David Krikorian: Call Your Office...Again

Memo:

To: Angry Armenian

From: POTUS

Screw you. Am urging Congress NOT to go ahead with your Armenian Genocide Resolution.

Love,
Barry

PS: Still love the pic though...

David Krikorian Call Your Office

This just in from the Associated Press:

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkish official says Turkey and Armenia have agreed to establish diplomatic ties.

I got nothing for this...at this time anyway... I'm just putting it out there...

Pelosi's War Update: The Ground Phase Begins

Thanks to our wonderful Speaker of State Nancy Pelosi, Turkey has entered the ground phase of the war by invading northern Iraq. This AP News Alert is interesting though:

BAGHDAD (AP) U.S. military says it understands Turkish incursion 'is an operation of limited duration' specifically targeting Kurdish rebels.

So it seems that Turkey is making it clear that their beef is NOT with the United States or its military. Which is good...because if they wanted to cause us more problems, they could. The story filed by the AP is here.

UPDATE: Bill Sloat would have you believe that Jean Schmidt sent Turkish troops in to Iraq to fight PKK terrorists. No mention at all that the United States diplomatic corps had Turkey's military concerns under control until Nancy Pelosi decided to have Congress condemn the Ottoman Empire... Could it be that this story attracted Bill's attention because Jean is a Republican while Pelosi is a Democrat? (Yeah, Bill, I'm calling you out! :)

Pelosi's War Update: Bill Clinton Weighs In

Over at the Huffington Post, we discover that Bill Clinton supports staying in Iraq...to protect the Kurds from the Turks! Quoth the Billster

"The two wrinkles in [Hillary's] policy that some of the purists won't like, but I think she is absolutely right, are that she would leave some troops in the Kurdish area in the north because they have reconciled with each other and they enjoy relative peace and security...And if we leave them...not only might they be gone into a long civil war...the Turks might be tempted to attack them because they don't like the fact that the PKK guerrillas sometimes come across into northern Iraq and hide after staging attacks in Turkey."

"We don't want that," the former President went on to say.

Maybe Bill should have picked up a phone and called Speaker of State Nancy Pelosi and explained that to her...

Pelosi's War Update

AP News Alert:

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) Turkey's military says its warplanes bombed separatist Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq.

Thanks, again, to Speaker of State Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats in Congress

Pelosi's War Update

AP News Alert:

BAGHDAD (AP) A spokesman for Kurdish security forces says the Turkish army has sent troops about 1.5 miles into northern Iraq.

Thanks to Speaker of State Nancy Pelosi for bringing up legislation that insulted our allies.

Pelosi's War Update

AP News Alert:

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) Iraqi officials say Turkish helicopter gunships have attacked villages inside Iraq.

Thank you very much Speaker of State Nancy Pelosi!

Turkey Update: Thanks to Pelosi and Dem Stupidity, Turkey is Amping Up...

Yes, bringing up atrocities committed by a dead regime 90 years ago is so important, worth destroying 70% of our soldiers' supply lines and a key ally....at least that is what Nancy Pelosi thinks....and Turkey has almost had enough....Our President is trying to keep them from attacking Iraq:

President George W. Bush Wednesday strongly urged Turkey not to carry out cross-border strikes on Kurdish separatists in Iraq, even as the Turkish parliament voted to authorize such an incursion.

"We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq," Bush said at a White House press conference.

"There's a better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops into the country -- massive additional troops into the country," the president said.

"We are actively involved with the Turks and the Iraqis, through a tripartite arrangement, and we'll continue ... dialoguing with the Turks," Bush said.

Bush also noted that Iraqi government had told Turkey it was determined to act against the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

However, Turkey is not listening. Their parliament voted to authorize the incursion:

Turkey's parliament has given permission for the government to launch military operations into Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels.

The vote was taken in defiance of pressure from the US and Iraq, which have called on Turkey for restraint.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the motion does not mean a military operation is imminent.

But he said Turkey needed to be able to respond to a recent rise in bomb attacks blamed on PKK rebels from Iraq.

Turkish MPs backed him overwhelmingly, by 507 votes to 19.

As the vote was being counted, President George W Bush strongly urged America's Turkish ally not to carry out the threatened action.

Well, I guess Nancy Pelosi is happy. She has de-stabilized another important alliance in the MidEast, even though it appears more people are wising up to the stupidity of the Turkey resolution:

Worried about antagonizing Turkish leaders, House members from both parties have begun to withdraw their support from a resolution supported by the Democratic leadership that would condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago.

Almost a dozen lawmakers had shifted against the measure over the last 24 hours, accelerating a sudden exodus that has cast deep doubt over the measure's prospects. Some representatives made clear that they were heeding warnings from the White House, which has called the measure dangerously provocative, and from the Turkish government, which has said House passage would prompt Turkey to reconsider its ties to the United States, including logistical support for the Iraq war.

Until today, the resolution appeared to be on a path to House passage, with strong support from the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California. It was approved last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But this evening, a group of group of senior House Democrats had made it known they were planning to ask the leadership to drop plans for a vote on the measure.

"Turkey obviously feels they are getting poked in the eye over something that happened a century ago, and maybe this isn't a good time to be doing that," said Representative Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat who dropped his sponsorship of the resolution Monday night.

Others who took the same action said that while they deplored the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, beginning in 1915, the modern-day consequences in the Middle East could not be overlooked.

"We simply cannot allow the grievances of the past — as real as they may be — to in any way derail our efforts to prevent further atrocities for future history books," said Representative Wally Herger, Republican of California.

However, it appears to be coming too little, too late...typical of Democrats. They never ever think about the consequences of their image-building actions...until it is too late.

Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats--Undermining our Troops Since 2003.

Pelosi's War on Turkey Update: LA Times Turns on Bullwhip Nancy

From the LA ToiletPaper, some actual wisdom:

Does gratuitously bringing up the Armenian genocide increase or decrease our leverage in Ankara? The angry responses of Turkey's president and prime minister provide the answer. On Thursday, President Abdullah Gul called the resolution an "attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games" -- an allusion to the far-from-negligible Armenian American lobby, which has long pressed for a resolution like this.

The absurdity is that the genocide of 1915 was not perpetrated by today's Turkish Republic, established in 1923, but by the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed at the end of World War I. You might as well blame the United States for the deportation of Acadians from Nova Scotia during the French and Indian Wars.

"If we hope to stop future genocides, we need to admit to those horrific acts of the past," argued Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat and a sponsor of the resolution. Really? My sense is that all the resolutions in the world about past genocides will do precisely nothing to stop the next one.

And if -- let's just suppose -- the next genocide happens in Iraq, and the United States finds itself impotent to prevent it, the blame will lie as much with this posturing and irresponsible Congress as with anyone.

But, it won't make us feel good if we don't pass a resolution condemning a regime for something THEY didn't do, or a condemnation that has already been issued and signed three times since 1915.

According to Michael Rubin, Pelosi said,

"this isn't about Turkey..it's about the Ottoman Empire..."

Uh, Nancy, could you tell me where the Ottoman Empire is? Where are its leaders? It doesn't exist anymore, blockhead! The truth is this is about disrupting the MidEast even more and then turning around and blaming Bush for it.

Rubin's article shows you how this Democrat Congress is about nothing more than image and perception, and how they don't give a damn how it affects our missions around the world.  Read it and know the truth about the Dems.

Babbin over at Human Events has more about the idiot thinking of San Fran Nan and the feel good nature (not to mention irrelevant) condemnation of a regime that no longer exists:

On October 11, Pelosi said, "While that may have been a long time ago, genocide is taking place now in Darfur, it did within recent memory in Rwanda, so as long as there is genocide there is need to speak out against it."

But the resolution is gratuitous and Democrats' timing suspicious.  It's gratuitous because, in 1981, President Reagan referred to the Armenian massacre as genocide in a proclamation commemorating the Nazi Holocaust.

Why, if Pelosi is so committed to ending genocide, aren't she and Senate Democrat leaders doing something about the ongoing genocide in Darfur or the massacres of protesters in Burma?

Speaker Pelosi said, "This isn't about the Erdogan government. This is about the Ottoman Empire." Baloney.

The Democrat leadership could write and pass legislation insisting the UN intervene to save the living instead of using the memory of the dead to score political points. In neither case should we intervene militarily. But the lack of concern for ongoing mass murder proves the Democrats' only purpose is to enrage the Turkish government and end their cooperation on Iraq.

The timing couldn't be worse.  Not only are we dependent on Turkey for our principal supply line into Iraq, we are in on the verge of a crisis with Turkey, trying to convince the Erdogan government to continue to refrain from attacking the PKK -- Kurdish terrorist forces -- that have been raiding into southeastern Turkey for years.

OK, so riddle me this Ted Kennedy: Who is now trying to manufacture a conflict for the sake of political gain? Where is it being hatched from? Three guesses and Bush and/or Texas can't be one of them.

By the way, Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Thank You Speaker of State Nancy Pelosi

AP News Alert:

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkish government has decided to seek authorization from Parliament for a cross-border operation into northern Iraq, a government spokesman says.

This is just what we need in Iraq...more foreign fighters... Thanks to Nancy Pelosi and her party's desire to see America lose in Iraq...

And people wonder why I'm burning out on this stuff...

Iraq and Turkey Update

AP News Alert:

BAGHDAD (AP) The Iraqi foreign minister says Turkey has massed 140,000 troops on its border with Iraq.

This has to do with the Kurdish independence movement in Turkey getting excited about the autonomy that Iraqi Kurds have been getting since the fall of Saddam. I wouldn't be too surprised if Turkey doesn't invade if the Americans pull out...yet another reason to question the strategery of the White Flag Republicans like George Voinovich.