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Congressman Stephen Cohen and the Armenian Genocide Bill
By Dany Beylerian / October 18, 2007
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports,
Two Jewish congressmen are working to keep the Armenian genocide bill from reaching the U.S. House of Representatives floor….U.S. Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Stephen Cohen (D-Tenn.), as well as three other opponents of the controversial bill memorializing the killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I, spoke harshly of its implications for U.S. relations with Turkey at a news conference Wednesday in Washington.
"The Middle East is a tinderbox," Wexler said. "Our responsibility is to bring as much stability as is humanly possible."
Cohen added that passage of the bill would cause "real-time harm to real people."
Congressman Cohen claims that House Resolution 106 — the Armenian Genocide Resolution — would threaten our troops in Iraq.
This resolution is an affirmation of the American role in its humanitarian effort during the Armenian Genocide. It does not threaten our troops –Turkey does.
When I met with Congressman Cohen in August, I explained to him that Turkey has a tendency to use theatrics and bluff as foreign policy tools, just as it did with other countries that passed similar resolutions. And this is precisely what happened.
Turkey is now spending millions of dollars with PR firms and lobbying powerhouses to sway American public opinion with theatrics and fear-mongering tactics.
Turkey's tantrum reaction is unbefitting of a US ally — especially an ally with such a record of unreliability.
In 2003 The Turkish Government rejected a US request to use its territory for the invasion of Iraq. Our military used contingency plans and shifted the war effort to other parts of the region. It was determined then that Turkey cannot be counted on as a reliable ally.
In 2005 Defense Secretary Rumsfeld blamed the inability to gain permission to invade Iraq through Turkey for the surge of the insurgency that our military faces.
Analysts from both the US and Turkey agree that the US can now do without Turkey, but Turkey cannot do without the United States. The economic and political costs to Turkey of cutting off American access are too great to even consider.
What we are witnessing now is outrageous. Turkey wants to impose a gag order when it comes to discussion of the Armenian Genocide. In essence, by acquiescing, we would be outsourcing our morality and foreign policy to Turkey. This is unacceptable.
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Foxman Assures Gul that Genocide Bill is not Relevant
ISTANBUL (Marmara)–During his visit to the United States, Turkish President Abdullah Gul met Thursday with representatives of Jewish organizations, among them the Anti-Defamation League, who assured the Turkish leader that the Armenian Genocide resolution pending in Congress should not worry his government or the Turkish people.
During a meeting with ADL national chairman Abraham Foxman, Gul was assured of the organization's opposition to the Genocide Resolution, adding that the matter was no longer a relevant concern for Jewish organizations, which will continue to oppose the measure.
Foxman said that his organization was pleased that Turkey had friendly relations with the US, Israel and the Jewish-American community.
After his meeting with Gul, Foxman told reporters that the Armenian Genocide Resolution had ceased to be an issue, since it was not the Congressional agenda. After reiterating his organization's opposition, he added that utilizing the Armenian Genocide issue for political gain was wrong. He also urged for the creation of a council of historians to assess the events of 1915.
Friday, January 11, 2008
http://www.asbarez.com/
There you go agin you filthy turks No need to blame Turkey???
Honest and full
discussion of the painful subject foiryou tuks?!?!
 you WOULDN'T know what honest is if it hit you in your skull.
JUST like you don't know what discassion is all about. Discussion is NOT about killing as tortuining the innocent. Y
OU STILL HAVN'T LEFT YOU MONGOLIAN BEHAVIOUR WHILR YOU TRY TO PORTYAY YOURSELF AS CIVILIZED. YOU ARE ANYTHING BUT CIVILIZED. YOU ARE CRIMINALS. PERIO,
ANCA simply doesn't care if U.S.
interest are at stake. Couple of interesting articles in National
Review by Barbara Lerner provide a good background
I don't know what AIPAC has been up to for the past few months, but they have always lobbied against all past attempts at an Armenian Genocide resolution, and I haven't heard anything to the contrary on this latest resolution. Thus, I can only assume that they have not changed their position. The other major organizations, however, still oppose it. See the article below.
http://www.forward.com/articles/11847/
P.S. Anon 4:04 was me, Phantom.
Jewcy seems to be an inappropriate name for this website.
Here is a link for anyone who sill has a shred of doubt about the events of 1915:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOqnVl4_rWU
 Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish legal scholar who coined the word "genocide", invented the concept partly on the basis of the extermination of the Armenians in 1915.  Lemkin, who lost 49 members of his family during the Holocaust, said the following in an 1949 interview with CBS on the UN Convention on Genocide:  "I became interested in genocide because it happened to the Armenians; and after[wards] the Armenians got a very rough deal at the Versailles Conference because their criminals were guilty of genocide and were not punished."
I mean, self-deception has its limits. Next thing we know they won't let us roast turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
 The veracity of the Armenian genocide is not a matter of debate; it is settled history. What's in flux is the process of introspection by many Turks to re-learn their own history. Hopefully this process will one day lead to recognition of the genocide by the Turkish state.Â
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This "US-Isra-Turkic" triumvirate have their heads so far up each others ass that they don't seem to see anything else around them anymore. If an issue does not fit their "cranio-rectally inverted" realpolitik agenda, than that too would have as much chance of success as piss on a forest fire.
