Obama Breaks Promise to Armenians
Barack Obama was unequivocal during the campaign: As president, he would recognize the nearly century-old massacre of Armenians in Turkey as genocide.
In breaking that promise Friday, the president did the same diplomatic tiptoeing he criticized the Bush administration for doing.
Like George W. Bush before him, Obama did not want to alienate vital ally Turkey by declaring the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians to be genocide — especially with Turkey and Armenia now exploring reconciliation.
Instead, he said he had not changed his view from the campaign, even as he declined to state it, and added: “My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just acknowledgment of the facts.”
In a statement on the anniversary of the start of the killings in 1915 — a day when U.S. presidents typically honor the Armenian victims — Obama said: “Each year, we pause to remember the 1.5 million Armenians who were subsequently massacred or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire.”
The statement was less than the full and frank acknowledgment he promised Jan. 19, 2008, when he vowed that as president, “I will recognize the Armenian Genocide,” and repeatedly used the word.
The only president to fully recognize the first genocide of the 20th century has been Ronald Reagan.
In a proclamation on April 22, 1981, Reagan stated,
“Like the genocide of the Armenians before it, and the genocide of the Cambodians which followed it – and like too many other such persecutions of too many other peoples – the lessons of the Holocaust must never be forgotten.”
Obama has become just the typical politician, playing to his own special interests and trying not to offend anyone in the name of political correctness and political expediency. But as we have begun to see, he is actually offending a greater number of people as his term rolls on.
An excerpt from that 2008 campaign statement, one of several he released on the subject:
“I also share with Armenian Americans — so many of whom are descended from genocide survivors — a principled commitment to commemorating and ending genocide. That starts with acknowledging the tragic instances of genocide in world history. As a U.S. Senator, I have stood with the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide.
“Two years ago, I criticized the Secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term ‘genocide’ to describe Turkey’s slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with Secretary (Condoleezza) Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence. The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy.
“As a senator, I strongly support passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H.Res.106 and S.Res.106), and as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.”
Typical, just another broken campaign promise that many fell hook, line, and sinker for. Just like those kids who ran for class president in high school ~ I’m still waiting for chocolate milk to replace water in the fountains…
President Sarkozy of France Calls Obama Weak and Overrated
America – are you listening? Who ever though I would agree with a Frenchman?
Mr Sarkozy is pouring cold water on President Obama’s efforts to recast American leadership on the world stage, depicting them as unoriginal, unsubstantial and overrated.
The American President’s call “to free the world of the menace of a nuclear nightmare” was hot air, Mr Sarkozy’s diplomatic staff told him in a report. “It was rhetoric – not a speech on American security policy but an export model aimed at improving the image of the United States,” they said. Most of Mr Obama’s proposals had already been made by the Bush administration and Washington was dragging its feet on disarmament and treaties against nuclear proliferation, the leaked report said.
Personal pique and French politics are also behind the souring of Mr Sarkozy’s self-promoted honeymoon with the United States. On the personal side, the French President is needled by the adulation for an unproven US leader whose stardom has eclipsed what he sees as his established record as a world troubleshooter. “The President is annoyed by what he sees as the naivety and the herd mentality of the media,” said a journalist who is privy to Elysée thinking.
Mr Obama’s favour for Ankara has irked but also helped Mr Sarkozy as his Union for a Popular Movement campaigns for European Parliament elections in June. Mr Sarkozy slapped down the US President on French TV after he publicly called for Turkish entry to the European Union.
Permanent refusal of Turkish membership is one of Mr Sarkozy’s policy planks and one of his most popular with voters. Mr Obama’s venture into EU affairs has enabled Mr Sarkozy to make political capital. He has shown that France can still stand up to the United States despite rejoining the Nato command last week.
Looks like Obama is a Bush retread mixed with a Clinton retread and just politics as usual on the national and international stage. That kool-aid must have been delicious for those sheeple thinking they would get change. The only change that is coming is moving further over to the left by expanding the government, spending more, and not defending ourselves in a time of major global volatility. If the French get that Obama is all talk and no substance why can’t the left?
Turkey Mocks Obama in Black-Face
This is all in Turkish, so unfortunately I don’t have a translation to know exactly what he is saying…
Obama Pushes for Turkey’s Acceptance to the EU
Obama’s last stop on his European tour was to Turkey. During his brief stint in the country he gave another campaign/stump speech and pushed for Turkey’s acceptance into the European Union.
Some of Obama’s quotes:
“Let me say this as clearly as I can,” Obama said. “The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. In fact, our partnership with the Muslim world is critical … in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject.”
Calling for a greater partnership with the Islamic world in an address to the Turkish parliament, Obama called the country an important U.S. ally in many areas, including the fight against terrorism. He devoted much of his speech to urging a greater bond between Americans and Muslims.
I seem to remember that in March 2003, the Turks refused to allow the U.S. Army’s 4th infantry Division to disembark there and attack into Iraq from the north. That decision left Saddam and his cronies an escape route once Baghdad fell, and ultimately cost (at least) hundreds of American lives in the insurgency that broke out later that year.
“We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better, including my own country,” Obama said. (which country? Giggle…)
Al Jazeera and Al Arabiyia, two of the biggest Arabic satellite channels, carried Obama’s speech live.
Upon hearing of Obama’s words, President Sarkozy of France, a long time opponent of Turkey’s acceptance, said “I have always been opposed to this entry and I remain opposed.”
Sarkozy’s love-in with Obama was brief if it was even true to begin with. In layman’s terms he basically told Obama to mind his own business and leave Europe to deal with the European Union.
One of the issues that those in Europe, opposing Turkey’s acceptance, have is that Turkey would become the largest and most populated country in the Union. Their Union acts in much the same way our states do. The more populated the state, the more representatives you can have in Congress. This could mean that Turkey would have more influence over Europe because it would have more MEPs and more power over European decisions and policy-making.
Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, have deep reservations about Turkey’s acceptance. Austria and France are completely and openly against it.
Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan rejected attempts to call Turkey the representative of moderate Islam. “It is unacceptable for us to agree with such a definition. Turkey has never been a country to represent such a concept. Moreover, Islam cannot be classified as moderate or not,”Erdoğan said, speaking at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies last Thursday.
Olli Rehn, the EU Enlargement Commissioner, called last week on Turkey to renew its focus on reforms to meet Union entry criteria for democracy and workers’ rights. “The pace of negotiations depends on the pace and intensity of the reforms in your country,” he said.
The Turkish press said yesterday that the country had secured concessions for dropping its objections to Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Danish Prime Minister, becoming the next Nato Secretary-General.
