Pelosi’s Turkey misadventure

I’ve seen a lot written about the Congressional Democrats odd ‘urgency’ to pass a non-binding resolution declaring that the massacre that happened 90 years ago against Armenians by Turkey is genocide, but nothing gets to the heart of the matter like this piece written by Jed Babbin, where he discusses what’s at stake – and the real reasons behind the Dem push for this resolution:

Congressional Democrats anxious to force a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq are frustrated by their inability to muster a veto-proof majority for legislation that would establish a firm date for retreat. But what they cannot do directly they are now working hard to do indirectly.

According to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey is the transshipment point for about 70% of all air cargo (including 33% of the fuel) going to supply US forces in Iraq. Included are about 95% of the new “MRAP” — mine-resistant, ambush-protected — vehicles designed to save the lives of American troops. Turkey wasn’t always this helpful. In 2003, the Turks refused permission for the 4th Infantry Division to enter Iraq through Turkey.

Turkey’s Erdogan government has indicated that if the House of Representatives takes action on a non-binding resolution being pushed by Speaker Pelosi, Turkey might revoke our ability to use Incirlik as a waypoint for Iraq supplies.

[…]

On October 11, Pelosi said, “While that may have been a long time ago, genocide is taking place now in Darfur, it did within recent memory in Rwanda, so as long as there is genocide there is need to speak out against it.”

But the resolution is gratuitous and Democrats’ timing suspicious. It’s gratuitous because, in 1981, President Reagan referred to the Armenian massacre as genocide in a proclamation commemorating the Nazi Holocaust.

Why, if Pelosi is so committed to ending genocide, aren’t she and Senate Democrat leaders doing something about the ongoing genocide in Darfur or the massacres of protesters in Burma?

Speaker Pelosi said, “This isn’t about the Erdogan government. This is about the Ottoman Empire.” Baloney.

The Democrat leadership could write and pass legislation insisting the UN intervene to save the living instead of using the memory of the dead to score political points. In neither case should we intervene militarily. But the lack of concern for ongoing mass murder proves the Democrats’ only purpose is to enrage the Turkish government and end their cooperation on Iraq.

Read the whole thing.

For anyone out there who had any lingering doubts, I think the push for this resolution proves beyond a shadow of a doubt where the sympathies of Democrats in Congress are, and it’s not with our troops, nor the mission to win in Iraq, and instead is – as we’ve seen so many times before – an attempt to force us into withdrawal from Iraq, because defeat there would be a defeat for the President not just on the battlefield, but politically, which is the first and foremost consideration Democrats have when it comes to matters related to the war in Iraq. Their strategy is that the worse they can make the President look, the worse (via extension) Republicans running for re-election will look in the eyes of the American people. This in spite of the positive news reports that we’ve read/seen/heard about since the surge strategy was put into place earlier this year.

Victory in Iraq is not even on the radar to these people. America’s reputation in the world is meaningless to them. It’s all about shoring up support from their far left base, and having other voters lose so much confidence in the Repubilcans’ ability to fight the war on terror that naturally, they would turn to Democrats.

Gary Gross is fired up as we all should be over this issue, and has more.