Turkey: The Latest US Ally to Discover "Treachery, Thy Name is Democrat"

by Mondoreb

What is it about Democrats that makes throwing an American ally under the bus so irresistible to them? It's as if Dems were teen-age boys on a Saturday night and any country supporting the U.S. is a rival standing in their way of the cute girl in the tight sweater.

The latest American interest to be sacrificed on the alter of Democratic special interest group pandering is Turkey. From CNN:

-- Turkey on Thursday recalled its ambassador to the United States and warned of repercussions in a growing dispute over congressional efforts to label the World War I era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces "genocide."

The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs passed the measure 27-21 Wednesday. President Bush and key administration figures lobbied hard against the measure, saying it would create unnecessary headaches for U.S. relations with Turkey.

Turkey -- now a NATO member and a key U.S. ally in the war on terror -- accepts Armenians were killed but call it a massacre during a chaotic time, not an organized campaign of genocide.

Anna explains:
[The House committee] passed a non-binding resolution condemning Turkey for the 1917 massacre of Armenians during World War I. What the resolution fails to acknowledge is the modern country of Turkey is not the same as the Ottoman Turkey country that did carry out the pogrom.

The Democrats wanted to make a statement about the Armenian genocide. But why anger a key U.S. ally over events of 88 years ago? Why now, at this paticular moment? The Turks would like to know too.

But, unlike the House Republicans under Bob Michael, pre-Contract with America, Turkey wasn't timid at tongue-lashing the Party whose symbol is an ass.

"Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball," said Egemen Bagis, foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "I can assure you Turkey knows how to play hardball.

But misery loves company and Turkey wouldn't be lonely. A quick look at the Dem agenda reveals a key component of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi & Company's political agenda is cutting off aid to another country important to American interests: Iraq. Democrats have a knack for, a history of and an uncontrollable urge for leaving countries who depend on the U.S. in the lurch.

Flashback: Viet Nam

From History News Network:
In the fall of 1974, Nixon resigned under the pressure of the Watergate scandal and was succeeded by Gerald Ford. Congress cut funding to South Vietnam for the upcoming fiscal year from a proposed 1.26 billion to 700 million dollars. These two events prompted Hanoi to make an all-out effort to conquer the South. As the North Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary Le Duan observed in December 1974: “The Americans have withdrawn…this is what marks the opportune moment.”

South Vietnam need our promised aid and Democrats voted to kill it. The results were the famous pictures of the last Americans leaving Saigon via helicopters--while another erstwhile America ally stood broken-hearted. The only comfort they get today are Democrat denials that their actions caused any mass killings of South Vietnamese.

And of course, Jimmy Carter--lately in the news for giving advice, historical insights and criticism of all things non-Carter--stepped up to the plate when the Shah of Iran, another solid U.S. ally, was in need of our help. Carter was called out on strikes, looking.

American Thinker explains:

When Carter became President he created a special Office of Human Rights which sent a letter to the Shah of Iran as a "polite reminder" of the importance of political rights and freedom. In response the Shah released over 350 Islamic fundamentalist prisoners who would later play roles in the Islamic Revolution and Iran Hostage crisis. Carter also ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to stop paying religious Mullahs over 4 million dollars in bribes. This monetary support was agreed upon, so the Mullahs would tone down their anti-Shah and anti-Western rhetoric.

Facing an Islamic revolution, the Shah appealed to Carter for help. On November 4, 1978 U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski called the Shah and said the United States would "back him to the hilt." This would never be the case. Brzezinski insisted to Carter that the U.S. must encourage the Shah to "brutally suppress the revolution". State Department officials believed Carter should reach out to the Revolutionaries in order to smooth the transition to a new government. This was a deciding moment in world history. Carter decided not to take either recommendation and to this very day, the world is suffering the consequences of his indecisiveness.

So really, if the Turkish ambassador had been studying his political history of the United States over the last 35 years, this week's action by the Democrat-controlled House committee should have come as no great surprise. He would have realized what history watchers already know: when there's a political calculus to be ciphered, Democrats figure U.S. allies as a zero.

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