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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Foreign (& Also American) Affairs Open Thread: Acknowledging A Genocide

Foreign (& Also American) Affairs Open Thread: Acknowledging A Genocide

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Since rumors of such acknowledgement go back as far as I can remember, I’ll believe it when it happens, but I hope President Biden will finally make it happen. From the Boston Globe (Boston has a large Armenian-American community):

More than a century after the Ottoman Empire’s killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian civilians, President Joe Biden is preparing to declare that the atrocities were an act of genocide, according to officials familiar with the internal debate. The action would signal that the American commitment to human rights outweighs the risk of further fraying the US alliance with Turkey.

Biden is expected to announce the symbolic designation on Saturday, the 106th anniversary of the beginning of what historians call a yearslong and systematic death march that the predecessors of modern Turkey started during World War I. He would be the first sitting American president to do so, although Ronald Reagan made a glancing reference to the Armenian genocide in a 1981 written statement about the Holocaust, and both the House and the Senate approved measures in 2019 to make its recognition a formal matter of US foreign policy.

At least 29 other countries have taken similar steps — mostly in Europe and the Americas, but also Russia and Syria, Turkey’s political adversaries.

A US official with knowledge of the administration’s discussions said Biden had decided to issue the declaration, and others across the government and in foreign embassies said it was widely expected…

… Turkish officials have been bracing for the genocide declaration ever since Biden committed to it during his presidential campaign, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned earlier this week that it would set back the already strained relationship between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

“Statements that have no legal binding will have no benefit, but they will harm ties,” Cavusoglu said in an interview with the Turkish broadcaster Haberturk. “If the United States wants to worsen ties, the decision is theirs.”

The legal definition of genocide was not accepted until 1946, and officials and experts said Biden’s declaration would not carry any tangible penalties beyond humiliating Turkey and tainting its history with an inevitable comparison to the Holocaust…

Reader Interactions

28Comments

  1. 1.

    Another Scott

    Hmm…

    ObamaWhiteHouse (from 4/22/2016):

    Today we solemnly reflect on the first mass atrocity of the 20th century—the Armenian Meds Yeghern—when one and a half million Armenian people were deported, massacred, and marched to their deaths in the final days of the Ottoman empire.

    As we honor the memory of those who suffered during the dark days beginning in 1915—and commit to learn from this tragedy so it may never be repeated—we also pay tribute to those who sought to come to their aid. One such individual was U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who voiced alarm both within the U.S. government and with Ottoman leaders in an attempt to halt the violence. Voices like Morgenthau’s continue to be essential to the mission of atrocity prevention, and his legacy shaped the later work of human rights champions such as Raphael Lemkin, who helped bring about the first United Nations human rights treaty.

    […]

    Meds Yeghern:

    Meds Yeghern is used by Armenians synonymous with Հայոց ցեղասպանություն (Hayocʿ cʿełaspanutʿyun, “Genocide of Armenians”) to refer to the Armenian Genocide the way Shoah is used by Jews to refer to the Holocaust.

    I’m sure Biden will have a strong statement as well. I hope we don’t get hung up over the use of one word or not.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  3. 3.

    Sebastian

    My (completely unrealistic) dream is to stick it to Turkey by recognizing an independent Kurdistan (and arm them to the teeth)

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Know someone (fully vaccinated) who has scheduled a trip to Turkey in early May. Could now be a tense visit.

  5. 5.

    Kent

    Boss move by Biden.

    Turkey needs the west a lot more than the west needs Turkey

    Sucking up to authoritarians never works.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    Speaking of bad actors screaming, Reuters:

    President Joe Biden will roll out a plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, including the largest-ever increase in levies on investment gains, to fund about $1 trillion in childcare, universal pre-kindergarten education and paid leave for workers, sources familiar with the proposal said.

    The plan is part of the White House’s push for a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax system to make rich people and big companies pay more and help foot the bill for Biden’s ambitious economic agenda. The proposal calls for increasing the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, the sources said this week. It would also nearly double taxes on capital gains to 39.6% for people earning more than $1 million.

    That would be the highest tax rate on investment gains, which are mostly paid by the wealthiest Americans, since the 1920s. The rate has not exceeded 33.8% in the post-World War Two era.

    […]

    There’s the Inner FDR I’ve been hoping for. ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    Mathguy

    The ferocity of the denial of the genocide by Turkey is amazing thing to see. I belong to several oriental rug groups on the book of faces that have many Armenian and Turkish members, and nothing is as sure to set them off as the topic of the genocide.

  8. 8.

    guachi

    I approve of calling it genocide. I also approve of taxing capital gains equal to regular income.

  12. 12.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Turkish officials have been bracing for the genocide declaration ever since Biden committed to it during his presidential campaign, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned earlier this week that it would set back the already strained relationship between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

    “Statements that have no legal binding will have no benefit, but they will harm ties,” Cavusoglu said in an interview with the Turkish broadcaster Haberturk. “If the United States wants to worsen ties, the decision is theirs.”

    Why should they “harm ties” if they’re true? Why can’t you and the Turkish government admit fault and apologize like adults?

  13. 13.

    randy khan

    I think it makes perfect sense for Biden to talk to Erdogan after making a statement on the genocide.  It’s a message that the U.S. isn’t going to be so admiring of strong men and the things they want, not to mention that it might be a signal about treatment of the Kurds as well.

  15. 15.

    Yutsano

    Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu warned earlier this week that it would set back the already strained relationship between the two North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies.

    Dear Melvut: who do you think NATO is going to side with? A founding member or the growing dictatorship who is actively threatening another active active member (Greece) over oil rights? Protip: in this instance the one with the most guns will win. Better just suck this one up and learn to deal with.

    Oh and pony up when Armenia sues you for reparations.

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    @randy khan: +1

    Erdogan has been trying to exert his influence in lots of areas (Libya, Iraq, the Aegean).  Turkey is close to Ukraine, where Putin has been trying to create mischief.  There’s a lot to talk about, and it’s better to do so before the next crisis develops.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  17. 17.

    Ruckus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
    Your question is logical and therefore not a viable question between many nations.
    Also, who said they were adults? Is it just because of their age? Because I’ve know a lot of people well into their senior years who would never pass any realistic test to be considered adults. Hell we just had a president with the maturity of a 4 yr old spoiled brat.

  18. 18.

    Cameron

    I assume the President will further show America’s commitment to human rights by denouncing the genocide of Africans by Belgium under King Leopold.  Or is there some reason why that shouldn’t happen?

  21. 21.

    persistentillusion

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My grandmother’s BFF was Armenian.  I grew up on the stories of the genocide.  She smiles down from Heaven (or wherever Armenians go) to know that this is finally, finally being acknowledged.

  22. 22.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @piratedan:

    Everybody has skeletons in their closet. It doesn’t matter who they are. Just because the US government hasn’t done the right thing yet on that particular subject, doesn’t make it alright that Turkey hasn’t owned up to their atrocities yet

  23. 23.

    MoCaAce

    @Ruckus: Hell we just had a president with the maturity of a 4 yr old spoiled brat.

    Whoa, whoa, whoa there… my grandson is a four year old spoiled brat and he is more mature, smarter, and infinitely more empathetic than that orange shit stain.

  24. 24.

    Martin

    @Another Scott: Oh, thank god. There is no universe in which cap gains should be taxed at a lower rate than income, and I say that as someone who makes a lot more money off of cap gains than income.

  25. 25.

    Gvg

    @Cameron: I am pretty sure that was denounced pretty often and so it’s old news. Also there is no resistance to anyone denouncing it and we all know about it. It’s taught in history books as the worst example of colonial misrule.

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