US Defense Secretary Robert Gates is a genocide denier. I wonder why?

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=106824

Gates: Armenian ‘genocide’ resolution, PKK damage ties
Turkish-American relations are strong, but more work is needed to keep them that way and more has to be done to fight the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and to prevent passage of the Armenian genocide resolution pending at the US Congress the US defense secretary said in Washington, D.C.

"We recognize that every Turkish citizen killed by the PKK is a setback for success in Iraq and a setback in our relationship with Turkey," said US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, adding: "The United States has appointed one of our most distinguished military officers, Gen. Joseph Ralston -- a former NATO commander -- as special envoy for countering the PKK. But we know more needs to be done."

Speaking at the annual conference on US-Turkish relations organized by various business associations and led by the American-Turkish Council to promote commercial and cultural relations between the two countries, Gates indicated that Turkey and the US have a strong strategic relationship despite some "turbulence."

"It is no secret that the strategic relationship between the United States and Turkey has undergone some turbulence in recent years. Even so, our military, economic, political, and personal ties remain strong. Turkey is, for example, one of the major allied partners on the Joint Strike Fighter, and 16 US Navy ships called on Turkish ports last year." In his first public speech after becoming defense secretary, it was not by accident that he spoke at a Turkish-American event, Gates said, adding that Turkey and the United States should avoid damaging attitudes, such as the Armenian genocide resolution pending at the US Congress and the worsening anti-American stance in Turkey.

[VTMechEngr]

1. Powerful quote I saw at the national Holocaust Museum.

I have issued the command — and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad — that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space (Lebensraum) which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?

Adolph Hitler


Somebody needs to visit.

[Kagemusha]

2. He never denies the Armenian genocide. He sas the bill would damage ties.

It will. That is a fact. A lot of people want those ties damaged, joyfully so, because in their minds the Turks are an evil people who've committed genocide. This is inconvenient to the US cause in Iraq and other matters.

I'm just pointing out that his opposition to the bill does not ipso facto mean denying the Armenian genocide; it means that he doesn't want the US taking an official position on it. Or do you think that this amounts to exactly the same thing? If so, that is not a dishonorable position - it's just that I don't think I can see the headline justified by the body, short of such a jump in reasoning.

[NNN0LHI]

3. So he doesn't deny it happened but rather he just doesn't want any written record of it?

Sounds like the man is in denial to me.

Old saying. "The truth will set you free."

Don

[hlthe2b]

5. Don, we don't know this...

I agree with the passion surrounding the need to acknowledge the horror against the Armenian people. I am not saying his position is a correct one; however, he may simply be reacting to the timing NOW, when there is so much at stake in neighboring Iraq involving our own troops.

[NNN0LHI]

6. Be honest with me hlthe2b

Would Gates be concerned about the effect on our troops in Iraq if this was a UN declaration acknowledging and condemning the Holocaust.

Would you be defending Gates if that was the case?

Don

[Kagemusha]

8. Polite question

"the Holocaust", you mean the one of Jews by Nazi forces in WWII?

If so, first, I thought it was a pretty long-running belief that that event is not to be conflated with slaughters of other peoples and therefore diminished... and second, if your argument is that modern Turkey carries the same stench as Nazi Germany - not modern Germany, but NAZI GERMANY - and that therefore the US should have nothing to do with it and indeed, should treat it as an enemy, then please say so clearly. Truth in advertising.

Myself, I'm not making the slightest effort to defend Gates and his position and I don't see the other poster doing that either. If your characterization of Gates is not a willful distortion, why would there be anything to defend him for? As for the actual content of Gates' own words, he's a big boy, he can stand by his own claim. I'm not him and I don't want his job.

[NNN0LHI]

11. I don't agree that comparing the Holocaust with other occurrences of genocide is taboo

Problem with doing so in my estimation belittles the deaths of those who's numbers don't equal those from the Holocaust and makes the practice of killing people more justified because the numbers don't equate those from the Holocaust.

Millions of Vietnamese people were killed and are still dying from what we did there but no one ever talks about that. You won't find it in our kids history books at school either but the Holocaust is very well documented just as it should be.

