First shot in the regional war, folks. First shot. Get ready for this whole imbroglio to be used to justify the attack on Iran (triangulation). The Kurds get sold down the river. Turkey gets their oil. Bush will come down on the American Left as weak in the face of terrorists, who are the Kurds, who are our allies and have kept the lid on things during the whole Iraq mess, but that doesn't matter, now does it? My bet is on this being the big mover for the expansion. Turkey is a NATO ally (but not in the EU) so Cheney can play his "You for us or agin us" chit against Europe and be able to dissolve NATO, which he effectively sees as no better than the UN. Then the unilateral onus will be off the US and the real war for Central Asia can begin.

Just speculating, but then again Leverman lays out this whole scenario with a few different spins on where things get started in "The New Great Game."

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

Turkey's using it as leverage to bully the US into looking the other way as Kurdistan is bombarded. Nice, huh?

To the extent that we are losing leverage with the Turks because of this issue, the blame lies with Diane Feinstein Adam Schiff and the Democratic Congress, not the Bush Administration.

Bonus question: Where's Condi?

Along with Gates, trying to talk sense into Congress' head. Yay Condi.

[edit: Adam Schiff, not Diane Feinstein. I'm not following the latest in Armenian Genocide news all that closely]

The loss the Armenians suffered and the pain of having their fellow Armenians wiped off the map forever should never be called "insignificant".

It's not just a numbers game. The death of so many Jews was a blow to all of Creation. No term can ever capture the suffering of so many beautifuil innocent people that gave us so much in the way of intellect and passion and art. I still feel though that an overzealous expression of ownership of the word "genocide" diminishes the great pain the Aremenians suffered and also other genocide victims previous to that. It makes the Jews seem unsymapthetic to other peoples' suffering, and I know that is not the case. Protecting the word genocide to make it only relate to WWII seesm like the copyrighting of a brand. That's too businesslike for my taste.

Personally I have always been horrified that in our day and age we stood by and let the Rwanda atrocites happen. The cutting off of childrens' arms and lips so they couldn't pray made me literally sick.

For those who might wonder what all the controversy is about, here is what Wikipedia has to say about the definition of genocide

"Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction of an ethnic, religious or national group. While precise definition varies among genocide scholars, the legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of the CPPCG defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and/or] Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Link...

As for the word "holocaust", Wikipedia says: Link...

This measure is not being pushed by the "left" or even from the Democratic Party. It's been pushed for years by Californians of both political parties at the behest of the state's large Armenian-American population, a majority of whom are Republican (remember George Deukmejian?) Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi have supported this measure since it was first introduced by that rabid left-winger Bob Dole in the 1990s.

I don't know whether or not it makes sense to pass this resolution at this point. As a Jew, I feel a special responsibility to recognize other genocides and the Armenian genocide was one of the worst in the 20th century. It seems Turkey is desperate to invade Iraq to go after the PKK rebels hiding out in Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Armenian issue might give enough cover to the Turkish leadership to carry an invasion out.

Well, calloway, at least you admit there was a genocide. The Turkish response was that there was no genocide and "millions of other people died too, but it was not systematic." I needn't remind you that the GOP has long propped up the cause of the Bautistaites in South Florida against Cuba using accusations of mass murder, torture and imprisonment, despite the fact that those folks were even more nasty than Castro ever was. I know that history (other than chopping down cherry trees and 9/11) doesn't matter to the American Right, but...

As for the Brits and Romans, the former are not terribly proud of their imperial past, especially the working classes. I can give you some references you won't read. It's interesting though. Christians condemn the Romans and Jews for killing a guy over 2000 years ago...

(also, it's "quasi" not "psuedo." No matter as you would be using both words incorrectly in any case.

True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler