TURKEY'S ERDOGAN CONTINUES WITH HIS BIGOTRY

If you have a strong stomach, here's the latest of Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan's atrocious statements, where he trivialized/denied the genocide in Sudan while attacking Israel:

(IsraelNN.com) Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan lashed out at Israel on Sunday as he came to the defense of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who faces worldwide condemnation for the genocide taking place in the Darfur region of his country.

Addressing members of his party, Erdogan said he preferred meeting with Bashir over meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. “I wouldn't be able to speak with Netanyahu so comfortably as I would with Bashir,” he was quoted by Turkish media as saying. “I would say to [Bashir's] face, 'What you've done is wrong.'”

Or would he? Because if the following tells anything:

Erdogan's remark joined several other recent anti-Israel statements that have led to a cooling of ties between Israel and Turkey in recent months.

Erdogan claimed to know that Bashir is innocent, and that there is no genocide taking place in Sudan. “A Muslim can never commit genocide,” he said in explanation. “It's not possible.”

The Turkish PM added that he had visited Darfur and did not see evidence of genocide during his trip.

So he denies any genocide took place, even against black Muslims in Sudan, does he? That disgusting man is just one more reason why sensible people should stay away from Turkey, clearly no longer a safe place to visit. And if this is what he says about Sudan, one can only wonder what his take is on Turkey's own crimes against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians during WW1. As Eye on the World says, this is just why Turkey should not be admitted to the EU.

VICTORY FOR ARMENIANS: CONGRESS HAS PASSED RESOLUTION TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN HOLOCAUST

Despite Dubya's disgraceful attempts to discourage recognition of this important tragedy in history, Congress has done the right thing and has made a positive first step towards recognizing Turkey's mass murder of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915:

A U.S. House committee on Wednesday defied President George W. Bush by passing a resolution calling the 1915 massacre of Armenians genocide, a step the White House warns could damage U.S. goals in the Middle East.

The measure, passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a 27-21 margin, will be sent to the House floor, where Democratic leaders say there will be a vote within weeks.

Turkey, a key NATO ally that has supported U.S. efforts in Iraq, has strongly opposed the measure and warned it could damage relations between the two countries.

At issue is the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of First World War. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been inflated and insists that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest. It has threatened sanctions against countries that use the term genocide.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul called the measure's passage "unacceptable," said Reuters.

"Unfortunately some politicians in the United States of America have closed their ears to calls to be reasonable and once again sought to sacrifice big problems for small domestic political games," state news agency Anatolian quoted Gul as saying.

That disgraceful man can keep going with his obscenities that show nothing more than hatred for innocent people. The Turkish president, the first one from a Muslim background in many years, has only shown the true colors of people of his standing in Turkey, and why, contrary to the stupidity they blurt out about sanctions, they're the ones who're really asking for sanctions imposed by other countries, and not the other way around. I think a boycott of Turkey is in order here.

Update: and while we're on the subject of Dubya, check out the following comment someone at Dhimmi Watch found that Dubya made in 2000 (via Pedestrian Infidel).

Update 2: So Turkey's recalled its US ambassador (also via Dhimmi Watch). That's fine. Nobody needs villains who won't admit their wrongs. Hugh Fitzgerald writes them a note.

HOW DOES IT HELP ISRAEL IF WE LET THE TURKS BLACKMAIL US INTO NOT BEING HONEST ABOUT THE GENOCIDE OF ARMENIANS?

The ADL caused such a scandal this past week by balking at proper recognition of Turkey's genocide of millions of Armenians in 1915 that it was forced to reverse its position.

But it also led to some very eyebrow raising discoveries about what kind of positions various other Jewish organizations may have on the issue, now being discussed by the Jewish Exponent:

The Anti-Defamation League's reversal last week of its position on the Armenian genocide has set off a flurry of diplomatic activity in Turkey and Israel.

Officials in Ankara and Jerusalem, in coordination with American Jewish leaders, were working this week to contain the fallout from the ADL's statement, which recognized the World War I massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as "tantamount to genocide."

The ADL was forced to reverse its longstanding position -- shared by other major American Jewish organizations -- of neutrality on the genocide question amid growing dissension within its own ranks.

Jewish leaders warned that recognizing the genocide, as Congress is now considering, could undermine American strategic interests in the Middle East, and Turkey's robust military and economic partnership with Israel. Also deemed at risk was the security of Turkish Jewry, which sent a letter earlier this year opposing a congressional resolution on the matter.

If Turkey refuses to admit their guilt, then all they're doing is implying that they're still an enemy country that shows no sorrow for its past acts of evil (and it should be noted that even Arabs and Kurdish Muslims were involved in the genocide, not only Turks). At the same time, it's bad for Jews and many other nationalities if they can't be honest and open about important historical events.

The ADL's initial refusal to take a full-fledged stand led to a fallout with the Armenian community too:

Though Jewish groups have toed a careful line on the genocide question for years, the issue exploded last month after the town council of Watertown, Mass. -- home to one of the country's largest Armenian communities -- voted to sever ties with an ADL anti-bigotry program in protest of the organization's refusal to acknowledge the genocide.

After the vote, the ADL's regional director in Boston, Andrew Tarsy, switched gears and condemned his organization's position. Tarsy was promptly fired by Foxman.

The Boston ADL leadership rebelled, and with pressure mounting, Foxman reversed himself last week, acknowledging that the "consequences" of Ottoman massacres of Armenians were "tantamount to genocide." Tarsy was reinstated Monday as Boston director.

Foxman, if you ask me, is a big problem, as IMO, he's a pretty jelly-spined chairman, and isn't it time he left his post already? I think so.

The subject has been in discussion in Israel too recently. Likud MK Ruvy Rivlin spoke about it earlier this week in a new daily paper called Yisrael HaYom, and is in favor of recognizing it. It should be fully recognized here, as it would help in making a case for the Jewish cause as well. And the US Congress should certainly recognize it too, and there should be major memorials founded in the US for it as well.

The Turks aren't the only ones who deny involvement in major crimes - the Arabs continue to deny their own involvement in the Jewish Holocaust, particularly Haj-Amin el-Husseini, the chief leader of the palestinian Arabs at the time.

(It should also be said that the Ottoman empire over the centuries treated the Jews in Israel more fairly and kindly than the local Arab Muslims did.)

SADDAM'S CHEMIST COUSIN SENTENCED TO HANG

Saddam's cousin al-Majid, the madman in charge of their chemical warfare against the Kurds, has been sentenced to death:

BAGHDAD (AP) - Two decades after Iraq's military laid waste to Kurdish villages, the Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and two others to death for their roles in the bloody campaign against the restive ethnic minority.

Al-Majid, a cousin of executed former President Saddam Hussein, was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for ordering army and security services to use chemical weapons in an offensive said to have killed some 180,000 people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Hang 'im high, I say!

Genocide Question

America left South Vietnam to its own devices in 1975, leading to 2 1/2 million deaths and totolitarian governments in Cambodia and Vietnam.

So I assume the anti-war mantra now is: if it turns out no worse than 'Nam every thing will be fine.

Also note that in '75 all the South was asking for was material support and airstrikes against the invading North.

The anti-war folks who constantly scream about genocide now want to enable another one.

OK.

So the question is: if our leaving initiates a genocide in Iraq should we go back to save the people we once promised to protect?

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values