After unsuccessful attempts to persuade Congress that reaffirming the Armenian Genocide is not in the interest of America’s national interests, the Bush administration seems to have realized that the realpolitik of yesterday is not necessarily the realpolitk of today. The American military is looking for alternative airspace for the war in Iraq in case Turkey cuts access (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/12/us.turkey/?iref=mpstoryview).

Remember how ADL chief Foxman changed his long stance on denying the Armenian Genocide couple of months ago? It seems the Bush administration is not too far from a similar action. At least it is playing more real in the realpolitik sphere today than couple of days ago.

There is so much air for space – that’s the realpolitik of today and tomorrow.

And we do give standing ovation to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6992435,00.html)

So today I finally decided to save the number of the place where I have my hair cut, but instead of saving it in my Sprint phone I accidently sent a message to the landline number (and cursed myself for wasting $0.15).

In couple of seconds I got a text message from 8353 saying, “Your message was addressed to a landline…”

I was quite confused, and got even more confused when I saw the name of the hair place in that text message.

When I got home, I texted my landline (wasting another $0.15). I got an automated call in a few seconds on my landline saying that I had a message from a Sprint PCS customer (it also said my cell phone number).  After I pushed 1 to listen to the message, I had fun listening to how the machine butchered the Armenian word “barev” meaning hello.

I am really surprised that you can text landlines. Am I really behind in the techno world or is this something new?

If you live in the United States and have been wasting a fortune on 411 directory calls, it is time to say good bye to the charges.

Google has introduced a free directory service, 1-800-Goog-411. I guess the only minus is that Google’s service employs no human operators for back up, but I tried it a minute ago after learning about it from my brother and it works great.

So stop wasting money on 411. Dial 1-800-4664-411 instead. Goo Google!

By Prof. Fatma Muge Gocek, Published by permission

Sociologists look for patterns in social behavior.  The pattern I observe in the recent Turkish court decision convicting Serkis Seropyan and Arat Dink, the owners of the Agos newspaper, to one year imprisonment in accordance with the infamous Penal Code 301, for publishing an interview with Hrant Dink where he discussed the Armenian Genocide, is one of blatant discrimination based on prejudice.  Just as it had been in the previous lawsuit and subsequent sentencing against Hrant Dink.  I think this lawsuit has been brought against Seropyan and Arat Dink and they have been subsequently sentenced — just as the lawsuit previously brought against Hrant Dink leading to his sentencing — because they are Armenians.  That is, because they are minorities in Turkey.

Why do I think so?  Because the interview that Hrant Dink had given and Agos printed , the one that formed the legal grounds of the decision against Seropyan and Arat Dink, was also printed in all other Turkish media outlets.  Yet those outlets were not targeted by either Turkish public prosecutors or by Turkish courts.  As a consequence, those other Turkish newspapers and journalists will therefore not be targeted or gagged the way Seropyan and Arat Dink now are and will be in the future.

Previously, in the Hrant Dink case, while there had been many of us who had been talking critically about the Turkish past in general and 1915 in particular, only he from among us was singled out and targeted by the Turkish public prosecutor and then by the Turkish court because he was an Armenian.  He was a minority member in Turkey.  We did not go through that entire legal process culminating in the delivery of a sentence.  I think we did not because we were ethnic Turks, and educated white Turks to boot.  While some of us stood there watching, while some of us tried to help Hrant Dink by conducting signature campaigns aimed at Turkish state officials foolishly thinking it would make a difference, he went through a grueling trial process, was found guilty, and sentenced. 

Hrant Dink was sentenced on what I consider to be trumped-up charges, after an intentional, willful misreading and misinterpretation of what he had written.  I would contend that not only had Hrant Dink not ‘insulted Turkishness’ in what he had written, but that anybody holding a college degree ought to have had the knowledge, intelligence or capacity to have recognized that.  Hence, in my opinion, it was a travesty of justice that a group who had the alacrity to call themselves ‘deliverers of justice’ reached what I view as a shameful, illegal decision based on untruth and prejudice.  In my mind’s eye, I shall always continue to see that group as ‘deliverers of death’ because I think it was as a consequence of the process they set in motion, the process they sanctified with their legal decision that Hrant Dink was assassinated. 

