Let's not be racist: Obama, Call it a Genocide

Pro-Armenian Protestors in Los Angeles

Atlanta, GA - Some call it the “Great Crime.” Others call it the Armenian Massacre, or the Armenian Holocaust. But by any name, they are all talking about the same thing. An act that began on April 24^th, 1915, 100 years ago. But time has not removed its horror.

It was the Turks who did it, of course. Everyone knows that. Some estimate around 800,000 innocent men, women, and children died. But that is a low number. Some estimates put it at twice that.

It began when the Ottoman Turks demanded of the city of Van that they furnish several thousand able bodied young men as conscripts to fight. But it was obvious to everyone that the Turks were not looking for soldiers, they were looking for victims. When the young men lined up to fight, they would be killed, leaving the Armenian town without defenders.

When they refused, the Turks attacked, and began banishing Armenians from their own country, promising to exterminate them. The Muslim Turks and the Christian Armenians had been at odds with each other for many years, and now, in the heat of World War I, with the world in flames, it was as good a time as any for old scores to come to light.

The Turks were determined to add their names, it seemed, to the list of the world’s Great War criminals, and so began their killing spree. They started death marches, marching hundreds of thousands of people out into the deserts without any type of supplies of food and water. Of course, the Armenians began to die by the thousands. To the death marches were added concentration camps, where people starved to death, trying to eat horse droppings.

So many children were drowned, that according to some
eyewitnesses, their bodies changed the courses of rivers.

 

People later claimed some graves held up to 60,000 victims. When starvation didn’t come fast enough, the innocent Armenians were burned to death. Of course, their only crime was where they were born. Sometimes, children were taken in boats out into the water and thrown overboard, drowning them.

But today, despite the fact that all of the above is well documented, it is established practice by our government not to call what happened to the Armenians genocide. On the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of the Genocide earlier this year, the White House released a statement, avoiding the term “Genocide.”

The prevailing belief is that this is because Turkey is one our many allies, and so not to offend the Turks of today, we should not call it Genocide. Of course, that is racism. Do we really think that the Turks are so thin skinned that calling what Turks a 100 years ago did Genocide would offend them?

We are allies with the Germans, but we have no problem calling what they did only 70 years ago Genocide, and a Holocaust, and they seem to have enough self-control not to throw pity parties about it.

The President needs to call the Armenian Genocide what it is, and he needs to do so as soon as possible. To not do so is racist, towards the Armenians, but especially towards the Turks.

Andrew C. Abbott

Why do the losers have all the good generals?

Montgomery, AL -  It is often stated in academia that the winners write the history. Perhaps that is true. The history of the world is something we see from the standpoint not of the Egyptians in Exodus, but of the Jews. Not of the barbarians from the north, but from the Romans. Not from the Trojans, but from the ones who built the great horse, the Spartans.

But while all that is true, and while it is true that after you lose a war you suddenly become the most evil people in history while those who beat you are the righteous ones; and who were wrongly attacked, it is also true that we all love a good loser, especially if that good loser is a general.

A look at the great pantheon of generals throughout history shows that many of the greatly loved were, in the end, losers. For instance Hannibal, leader of the Carthaginians against the Romans in the Punic wars, (I like him so much I named my dog after him), but for all the adoration he has received from historians throughout the years, he committed suicide, his nation gone, before the Romans could capture him.

Rommel, the German tank commander, so lauded by the likes of strategist Basil Liddell Hart, but who also committed suicide as the “Thousand Year Reich” of Adolf Hitler crashed around him.

We could come to our own generals. In the Civil War there is little argument about who the greatest generals were. Most would without question give that title to Robert E. Lee, or at least let him share that title with Jackson. Yet of the two, one died in a losing cause, and the other would surrender his army, essentially ending the war.

 

In the siege of Constantinople, when the city finally fell, the now almost completely forgotten general Giovanni Giustiniani was without question one of the best in history, despite the fact that few have ever heard of him. His daring and cunning allowed him to hold off the massive armies of the invaders for a shocking 55 days, until finally a door being left unlocked allowed the Muslim invaders into the city. But again, the man, Giovanni Giustiniani, who was by far the better general, was on the losing side.

I don’t know why it is so, that almost all of the great generals are on losing sides. Of course there were some winners who were great, like Julius Caesar, yet he is most known for the tragic elements surrounding his assassination. So he’s loved, but a bit of a loser, since he did die that day in the senate.

