote on it, on 2019 Oct 29
Vote:

• D: Y 226, N 0, P 2, A 6
• R: Y 178, N 11, P 1, A 7
• I: Y 1, N 0, P 0, A 0
• T: Y 405, N 11, P 3, A 13

S.Res.150 - 116th Congress (2019-2020): A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that it is the policy of the United States to commemorate the Armenian Genocide through official recognition and remembrance. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress
Sponsor: Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
Orig. Cosponsors: 15
Cosponsors: 29
It picked up cosponsors up to Nov 29, and on Dec 12, it was agreed to unanimously.

 

[lpetrich]

Biden to Declare Atrocities Against Armenia Were Genocide - The New York Times - "The designation for the World War I-era killings would further fray U.S. relations with Turkey, but it is a risk the president appears willing to take to further human rights, officials said."

Mr. Biden is expected to announce the symbolic designation on Saturday, the 106th anniversary of the beginning of what historians call a yearslong and systematic death march that the predecessors of modern Turkey started during World War I. He would be the first sitting American president to do so, although Ronald Reagan made a glancing reference to the Armenian genocide in a 1981 written statement about the Holocaust, and both the House and the Senate approved measures in 2019 to make its recognition a formal matter of U.S. foreign policy.

At least 29 other countries have taken similar steps — mostly in Europe and the Americas, but also Russia and Syria, Turkey’s political adversaries.

then
Zina Spezakis, CFA on Twitter: "@alexisohanian @POTUS As a Greek-American, I welcome the decision by President Biden to recognize the #ArmenianGenocide.

1,500,000 Armenians, 950,000 Greeks, 750,000 Assyrians and 500,000 Yezidis were slaughtered 106 years ago by #OttomanTurkey in a systematic genocide. (link)" / Twitter

 

[Rhea]

IO explained her decision:

I also believe accountability for human rights violations — especially ethnic cleansing and genocide — is paramount. But accountability and recognition of genocide should not be used as cudgel in a political fight. It should be done based on academic consensus outside the push and pull of geopolitics. A true acknowledgment of historical crimes against humanity must include both the heinous genocides of the 20th century, along with earlier mass slaughters like the transatlantic slave trade and Native American genocide, which took the lives of hundreds of millions of indigenous people in this country. For this reason, I voted “present” on final passage of H.Res. 296, the resolution Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide.

So she's boycotting progress to fight for progress?

This is a losing proposition, IMHO. One step. Make it a forward step. Then take the next step.
This is a mark against her ability to be an effective voice for progress, IMHO.

 

[Patooka]

IO explained her decision:

I also believe accountability for human rights violations — especially ethnic cleansing and genocide — is paramount. But accountability and recognition of genocide should not be used as cudgel in a political fight. It should be done based on academic consensus outside the push and pull of geopolitics. A true acknowledgment of historical crimes against humanity must include both the heinous genocides of the 20th century, along with earlier mass slaughters like the transatlantic slave trade and Native American genocide, which took the lives of hundreds of millions of indigenous people in this country. For this reason, I voted “present” on final passage of H.Res. 296, the resolution Affirming the United States record on the Armenian Genocide.

So she's boycotting progress to fight for progress?

This is a losing proposition, IMHO. One step. Make it a forward step. Then take the next step.
This is a mark against her ability to be an effective voice for progress, IMHO.

Not really. You're commenting on something that occurred two years ago. The only people who still bring it up are bad faith debaters.

 

[Rhea]

Not really. You're commenting on something that occurred two years ago. The only people who still bring it up are bad faith debaters.

Whoops. Or people not paying attention to the thread. I didn’t notice that.

 

[lpetrich]

Statement by President Joe Biden on Armenian Remembrance Day | The White House

Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring. Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination. We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms.

He then noted that many of the survivors moved to many other places, including the US.

Biden Declares Mass Killings of Armenians a Genocide - The New York Times

Breaking With Predecessors, Biden Declares Mass Killings of Armenians a Genocide

The Turkish government, as well as human rights activists and ethnic Armenians, had a muted response to the news, describing the move as largely symbolic.

...
The declaration by Mr. Biden reflected his administration’s commitment to human rights, a pillar of its foreign policy. It is also a break from Mr. Biden’s predecessors, who were reluctant to anger a country of strategic importance and were wary of driving its leadership toward American adversaries like Russia or Iran.

...
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly denied that the killings amounted to genocide, had lobbied hard to prevent the announcement, mounting a conference and media campaigns before the anniversary on Saturday.

...
The killings of Armenians occurred at the end of World War I during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey. Worried that the Christian Armenian population would align with Russia, a primary enemy of the Ottoman Turks, officials ordered mass deportations in what many historians consider the first genocide of the 20th century: Nearly 1.5 million Armenians were killed, some in massacres by soldiers and the police, others in forced exoduses to the Syrian desert that left them starved to death.

 

[lpetrich]

In historic move, Biden says 1915 massacres of Armenians constitute genocide | Reuters

Previous U.S. presidents have abandoned campaign promises to recognize the Armenian genocide for fear of damaging U.S.-Turkish relations, said Nicholas Danforth, non-resident fellow for The Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy.

“With relations already in shambles, there was nothing to stop Biden from following through,” said Danforth. “Ankara has no allies left in the US government to lobby against this and Washington isn’t worried whether it angers Turkey anymore.”

What a thing to get in the way of recognizing what that action was.

Biden’s statement recognizing the Armenian genocide is a big deal - but Turkey isn’t happy about it - Vox

And it’s emblematic of the Biden administration’s desire to center human rights in its foreign policy agenda, even at the cost of worsening relations with Turkey.

Biden is the first US leader in decades to use the word “genocide” in connection with the events of 1915-1923. Previous presidents, including George W. Bush and Barack Obama, made similar campaign promises to recognize the Armenian genocide, but never followed through while in office, and Bush later called on Congress to reject such a designation. In 1981, Ronald Reagan made a passing reference to “the genocide of the Armenians” during a speech commemorating victims of the Holocaust.

...
The Trump administration, meanwhile, accidentally recognized the genocide last year when White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany made reference to an “Armenian Genocide Memorial” in Denver, Colorado — but rejected nonbinding resolutions by the House and Senate to declare it such.

Both the House and Senate measures, though not approved by Trump, passed overwhelmingly in 2019, paving the way for Biden’s action on Saturday.

 Armenian Genocide recognition - over 32 nations now do so. Lack of recognition could be from lack of interest in the issue, I must note. There are two nations that explicitly deny it: Turkey and Azerbaijan. Their position is that sure, a lot of Armenians were killed by the Ottomans, but their doing so wasn't genocide. Azerbaijan has an additional reason for supporting this denialism: it and Armenia are at loggerheads over Nagorno-Karabakh and nearby regions.