Until that decision to sentence Dink was reached in Turkey, I had thought legal systems were instituted to protect individuals.  Yet the Hrant Dink decision taught me that the Turkish legal system can also set individuals, especially minority members, up for destruction by placing them as offers upon the altar of ethnic nationalism: it would then quietly withdraw and watch some people gather ‘in the name of the majority.’  These would chant ignorant songs of unity, thus feeling superior against the unprotected.  And they certainly did.  Yes, some also stood against them and protested, but they were so few in comparison…

Now, today, when there had been many Turkish newspapers that had also published or referred to the interview Hrant Dink had given, once again it was only the Agos newspaper among them that was singled out and targeted by the Turkish public prosecutor and then by the Turkish court in exactly the same manner as Hrant Dink had once been because, once again, the people involved were Armenians.  The rest were not because they were ethnic Turks.  And, once again, all the other newspapers were all owned by white Turks.  Once again, Seropyan and Arat Dink are minority members in Turkey and I think that is why they alone have been convicted.

What are we going to do now?  Are we going to stand and watch?  Or are we going to conduct media and signature campaigns that will lead us who knows where? 

At this point, I am certain of only one thing: I am sickened at the possibility of the pattern of death repeating itself.  I am also sickened by the timing of the Turkish court decision regarding Seropyan and Arat Dink, given the Genocide Bill that has just passed in the U.S. and given how the Turkish media, society and state are now reacting to it — as always, emotionally and, due to lack of knowledge about the past, with vengeance.  I personally think this conviction date was intentionally chosen by the Turkish court to intersect with the U.S. Bill to further foster and justify Turkish ethnic nationalism, and that intentionality further sickens me.

What to do?  I look back at those signature campaigns we conducted for Hrant Dink thinking it would make a difference, thinking it would protect him…  After all, all of us who signed those pleas of protection — at least I personally — believed that there was a state in Turkey that somehow, somewhat upheld the delivery of justice and the protection of the rights of all of its citizens among its fundamental principles, that is, it at least aspired toward such principles, even if it could not reach them.  What on earth was I thinking, given how the Hrant Dink trial is going at the moment, given how all attempts of Hrant Dink’s lawyers to investigate and uncover the real instigators and culprits behind his assassination that reach deep into the Turkish state and the military are being stonewalled!  How could I have been so delusional!  There is only one thing I can think of doing at this moment: if those Turkish officials who once received our signatures and pleas about protecting Hrant Dink did nothing back then, if they just put them aside, did not act upon or investigate them, I now condemn each and every one of those Turkish officials.  For in collecting those signatures, we might have deluded ourselves in relation to what the Turkish state might have been capable of, but at least our intentions were good.  Yet those Turkish officials who, in relation to the assassination of Hrant Dink, did not uphold the delivery of justice and the protection of all of its citizens as the fundamental principles of the Turkish state back then and who still do not uphold them today by enabling a full, open and transparent investigation fully, I condemn each and every one of them.  I do so because I find their intentions foul, and their behavior complicitous; I think those particular officials uphold and foster an alternate vision of the Turkish state that is no different, in my view, from the state that once condemned hundreds of thousands of its subjects to death by deportation.  

I also condemn the naturalized prejudice and the subsequent discrimination that still perseveres in Turkish society today, as it has ultimately led to the targeting of minorities in this manner.  And I also condemn the falsified Turkish Republican history taught in school textbooks that has erased all the violence the Turkish state once committed in the past.  Not only has that violence created the category of minorities in our society to start with, thereby fostering all this prejudice and discrimination against them, but it has also been exploited by the same Turkish state and especially by segments of the Turkish military to create an ethnic Turkish identity, an identity which was then periodically mobilized against the minorities both to replenish that hallowed ethnic unity and also to sustain the political status quo.

As I see the same pattern that eventually led to Hrant Dink’s assassination unfolding right in front of my eyes in this case, that is, in the case of Serkis Seropyan who happens to be a very dear friend of mine and of Arat Dink who I regard as a very precious gift entrusted to us all for safekeeping by his slain father whom we obviously were not able to protect, I end up with a final condemnation.  I condemn and curse myself for my own present state of helplessness.

