President Joe Biden formally recognized the Ottoman Empire’s mass killing of more than 1.5 million Armenians more than a century ago as genocide in a statement on Saturday.
You go, Joe.
”Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied that the killings were genocide…”
Of course not!
1.5 million Armenians merely ‘slipped on a bar of soap’.
(Also too: The Uyghurs are taking a lot of sudsy missteps at the moment.)
Political opportunism is the greatest betrayal to peace and justice.”
I’d say slaughtering your unwanted ethnic minority is a greater one.
And this is from a country that killed off swathes of first nation populations, so we should know.
The subtext is that Biden is telling the regional bully Erdogan to take his tinpot autocratic posturing and shove it where the sun don’t shine. That is long overdue, impressive on Biden’s part.
Turkey and Eritrea seem to be the 2 countries we can still shove around after we’ve been put on probation by the principal.
Who was it that pointed out the Germans in 1915 watch what the Ottoman Empire did to the Armenians, and took notes?
Serious question: Has the United States Federal Government ever officially recognized their own genocide of Native American peoples?
Perhaps next on Joe’s TODO list?
While it was long overdue (it did not garner really any coverage at the time) and there are a myriad problems that need to be addressed over the repercussions and impact of the genocide committed against indigenous peoples here in North America, at least the Federal Government acknowledged and apologized for it under President Obama.
Actually, the Young Turks may have been watching what the German Empire did in Africa …
And now…reparations?
Yes.
It was signed into law by President Obama.
That said, what does that have to do with the reality that the Armenian genocide occurred and Turkey still refuses to acknowledge it?
The Obama we’ve all been waiting for…
And now…reparations?
More than willing to consider it. That said, it could be argued the millions we do give to the tribes annually through the Bureau of Indian Affairs programs are a form of reparation, though I would consider it poorly managed and not nearly enough.
And that has to do with Turkey refusing to acknowledge the Armenian genocide how exactly?
Acknowledging the truth, after slightly more than a century after the fact.
This was so overdue - I’m so glad.
Long overdue and kudos. A shot across Israel’s bow? China’s? Russia’s? Myanmar’s?
And, so much for my taking Turkish Airlines any time soon, what with my US AND Israeli passports.
If Biden was the Obama we were waiting for, then what was Obama? The Clinton we were waiting for? Then what was Clinton?
Has the US government ever officially recognized that that’s what we did? Same for slavery?