Don

[hlthe2b]

9. No, Don... when you accuse ME of "defending Gates"

merely because I want us to acknowledge that there are sincere arguments for immediately passing the resolution and for those who believe its impact NOW may be deleterious despite the NEED to akcnowledge this historical wrong, that is NOT HONEST.

Don, I enjoy interacting with you and will do so in the future, I'm sure. But, your attack on me is NOT FAIR and NOT HONEST argument, so for now, I'll simply walk away.

[NNN0LHI]

10. I apologize for the defend part and shouldn't have posted it

Hope you accept my apology.

Don

[hlthe2b]

14. I do... thank you, Don n./t

[hlthe2b]

4. I agree with your take on Gate's stance...Kagemusha

He may just be consumed with concerns for our troops already stuck in the middle of a Shia-Sunni civil war in Iraq...and thinking,perhaps that actions that might draw an already pissed off Turkey into the Iraqi powder keg against the Kurds, just might be sufficient concern to oppose the resolution at this time.

While one can argue that point and the wisdom of further delaying the recognition of what occurred-- sought for so long by the Armenian people-- this does not equate to him "denying the genocide."

I am not a Gates supporter or defender. I just want us to argue fairly, unlike our Freeper counterparts.

[Kagemusha]

7. Right. Because this in no way proves he's NOT a denier.

Re: the original poster's saying "sounds like denial," sure it sounds like that, but he's got practical concerns to worry about; if you want to be concerned solely with morality and righteousness, you're probably not cut out to manage the mightiest army on Earth. (And even beat up as it is, it's still the mightiest because the competition's in worse shape.) He wants Guantanamo's detainee center closed too, simply because the military doesn't benefit from the stench but of course, his boss won't hear any of it.

I mean, personally, I find the whole idea that the Armenians weren't killed in vast bloody numbers kinda laughable, LOTS of peoples did, at one time or another. But I can at least see why Gates would see acknowledging it as a matter of state policy as being counter-productive besides purely wanting to stick his thumb in the collective Armenian eye.

[bdamomma]

16. well Gates did stick his thumb in alot of collective Armenian eyes

mine included. This is all about the relations between the US and Turkey and Turkey wanting to be included in the EU, and could you explain your comment "I find the whole idea that the Armenians weren't killed in vast bloody numbers kinda laughable"? could you explain that comment to me.

[Kagemusha]

17. I find the idea that there was not what people call an Armenian genocide silly

Why wouldn't there have been? What's so unbelievable about it? It was a hard era and many bad things happened in it. Aside from the fact it gets under the Turks' collective skin to say so, what reason is there to disbelieve it?

That's all, really. It's a double negative so if it came off poorly, my apologies.

[bdamomma]

19. just like the Jews who lived the holocaust and losted relatives

in a genocide it opens up a wound, but there are many groups of people who are living this nightmare now, ethic cleansing or genocide, it must be brought to the forefront.

this should be mentioned also, was taken place last week March 22-23

http://www.anca.org/

GRASSROOTS CAPITOL CAMPAIGN | MARCH 22-23 | WASHINGTON, DC
HOSTED BY THE ANCA & GENOCIDE INTERVENTION NETWORK

Travel to Washington DC as we take the anti-genocide message to the halls of Congress. Urge legislators to end the cycle of genocide by supporting Armenian Genocide legislation (H.Res.106) and action to end the Darfur genocide

[formercia]

12. Turkey during the Cold War was a strategic location.

I thought the Cold War ended a long time ago.


but then there's the Caspian Basin.....

[Kagemusha]

13. ...What about Iraq?

I'm thinking that's what Gates has in mind, for better or worse.

[formercia]

15. It's all about the Caspian Basin

Big time oil reserves, now that Iraq is going down the tubes, they still have Turkey to fall back on. Iraq was just a launching pad to control the basin.

[Kagemusha]

18. Uh, you'd think the Persian Gulf has some value too.

Iraq and Turkey are both smack dab in the middle of the Middle East. No point ignoring the other parts of a package deal.

[formercia]

20. Production in the Gulf is beginning to decline

and there are many more times the oil reserves in the Caspian Basin.


The oil vultures are picking clean the Gulf, now it's time to move on to greener pastures before someone else does.