Fatma Muge Gocek

University of Michigan

Mark Elrod has an interesting entry on the Armenian Genocide bill:

[…]  

If you’ve ever wondered if the Bush administration’s foreign policy is driven by realpolitik rather than a genuine interest in human rights of their citizens, consider the question, “When is a genocide not really a genocide?”

• When it happened ninety years ago.
• When it happened to a group of people that most Americans have never heard of.
• When those same people have no tangible assets or raw materials that effect our economic interests.
• When the perpetrators are an important ally.
• When you can call it something else and get away with it.

Visualize history:

Map of what is now Turkey showing areas inhabited by Armenians in 1915. Turkey has condemned a vote by a US House of Representatives committee branding the World War I Armenian Genocide as such and urged them not to take it to a full vote.(AFP Graphic)

In the wave of the news of the acceptance of House Resolution 106 in the Foreign Affairs Committee, Arat Dink’s conviction by a Turkish court this morning seems to have been lost and ignored. Yet Associted Press has an article on the subject.

ISTANBUL, Turkey: The son of a journalist killed earlier this year after calling the massacre of Armenians genocide was convicted Thursday of insulting Turkey’s identity for republishing his father’s remarks.

Arat Dink, editor of the Armenian newspaper Agos, and publisher Serkis Seropyan each received a one-year suspended sentence for “insulting Turkishness,” said their lawyer, Erdal Dogan. He said they would appeal the sentences.

Dink is the son of ethnic Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who was convicted of the same charge for calling the killing of Armenians during World War I genocide. He had appealed the conviction when he was killed by a Turkish youth in January.

The massacre of Armenians is one of the darkest periods in Turkish history. Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed in 1915-17 during the Ottoman Empire, before the birth of modern Turkey.

Turkey rejects the label “genocide,” maintaining that the death toll is inflated and insisting the killings occurred at a time of civil unrest.

The verdict for Dink and Seropyan came a day after legislators in the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a nonbinding bill that declares the Armenian killings genocide — over Turkey’s objections.

“The discriminatory mentality which turned intolerance into a state tradition has yet again declared criticism and expression of opinion an insult to Turkishness and a crime,” the rights group Human Rights Associated said in a statement.

The European Union has pressured Turkey, which aspires to join the 27-nation bloc, to scrap the controversial law on “insulting Turkishness,” saying it restricts freedom of speech.

Some Turkish leaders, including President Abdullah Gul, also believe the law has harmed Turkey’s EU bid.

House Resolution 106, formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide as such, passed a minute ago in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. Congress.

26 27 voted in favor, 21 voted against.

In his opening statement, Committee chair Tom Lantos said,

Today we are not considering whether the Armenian people were persecuted and died in huge numbers at the hands of Ottoman troops in the early 20th Century. There is unanimity in the Congress and across the country that these atrocities took place. If the resolution before us stated that fact alone, it would pass unanimously.

The controversy lies in whether to make it United States policy at this moment in history to apply a single word – genocide – to encompass this enormous blot on human history.

The United Nations Convention on Genocide defines the term as a number of actions, and I quote, “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” These actions include killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part.

Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time of the atrocities, wrote — and I am quoting — “I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared with the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.”

The leadership of the United States has been in universal agreement in condemning the atrocities but has been divided about using the term “genocide.”

On one occasion, President Ronald Reagan referred to, I quote, “the genocide of the Armenians.”

But subsequent Presidents — George Herbert Walker Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, have refrained from using the word out of deference to Turkish sentiments on the matter.

In recognizing this tragedy, some in Congress have seen common themes with the debate our committee held earlier this year on a resolution about another historic injustice – the tens of thousands of so-called “Comfort Women” forced into sexual slavery by Imperial Japan. The current Japanese government went to great length to attempt to prevent debate on that matter, and dire predictions were made that passage of such a resolution would harm U.S.-Japan relations. Those dire consequences never materialized.

A key feature distinguishing today’s debate from the one on the “Comfort Women” resolution is that U.S. troops are currently engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops depend on a major Turkish airbase for access to the fighting fronts, and it serves as a critical part of the supply lines to those fronts. A growing majority in Congress, and I am among them, strongly oppose continued U.S. troop involvement in the civil war in Iraq, but none of us wants to see those supply lines threatened or abruptly cut.