Perhaps the reason that great leaders are given by God to the losers is that they are men born out of desperation, who find themselves up against impossible odds, and know they have to be near perfect to win. Or perhaps they are not the best, but we just ignore the great generals on a winning side because once you win, your victory takes on an aura of inevitability that it never had while the fight was actually taking place. And so your talents are lost on us.

Whatever the reason, it still seems that the losers have all the great generals. Just ask Napoleon.

Andrew C. Abbott

Rick Perry: If at first you don't succeed

Atlanta, GA- When a party starts, the host is able to gush over the first person that arrives. If they are a particularly excitable and energetic host, they just might gush over the first few. But at some point, the ability to gush simply ends, and we get to the phase of just waving hi to Joe as he walks in. I don’t know when it happened, but the Republican Party of candidates for 2016 has become so crowded that we’ve gone beyond even having the energy to wave as a new candidate hits the door.

We already have lots of far right wing conservatives running. We already have former governors running, and we even already have a Texan running. But that’s not stopping Rick Perry, Texas’ longest serving governor, the man who was the follow up act to George Bush Jr., and the man who managed the state into a fortress of conservative political ideals of God, Gravy, and Guns, from announcing that he will be running a second time for the presidency.

Rick Perry, at least to me, comes across as a likeable guy, and being a Texan, he always tried to make himself out as a rough-and-ready sort of character. But he also had a tendency on the campaign trail three years ago to open his mouth a lot, and stuff his foot down his gullet.

However, for all of this I don’t see Perry as one of the ones without a chance. He managed to lead Texas into remarkable economic growth. During his watch, the state added roughly 1,800,000 jobs. He managed to fill nearly every position in Texas with someone loyal to him, he managed to actually pass conservative legislation, he managed to even get his chosen successor elected.

There is a cloud of a political indictment hanging over Perry of two felony charges, however, an in indictment is not a conviction, and many have called the indictment politically motivated against the governor because of his far right stances.

What we saw in 2011 was a man who was not comfortable on the debate stages. But supposedly practice makes perfect, add although Perry’s 2011 debate circuit was filled with gaffes and a famous “oops” after he forgot the three Federal Agencies he would cut if elected, perhaps he has grown and gotten better. Maybe not, but certainly Perry’s managers have to know where their candidate is weak, and will be practicing many hours with him so as not to have a repeat of some awkward moments.

But in the long run, surprisingly, all the gaffes just might help Perry. Americans are jaded with polished politicians, and they just might like a down home good old boy from Texas who isn’t afraid to make a mistake or three.

Andrew C. Abbott

Thank you Rand Paul: But there's more work to do



Rand Paul

 

Politicians are not known for delivering on promises. Jokes about them are constantly made, how they take a stand firmly on both sides of an issue, or how when one of them comes to a fork in the road, he takes it.

But at midnight last night, Eastern Time, as the moon rose over Washington DC, the sun set on one of the most abusive attacks on human rights in American history. The US PATRIOT Act died a peaceful death, swallowing its last breaths as a group of politicians laid pressure on its windpipe, being certain it would not rise in the morning.

Hurrah! We won. At last, a cause taken up by the liberal British Newspaper The Guardian was finished by a Republican Conservative. The Republican, Rand Paul, is a member of an almost extinct species, politicians who do the right thing, because it is right, not because it is popular, even if their own leadership doesn’t want them to do what they’re doing.

There is still work to do of course. And Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and a few brave Democrats are going to try to see it through. Marco Rubio, who is running for president, has announced he liked the unconstitutional spying of millions of Americans.

This is and should be a nonpartisan issue. The next battle is now the USA Freedom Act, a watered down version of the PATRIOT Act which is so weak even the NSA and Barak Obama are comfortable with it. We still have to end many programs which are collecting all sorts of data, because Americans, to be free, must have privacy.

But for now, if even for a few hours or days, our calls are private. No one is sitting collecting them en masse somewhere. The president and the NSA, in at least this way, are not breaking the US Constitution. For that we can thank Rand Paul, a man I just a couple of weeks ago wondered about even as a viable candidate for president. He has just proved, in a big way, that he has at least a very good possibility of getting my vote.

Andrew C. Abbott