The governing heads of the above mentioned trio have a delusional view of the world. It is time to pull their heads out of each others butts and smell the roses for a change -There are other groups and countries too you know; other issues and concerns of mankind; other ways of solving problems – This dangerous policy, if ignored much longer will come back to haunt us in the future. We can not afford to let these two countries manhandle the US as if we were some little mailable "Pillsbury doughboys".
China
threatens that our relationship with them will be “gravely undermined" if
we honor the Dalai Lama, Turkey
warns that “longtime ties will be harmed” if we acknowledge the Armenian genocide…
Damn! How do they (Turkey
and China)
think they can get away with this?
Do they believe we are so weak, that our economy is so shaky,
our alliances so dwindled, our forces stretched so thin, that they can bully us
on mere issues of principle?
I guess so.
The image of the STRONG AMERICA is dead in the eyes of the
world.
Thanks for the list. Time for calls and letters!
You can read the article denouncing Cohen's hypocrisy here:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2007/oct/14/cohens-turkey-stance-a-puzzler/
Turkey's fear-mongering theatrics are working: US Representatives are indicating that they may be voting their fears instead of their values.
Or do I smell a backlash around the corner? what? Turkey using blackmail? threatening our servicemen?
Shame on Turkey for blackmailing us, and shame on our representatives for betraying our values!
“… It is doubtful that we shall witness in the near future a plethora
of instances of outright denial. But subtle, and
consequently more dangerous, theories continue to appear. The course of
this development and the nature of the theories, however
pseudo-scientific they may be, must be fully examined.
We need
not waste time or effort answering each and every one of the deniers'
contentions. It would be a never-ending effort to respond to arguments
posed by those who freely falsify findings, quote out of context and
simply dismiss reams of testimony because it counters their arguments.
Unlike true scholars they have little if any respect for data or
evidence. Their commitment is to an ideology and their 'findings' are
shaped by it.
However, there is a critical difference between
debate and analysis. To debate them is to give their theory the
imprimatur of a legitimate historical opinion. It is far better to
analyze who these people are and what it is they are trying to
accomplish. Above all, it is essential to expose the illusion of
reasoned inquiry that conceals extremist views. It is only when society
- particularly that portion of society committed to intellectual debate
-comprehends the full import of this group's intentions that we can be
sure that history will not be reshaped and recreated to fit a variety
of pernicious ulterior motives.
The
speciousness of the deniers' arguments, rather than the arguments
themselves, demands a response. The insidious way in which denial
enters the mainstream debate – often disguised as relativism- must be
fully exposed as it is crucial, ultimately, to an understanding of the
deniers' influence. These are not simply arcane controversies between
scholars or, in this case, pseudo-scholars. In the words of the
historian Donald Kagan,
the past and, more importantly, our perception of the past, have a
powerful 'influence on the way we act in response to our problems
today. What historians and others say happened and what they say it
means. . .makes a great difference'. Relativists and deniers are well
aware of this. It is not by chance that one of the fathers of American
Holocaust denial, Harry Elmer Barnes, believed that history could serve
as a 'means for a deliberate and conscious instrument of social
transformation'.
History
matters. Adolf Hitler's rise to power was facilitated by the artful way
in which he advanced views of recent German history that appealed to
the masses. It did not matter if it was a distorted view; it was one
which appealed to many people and, more importantly, explained their
current situation. David Duke has tried to modify his personal history
as well as the history of the United States and his region. That which
he has been unable to reshape, he and his followers have declared
irrelevant. On the eve of the election for Governor of Louisiana, one
of his supporters remarked in a television interview: 'What do his
views on Jews and Blacks have to do with this election?' Though the
interviewer did not respond, the answer was obvious: it was, simply
put, 'everything'.
The
deniers hope to achieve their goals by winning recognition as a
legitimate scholarly cadre and by planting seeds of doubt in the
younger generation. Only by recognizing the threat that denial poses to
reason and the pursuit of truth, will we expose denial for what it
truly is and ultimately refuse any shred of legitimacy to it and its
purveyors.”
Deborah Lipstadt
HOLOCAUST DENIAL AND THE COMPELLING FORCE OF REASON
This is the same Steve Cohen that introduced the slavery apology in the second month of his freshman year in Congress and was a vocal proponent of anti-hate legislation. He fails to see the inconsistency between genocide denial and his apology for slavery/Jim Crow. He vigorously recruited the U.S.-Turkey study group to come to Memphis and helped Turkey to be selected as the 2008 Memphis in May festival honoree. One media blog that is fairly influential in Memphis implied that Cohen didn't think his constituency would be sophisticated enough to pick up on the discordance among his political views. Panic set in for Cohen when he realized that the jig was up, that his sensitive persona was soon to be exposed as f.o.s., as a ploy to gain favor of his largely African-American constituents. That's when the press conferences started as did his reinvention as a neocon hawk.
One local blogger compared him to Leonard Zelig, capable of transforming his appearance into that of whoever is around him.
Of note, and illustrative of the milieu in Memphis, is that the local paper won't mention Turkey without the preface of "close ally". Cohen underestimated the opposition to his shenanigans, thinking Memphians were either 1. apathetic/ignorant or 2. so blindly Bush-friendly that they would oppose anything so un-American as denying the first genocide of the 20th century, lest it should somehow harm our troops. He was wrong on both.
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