All eight living former secretaries of state recently cautioned Congress on this matter. And I quote, “It is our view,” write former Secretaries Albright, Baker, Christopher, Eagleburger, Haig, Kissinger, Powell and Shultz, “that passage of this resolution … could endanger our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and damage efforts to promote reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey.”

Three former secretaries of defense – Carlucci, Cohen and Perry – this week advised Congress that passage of this resolution, and I quote again, “would have a direct, detrimental effect on the operational capabilities, safety and well being of our armed forces in Iraq and in Afghanistan.”

Members of this committee have a sobering choice to make. We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people and to condemn this historic nightmare through the use of the word “genocide” against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price than they are currently paying. This is a vote of conscience, and the Committee will work its will.

The Chairman, who voted yes on the resolution, also said the next markup would be a resolution introduced by him reaffirming Turkey’s and America’s friendship.

If I read the website of the U.S. House of Representative Committee on Foreign Affairs correctly, the Armenian Genocide bill has been removed from tomorrow’s schedule. Here is the announcement as of [this second] – 8:27 p.m. on Tuesday, October 8, 2007, Eastern Time US:

This was a reference to a PKK-related resolution that was removed from consideration. The Armenian Genocide resolution is on.

Full Committee

Tom Lantos (D-CA), Chairman

You are respectfully requested to attend the following OPEN hearing of the Full Committee, to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building .

Date:

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Time:

1:30 PM

Markup Of:

H. Res. 106, Calling upon the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide, and for other purposes.

**NOTE: Measure has been removed.

An article in the Congressional Quarterly on the Armenian Genocide legislation and the issue of former Congress members becoming foreign agents gives interesting insights into the heavy lobbying effort by Turkey to stop the passage of House Resolution 106.

CQ TODAY
Oct. 5, 2007 – 7:55 p.m.

Turkey Hires Familiar Faces for Genocide Debate

By Alan K. Ota, CQ Staff

In 2003, Richard A. Gephardt cosponsored a resolution that put the “Armenian genocide” in company with the Holocaust and mass deaths in Cambodia and Rwanda.

In 2000, the Missouri lawmaker backed a similar measure, and in a letter to then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Gephardt said he was “committed to obtaining official U.S. government recognition of the Armenian genocide.”

Now Gephardt is a foreign agent lobbying on behalf of Turkey, and he’s got a different view of the world. He’s working to stymie the latest version of an Armenian genocide resolution.

If the resolution (H Res 106) gets through committee this week, it will bring a billing bonanza for lobbyists working against it — including Gephardt, who represents one of the newest additions to a small group of former lawmakers who serve as the American face of foreign countries on Capitol Hill.

The Armenian resolution is popular — with 226 co-sponsors — but problematic, given that Turkey is an important Muslim ally in a strategically vital part of the world.

The events at issue occurred nearly a century ago in what was then the Ottoman Empire, but Turkey is still sensitive to characterizations of the killings.

Gephardt, responding via e-mail to written questions, confirmed that he had escorted Turkish Ambassador Nabi Sensoy to meetings with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders.

Gephardt (1977-2005) acknowledged that he had in the past actively supported efforts to label activities of the Ottoman Empire as genocide. But “alienating Turkey through the passage of the resolution could undermine our efforts to promote stability in the theater of operations, if not exacerbate the situation further,” he said.

Pelosi, D-Calif., declined to comment on any private talks about Turkey, saying only that she would welcome talks on the measure and other issues with Gephardt, who preceded her as House Democratic leader. “I have the highest regard for Dick Gephardt. Any advice he has on any subject is indeed welcome by me,” she said.

Pelosi’s open door for Gephardt demonstrates the muscle former lawmakers can provide for clients by snagging meetings and conversations with the most powerful members of Congress. As with all other kinds of lobbying, they can’t assure success but they can give client countries access they might not otherwise have to the legislative branch.

When Republicans controlled Congress, they often blocked measures, such as the Armenian resolution, that could embarrass allies and the Bush administration.

In the 110th Congress, foreign countries have had mixed success trying to slow or water down such measures.

