Don’t They Have Better Things to Do?

Late last week the US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee voted to condemn the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during WWI as genocide. The vote was met with criticism by Turkish president Abdullah Gul, who ominously warned that the decision would cause tension between Turkey and the US.

This would be an inopportune time for the relationship to deteriorate. The US relies on Turkey to help transport equipment and personnel to Iraq. In addition, the Turkish military has been mobilizing along its Iraqi border in an effort to quell the insurgency by Kurdish separatists. Our government has been urging them to show restraint, as the outbreak of another war in Iraq is the last thing anybody needs.

I don’t know how many of you are familiar with this story. It’s not exactly headline news and it’s so minor that it could be very easily bypassed without a second thought.

But the fact that it is so insignificant is the reason I write about it.

Doesn’t the Foreign Relations Committee have anything better to do? They are currently facing a disastrous war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan that is on the verge of failing, the threat of Iran becoming nuclear, North Korea, which is already nuclear, providing technology to Syria, which aspires to be nuclear (and is being bombed by Israel for it), chaos on the Gaza strip, the list goes on. In addition, global support for America is at an all time low. Basically, the entire world thinks we’re a bunch of dimwitted barbarians.

What exactly does the Foreign Relations Committee do?

Oh yeah...they hold meaningless votes (they readily admit it’s “nonbinding and largely symbolic”) to condemn events that happened 90 years ago.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be sympathetic to the plight of the Armenians during WWI. What they went through was horrible and it should be remembered. But realistically, the atrocities were committed by the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed at the end of the war. Any complicit parties died long ago. Who exactly is being condemned? It would be like condemning German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the actions of Adolf Hitler. It simply doesn’t make sense.

Maybe on a rainy afternoon during a time of international peace, while the Foreign Relations Committee is sitting around twiddling their thumbs, maybe then this vote would be an effective time-waster.

But not while American troops are stretched across the Middle East and our international image is crumbling before our eyes.

I think the vote is a result of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and friends realizing just how inept and impotent they really are. When they became the majority following the 2006 elections they assured voters of sweeping reform, but their campaign promises were writing checks their legislation couldn’t cash. So now they’re resorting to “symbolic” measures to make it look like they’re not just playing Facebook Roshambull all day.

As a taxpayer, I wish they would stop wasting my money. And as a consumer of news, I wish they would stop wasting my damn time.

Thanks for reading.