The One With Aldacron

Since coming to power in the last elections, the Democrats in Congress have demonstrated a severe lack in ability to achieve anything meaningful, while displaying a keen skill in wasting time. One example of meaningless time wasting was the condemnation of MoveOn.org last month. Aside from gratifying the self-righteous egos of those who voted for it, the vote did little else than to make them all look like fools. Now, we’re getting more of the same.

The House is soon to take up a resolution branding the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 as genocide. My first thought upon hearing of this last week was, how on earth does this sort of nonbinding resolution benefit America? It seems Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos has the answer:

“One of the problems we have diplomatically globally is that we have lost our moral authority which we used to have in great abundance,” Lantos said. “People around the globe who are familiar with these events will appreciate the fact that the United States is speaking out against a historic injustice. This would be like sweeping slavery under the rug and saying slavery never occurred.”

So I get three things from this: people around the world will be appreciative, it will restore our moral authority, and anything that Congress doesn’t pass a resolution on never actually occurred. If he really believes all of that, this guy is as delusional as a Republican.

If Congress really wants to restore America’s moral authority, there are several ways to go about it that don’t involve voting on meaningless, nonbinding resolutions. For starters, they could impeach Bush and Cheney for the high crimes and misdemeanors they have committed, thereby removing the two biggest obstacles to moral authority in this country. Then they could work to reverse the expansion of executive power and restore the rights the Decider and his group of thugs have trampled all over. They could redefine torture to its original definition and put a stop to the policy of torturing people. They could do something about the prisoners languishing in Gitmo and wherever else the Decider has them stashed away. They could bring our troops home and get down to the business of fighting and killing terrorists, rather than occupying a sovereign nation, killing civilians and stoking the flames of a civil war that we enabled.

Yes, there’s a lot we can do to restore our moral authority, Congressman Lantos. But passage of this silly resolution is not one of them. If it were the current Turkish administration who had killed all of those people, you might have a point. But it happened almost a century ago. The people who committed the atrocities are all gone. The Ottoman Empire is extinct. Modern Turkey had nothing to do with it. Can you not just leave it to the history books to declare it a genocide? I mean, why stop with the Ottoman Turks? Why not declare the Crusades all acts of genocide? The siege of Jersulem alone, in 1099, resulted in the massacre of 40,000 people. In 1191, after King Richard the Lion Heart captured Acre he ordered the execution of 3,000 captives, including women and children. The same principles apply, all of the people who committed the atrocities are long gone, and no modern government had anything to do with it.

Unfortunately, aside from being a colossal waste of time, the passage of this bill will likely have a negative impact on our relations with Turkey. There’s something to be said there as well. Does it really matter what the United States Congress says about something that happened a century ago? Do you really want to behave like a pouting little two-year-old? Why not just call the resolution what it really is, a meaningless waste of time, and move on?

Maybe some of the Democrats believe that any negative reaction by Turkey will help end the war. Maybe they truly believe such a resolution has some sort of real meaning. Maybe they’ve been fooling us this whole time and they’re actually just as dense as their Republican colleagues. Whatever the case, this sort of ridiculous time wasting is not what they were elected to accomplish.

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