So there's this resolution going through the house that labels the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during the first World War as genocide, and the White House says that's a bad thing.
Why? Because Turkey is a "key ally" in the war on terror. Because most shipments of oil from the Middle East to the U.S. pass through Turkey. And admitting that their country commited genocide would make them upset, and that would be mean.
Pardon the colloquialism, but what the hell? Is a country only guilty if they aren't useful? Is it really a lesser evil to omit something so heinous in order to continue with a war that is, to a great amount of people, wrong? How can we deal with modern acts of genocide, like Darfur, if we act as though the definition of genocide itself is fuzzy? Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
This is just one of those weak-minded things that makes the administration so intolerable to watch or listen to. There are some things that are still in conflict, that are partisan, that you can choose to support for the sake of your administration (see: marriage, abortion, progressive Western thought), and no matter what the opinion is, I'm fine with that. But genocide is pretty straightforward. And if we can't admit that something so definite and so terrible happened 90 years ago, then we don't have the right to define anything of the sort that happens now. And that isn't just risking the war on terror or the Bush administration--it's risking our humanity.
Oh crap I'm late for work.
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