by Michael Tomlin
Posted: Thursday, March 19, 2009
| Government, like business, needs leaders with standards, beliefs and values. We expect retailers to “just say no” to lead paint on toys. And we should expect our elected leaders to call genocide what it was and is.
At issue is President Obama, caught in the pragmatic twist of pragmatists – people who believe only in current convenience – having declared during his campaign the historic annihilation of 1.5 million Armenians as “genocide” now may be backing off the term so not to insult Turkey, which he will visit in April. Turkey of course is that same country with laws protecting and prohibiting itself from being insulted. Write an unflattering book or article about Turkey and you can be arrested and jailed. That is insult enough, done to themselves, separating them from the enlightened world. In Michael Doyle’s story for McClatchy Newspapers (Idaho Statesman, Mar. 18, 2009) diplomats warn of potential fallout should the U.S. president stand and call the genocide of the Ottoman Empire what it was. It would be “poorly received,” stated one former ambassador. What should be poorly received is Turkey, in any collection of civilized nations until they learn to accept criticism. What if our congressional leaders failed to question the AIG banker bonuses because criticism might be “poorly received” in the banking industry? OK, the questioning is a sham … but at least it’s an open and contentious sham. Let’s cover up the peanut paste scandal, too, and not risk being poorly received by the company allegedly responsible for numerous food-borne illnesses and deaths. Just as a good parent chooses carefully whom they allow their children to play with, so should business leaders and elected leaders make similar choices – based upon values and beliefs, behavior, actions, and deserved reputations. This is not a call for isolationism; there are businesses and countries aplenty for us to “play” with. I recently cancelled an account with Bank of America, and will soon do so with AIG. There are plenty of others I cherish – my relationship with my State Farm Insurance agent, ditto for Mountain West Bank, a new relationship with Les Bois Credit Union, restaurants and shoe makers, airlines and my doctor. They re-earn my patronage with their behavior over the years, not just with each meeting or transaction. I expect no less from business leaders selecting their suppliers and distributers. And I have even a higher standard for my president. Stand for the United States and our interests, and don’t stand at all with those not ready for prime time on the world stage. It’s not the pragmatic view, but then values seldom are.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 Talking Turkey: Denying the Iraqi Genocide
The Iraqi Genocide
by Paul Craig Roberts Why has not the Turkish parliament given tit for tat and passed a resolution condemning the Iraqi Genocide?
If one is a genocide, so is the other.
It is true that most of the Iraqi deaths have resulted from Iraqis killing one another. But it was Bush’s destruction of the secular Iraqi state that unleashed the sectarian strife.
Moreover, American troops in Iraq have killed more civilians than insurgents. The US military in Iraq has fallen for every bit of disinformation fed to it by Al Qaeda personnel posing as “informants” and by Sunnis setting up Shi’ites and Shi’ites setting up Sunnis. As a result, American bombs and missiles have blown up weddings, funerals, kids playing soccer, and people shopping in bazaars and sleeping in their homes. Not to be outdone, Bush’s private Waffen SS known as Blackwater Security has taken to gunning Iraqi civilians down in the streets. How do Blackwater and Custer Battles killers escape the “unlawful combatant” designation? One can only marvel at the insouciance of the US Congress to the current Iraqi Genocide while condemning Turkey for one that happened 90 years ago. People seldom see the beam in their own eye, only the mote in the eyes of others. Every member of the Bush Regime is busily at work denouncing Iran for causing instability in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the US has invaded two countries, throwing them into total chaos, while beating the drums for war with Iran and conspiring with Israel to invade Lebanon and to attack Syria. The indisputable facts are that the US and Israel have attacked four Middle East countries and are determined to attack a fifth. Yet, it is peaceful Iran, at war with no one, that Bush and Israel blame for causing instability in the Middle East. Not content with its many wars in the Middle East, the Bush Regime is sponsoring wars in Africa and is setting up an African Command. The US government has been bombing and attacking other countries ever since the cold war ended. Instead of peace, the gang in Washington DC chose war. Other than the Israel Lobby, the greatest supporters of Bush’s wars are Christian evangelicals, specifically the “rapture evangelicals” and the “Christian Zionists.” I remember when Christianity was about saving one’s soul. Today it is about bringing on Armageddon. While the various evangelical Christians preach war in the Middle East, they condemn Islam for being a “warlike religion.”
The US government has broken every agreement with Russia by withdrawing from the anti-ballistic missile treaty, pushing NATO to Russia’s borders, conniving to place missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic, and buying governments in former Soviet republics and installing US military bases therein.
When Russian President Putin finally has enough and protests, the US Secretary of State blames Putin for being difficult and restarting the cold war. Few Americans realize it, but they take the cake.
International polls show that the rest of the world regard the US and Israel as the greatest dangers to world peace. Americans claim that they are fighting wars against terrorism, but it is US and Israeli terrorism that worries everyone else. The rest of the world knows that the wars are about US and Israeli hegemony and that the US and Israel are prepared to engage in whatever acts of terror are necessary to achieve hegemony. That is the bare fact.
When the US dollar loses its reserve currency status, the US empire will come to an abrupt end. Sooner or later the rest of the world will realize this and, in an act of self-protection, dethrone the dollar.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
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