Armenian remembrance 24/4/2015

[Beef Oven!]

My Grandparents escaped the Pogroms of the Russian Civil War in a similar roundabout fashion, and the family they left behind were left to the tender mercies of the Einsatzguppen.
The U.S. Congress has pushed many resolutions calling on the Turks to acknowledge the Genocide. They have generally been blocked at the Executive level,
by Obama and many of his predecessors. As the Turks continue to be less dependable U.S. Allies--such as the latest refusal to let U.S. Planes attack ISIS from Incerlik-and the strength of the Armenian Lobby grows, this may change. It has actually been a Campaign issue here, in the run up to the 2016 Presidential election.
Incidentally, I am attending the annual Chicago dinner of AIPAC (the American Jewish Political Action Committee) in a couple of weeks. One of the Speakers will be discussing the Armenian Genocide and these very same issues.

The Armenian lobby has grown in strength in the USA over the last 20 years, following the Israeli/Jewish model.

In my opinion, the USA should put its own house in order before it lectures other nations on humanitarian issues.

[ahinton]

The Armenian lobby has grown in strength in the USA over the last 20 years, following the Israeli/Jewish model.

In my opinion, the USA should put its own house in order before it lectures other nations on humanitarian issues.

I could not agree more, though I despair of it doing so any time soon.

[vinteuil]

... a person's - or a state's - deficiencies are not a reason why they may not legitimately criticize the defects of others.

[ahinton]

... a person's - or a state's - deficiencies are not a reason why they may not legitimately criticize the defects of others.

I think that it could reasonably be argued that it is so when a state criticises another for the very same thing for which it has its own defects; it's hardly the most convincing thing to do, after all, is it?!

[vinteuil]

... if the criticism is valid, it is valid.

[ahinton]

... if the criticism is valid, it is valid.

Fair enough, but that's no reason to ignore pots and kettles, is it? - and I strongly suspect that, in this instance, US would take not at all kindly to those whom it accuses of things accusing it of the same.

[Serial_Apologist]

... a person's - or a state's - deficiencies are not a reason why they may not legitimately criticize the defects of others.

I could hardly disagree more.

It strikes me that, in the absence today of universally agreed ethics and moralities, the hypocrisy involved in those of power exercising authority to criticise others for things they know to be going on in their own stable, the old "don't do as I do, do as I say", is one of the few remaining criteria on which all can be united in agreement, knowing whence these standards emanate.

[vinteuil]

... we all know that the US is a bunch of baddies. That is not the question. The issue was whether the Turkish government should be criticized for not acknowledging the genocide of the Armenians perpetrated by the Ottomans. I do not see that the obvious fact that the US has done bad things should prevent it from having a view on the evident bad things done by the Ottomans.

The fact that I have done bad things does not prevent me from having a view on others' having done bad things.

[french frank]

I could hardly disagree more.

It strikes me that, in the absence today of universally agreed ethics and moralities, the hypocrisy involved in those of power exercising authority to criticise others for things they know to be going on in their own stable, the old "don't do as I do, do as I say", is one of the few remaining criteria on which all can be united in agreement, knowing whence these standards emanate.

Even if one agrees with that 100%, it doesn't somehow invalidate the criticism being expressed. We can, if we so wish, use it as an opportunity to turn the spotlight of criticism on others, but we should remember that OUR view of what another country does is OUR view, not necessarily theirs (as it also the case with the Turkish government).

[Serial_Apologist]

... we all know that the US is a bunch of baddies. That is not the question. The issue was whether the Turkish government should be criticized for not acknowledging the genocide of the Armenians perpetrated by the Ottomans. I do not see that the obvious fact that the US has done bad things should prevent it from having a view on the evident bad things done by the Ottomans.

The fact that I have done bad things does not prevent me from having a view on others' having done bad things.

If they were different bad things, I might agree with you.

[richardfinegold]

The Armenian lobby has grown in strength in the USA over the last 20 years, following the Israeli/Jewish model.

In my opinion, the USA should put its own house in order before it lectures other nations on humanitarian issues.

Yes, we will have to aspire to the Moral Purity of the British Raj, or the invention of the world's fast Concentration Camps in the Boer War, or the administration of British Caribean possessions with their 75% Mortality rate amongst the slaves, or the bombing of Mesopotamia, or the Easter Massacre in Dublin, or the Gordian Anti Catholic Riots....let me know when when we have reached your standards for purity, Beefy, because after all, you were the role model for Empire Building to which the U.S. aspires.

[ahinton]

If they were different bad things, I might agree with you.

Indeed - that's just the point (or at least how it struck me); pots and kettles and all that...

[ahinton]

Yes, we will have to aspire to the Moral Purity of the British Raj, or the invention of the world's fast Concentration Camps in the Boer War, or the administration of British Caribean possessions with their 75% Mortality rate amongst the slaves, or the bombing of Mesopotamia, or the Easter Massacre in Dublin, or the Gordian Anti Catholic Riots....let me know when when we have reached your standards for purity, Beefy, because after all, you were the role model for Empire Building to which the U.S. aspires.

All good points indeed, except the accusation towards Beefy, to whom it would hardly be fair (let alone correct!) to accord responsibility as "the role model for Empire Building to which the U.S. aspires"!

By the way, by "fast" do you mean "first"?...

[Beef Oven!]

... we all know that the US is a bunch of baddies. That is not the question. The issue was whether the Turkish government should be criticized for not acknowledging the genocide of the Armenians perpetrated by the Ottomans. I do not see that the obvious fact that the US has done bad things should prevent it from having a view on the evident bad things done by the Ottomans.

The fact that I have done bad things does not prevent me from having a view on others' having done bad things.

The USA is perfectly entitled to express a view. I never said it shouldn't. But it doesn't count for much if it is saying 'don't do as I do, do as I say'.

How about some UN resolutions concerning the accusation that the USA is systematicaly killing its black popultaion day by day?

[ahinton]

The USA is perfectly entitled to express a view. I never said it shouldn't. But it doesn't count for much if it is saying 'don't do as I do, do as I say'.

How about some UN resolutions concerning the accusation that the USA is systematicaly killing its black popultaion day by day?

How indeed! Good point. OK, there might be a valid argument along the lines of "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" on the grounds that finding a nation not guilty of some atrocities or other art some time or another might seem akin, as Norman Douglas put it, to finding "a needle in a haystack or a joke in the Bible" but, as USA is so often said and thought to be the world's richest and most powerful nation, it leaves an especially negative impression when it says - as indeed you rightly note that it does in this instance - "don't do as I do, do as I say".