Leaders of Countries who Deny Genocides...

President Ahmadinejad of Iran takes a lot of shit for denying the Jewish genocide of WWII, and rightly so. Truly, how can he not know? The evidence is sitting right there in front of everyone. It happened. It was fucked up. I wish everyone could acknowledge that. I mean, Ahmadinejad wouldn't even have to take any of the blame for the genocide! It wasn't him, it wasn't his country. It was Hitler and Germany. And Germany acknowledges it, they feel bad about it. And that is good. We all ought to remember genocides.
I won't even mention the genocide happening in Darfur that no one seems to care to do anything about. Except to respond to: "Yeah, but Preston, you are a pacifist liberal--you think intervening in Iraq and Iran to stop human rights abuses was wrong, so how is Darfur any different?" Well, I'll tell you. I am not talking about killing people. I am talking about a peace force. Its completely different. Its like when you are at a bar and a fight breaks out--someone ought to step in and hold the two guys back. That isn't war; that isn't regime change; its using force for peace.

Anyway--back to the topic here. Why does Ahmadinejad deny the WWII genocide? I'm not sure. Maybe he feels like if he did he would have to acknowledge Israel as a state. But his motives aren't too crucial to me--the point is denying genocide is stupid and arrogant. Especially when the evidence is right in your face. And I think everyone would agree with that.

except...

Wait a minute. Has anyone been watching the news this week? Congress finally is trying to pass a bill acknowledging the other genocide...you know, the Armenian one? The obvious response...I would have thought, from almost everyone, would be "Wow! That is great! I mean, its unfortunate the government is using our tax dollars to vote on so many non-binding resolutions, but, cool. I guess its time we finally acknowledge that happened--after all, hundreds of thousands of Armenians died (link is graphic; be advised).

But wait a minute...

President Bush and his cabinet are urging congresspeople to take the bill off the table, or barring that, vote against it? What!? Why?

Well, the Ottoman Empire (which doesn't exist anymore) was based in Turkey. Apparently we have more genocide deniers than just Ahmadinejad on our hands. Turkey has threatened to take away our strategic military base if we..uh..I don't know how to say this and have it sound unbiased...if we..acknowledge a genocide of which there is overwhelming evidence happened.
I am not sure why Turkey is repressing what happened in their country a hundred years ago. No one that committed the genocide is still alive. No one would have to be held accountable. So it can't be that. I am very confused on why Turkey is so pissed off.

But this presents a problem for us. Do we take down the bill, thus tacitly denying a genocide which involved hundreds of thousands of people's deaths?
President Bush says yes. I am not really sure how this wouldn't make him a genocide denier. He is saying passing this bill will be harmful to our alliance with Turkey and our war on terror. So, don't pass the bill.
But doesn't that imply the following:
Acknowledging a horrible event of which hundreds of thousands of people were killed because of their race would be harmful to our alliance with Turkey and our war on terror? What if Turkey came out and denied the Holocaust happened? Would that change anything? And if so, why? Because Hitler was more successful at his genocide? Because we will allow you to deny one genocide, but two is just too much?
What
the
hell!

I mean, I think even folks against the bill would agree, that Turkey is just being completely unreasonable. We aren't holding them accountable--we aren't asking for reparations. We are acknowledging something happened on the same land that they live on. I guess the Ottoman Empire was also Muslim, but, we aren't making any overarching claims about all Muslims. I think Muslims would agree genocide is wrong. So yeah, Turkey is being completely unreasonable.

Now if their threats are going to prevent us from passing a non-binding resolution about a genocide which anyone with the evidence in front of them would acknowledge happened, then how much power do they really have against us?
What other unreasonable demands could they make that Bush would nod and smile to?

I say, pass the resolution. Everyone knows its the moral and principled thing to do. The only argument against it is the pragmatics. And it seems like one thing everyone would have agreed upon, Republicans and Democrats, before this week, is that we are not going to pander to any genocide deniers. So why is it different because its Turkey? If their leadership (not necessarily their people, I don't know what they think) want to be completely unreasonable, and deny genocide, then fine. They shouldn't be our allies. Period.
And if someone thinks our policy should change on that, and that we should allow leadership of countries to hold bizarre opinions, then fine. Let's open up talks with Iran then.

Its your choice. All I ask from you is consistency.

(It seems to me like the Republican thing to do would be to tell Turkey to fuck off if they are going to be ridiculous, and the Democrat thing to do would be to open up talks with Iran and keep Turkey as an ally. I am sympathetic to both, but more so to the latter. Either way, passing the bill seems the obvious thing to do, since we are supposed to be a country with a moral compass, not North Korea or Myanmar.)