More Nonsense at Captain's Quarters

Ed Morrissey is at it again over at Captain's Quarters, talking about the Democrats' intention to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide as, well, a genocide. Whether because he realized how stupid his earlier points were, or simply in an attempt to make the Democrats look even worse, Morrissey has decided to grossly distort the issue this time around.

Morrissey claims that the Democrats are inaccurately condemning Turkey for the genocide, since the genocide occurred under the Ottoman Empire, before the formation of the nation of Turkey. He goes on to say that this blaming of Turkey shows "historical illiteracy". First it should be noted that the genocide was carried out mostly by the Young Turks -- the ideological and political predecessors of the Turkish nationalist movement. Even if we assume that the modern state of Turkey had no hand in the genocide, the problem with this claim is that no one is saying that Turkey did anything. The only thing the Democrats are voting on is the recognition of the event as a genocide; Turkey has decided to take offense only because the Turkish government denies that a genocide ever occurred, not because the Democrats are blaming them.

His continued push to suppress this recognition of the genocide, despite his statement that he personally believes that what occurred was a genocide, betrays an exceptionally shallow, cynical political opportunism. It seems Morrissey saw an opportunity to smear Democrats and decided to ignore the moral imperative to recognize the crime that occurred in the genocide. Even if Morrissey was not motivated by a desire to smear Democrats, it is pretty sad that he would choose to silence those seeking to recognize the genocide simply to avoid making Turkey angry. Just as denial of the Holocaust is indefensible under any circumstances, political expediency is no excuse for suppressing the truth of what happened in the Armenian Genocide.

UPDATE: I do realize that in my last post on the topic I said that Turkey was responsible for the genocide. This was somewhat lazy and inaccurate on my part, as Turkey did not exist as an independent nation at the time. What I meant was that the government and people of that same region -- the Ottoman Empire and the Young Turks -- were responsible, but the way I said it was not entirely accurate.

My failure to be more clear, however, does not change the fact that the Democrats' proposed bill does not blame Turkey, but merely recognizes the slaughter as a historical fact and (rightfully) labels it as a genocide. There is nothing in the bill specifically claiming that the Turkish government was responsible, so Morrissey's label of the Democrats as "historically illiterate" is still baseless. While I in no way identify myself with the Democratic party, nor do I support a lot of their ideas, I have no problem recognizing when they do a good thing. If only Morrissey and other pundits like him were capable of similar honesty...