Despite the help of prominent lobbyists, such as former House Minority Leader Bob Michel, R-Ill. (1957-1995), Japan lost a battle in July when the House passed a resolution (H Res 121) urging it to apologize for using sex slaves, or comfort women, in World War II.

Working with lobbyists associated with DLA Piper, the firm where Gephardt is a senior counsel, Ethiopia got plenty of support from the White House. But the country failed to delay House action on a plan (HR 2003) by Donald M. Payne, D-N.J., to limit security assistance unless it moves to release political prisoners and protect human rights.

Gephardt said he had met with Ethiopian representatives but elected not to work for Ethiopia.

However, Gephardt has been active on behalf of Turkey, which has long insisted that Armenians died not from genocide, but in conflicts tied to World War I — including an uprising against Turkey’s Ottoman rulers.

Also representing Turkey is former Rep. Robert L. Livingston, R-La. (1977-1999).

Another former congressman, Stephen J. Solarz, D-N.Y. (1975-1993), worked for Turkey until August.

The Foreign Affairs Committee plans to take up the Armenian genocide resolution on Wednesday, and Payne and other members predict it will have broad bipartisan support on the panel.

Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., said a House vote on the Armenian genocide resolution has not been scheduled, but he believes it will happen this year. “It’s my expectation we will have a floor vote before we leave here in November,” Hoyer said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., backs a companion measure (S Res 106), but it has less momentum: just 32 co-sponsors.

Tougher Limits Sought

Critics argue that former lawmakers give foreign countries too much power inside the Capitol and are calling for tougher restrictions and revolving-door limits.

For example, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, has called for a lifetime ban (HR 168) to prevent lawmakers and senior government officials from becoming foreign agents.

“Public confidence in government is shaken when they see high-level officials and lawmakers going to work for foreign countries,” she said.

In response to such critiques, Gephardt and other foreign agents contend they seek to merely ensure a vigorous debate, not special favors for foreign countries.

“The better informed members are about all aspects of a particular issue, the more likely Congress comes to the proper course of action,” Gephardt said.

He said he serves dual roles in “private conversations with former colleagues and meetings where I accompany the client.”

Livingston describes the role of foreign agents as calming what can be emotional fights. “It’s more intense than lobbying,” he said.

Working in tandem with the Bush administration, Gephardt, Livingston and, for a time, Solarz tapped their personal contacts to try to block the Armenian genocide resolution.

Last Dec. 19, Solarz sent a letter to Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., inviting him to lead a congressional delegation to Turkey and to visit Solarz’ home on its Mediterranean coast.

“You and other members of the delegation would be more than welcome to spend the evening and the next day with us,” Solarz wrote. “If not, I’ll still love you, but I’ll need to find someone else to do it.”

Wexler, who never made the trip to visit Solarz in Turkey, is not expected to support the resolution.

Turkey hired DLA Piper on May 10. Gephardt registered the next day to represent the country.

The firm has since circulated a package of materials to lawmakers that lays out Turkey’s case for foreign aid and its argument against the Armenian genocide resolution.

Lawmakers in both parties have long catered to the interests of Americans of Armenian descent, a small but vocal group. The Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues has about 120 members, while the Congressional Turkey Caucus is roughly half as large.

In 2000, Livingston and other advocates for Turkey won a victory when President Clinton urged Hastert to back away from a planned floor vote on an Armenian genocide resolution. “It wasn’t just Clinton. It was us working it hard,” Livingston said. “The Speaker changed his mind.”

Hoping for a similar reversal by Pelosi, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have sent letters laying out the reasons they think the resolution would “significantly endanger U.S. national security interests.”

In the coming week, the lobbying focus will be on the Foreign Affairs Committee, where 22 of the 50 members are cosponsors, but some may be amenable to making word changes in the name of U.S-Turkish relations.

After that, the lobbying goes behind the scenes, and it will be up to Pelosi whether and when to allow a House floor fight.

U.S. Congress’ House Resolution 106 is “so-called,” the title of an article in Turkey’s nationalist Sabah newspaper suggests.

The article, “Six reprisals for the so-called bill,” states the possible “sanctions” that Turkey’s prime minister will advise about to U.S. officials next month in response to the growing probability of the Armenian Genocide being reaffirmed as such in a Congress resolution.