Robert Fisk: Bush is a holocaust denier

Robert Fisk, in his latest article for the Independent (UK), claims that President George W Bush’s about-face, on the resolution to declare the 1915 atrocities committed by the Ottoman Turkish authorities on the 1,5-million Christian Armenians an act of genocide, tantamount to holocaust denial.

Fisk even goes further in styling Bush as the David Irving of the White House.

Crisply — the Armenians claim that during the period 1915 to 1918 the Ottoman Turks attended to the systematic deportation and mass slaughter of their people, including the destruction of their economic and cultural infrastructures. Turkey inter alia claims that many Armenians died during the period, but then so did many of its own people as a result of inter-ethnic violence and World War I.

If you have read Fisk for any length of time you’ll be aware that this declaration of Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman empire is high on his list of priorities.

For a brief moment America appeared to be granting him his wish — the US House foreign relations committee voted to condemn the mass slaughter as an act of genocide.

Then Turkey stepped in.

Turkey is a vital to both Nato and the United States regarding not only Iraq, albeit that it is strategic in this conflict, but also the region as a whole.

Enormous pressure was brought to bear on the US, including the threat of invading northern Iraq to destroy PKK “terrorists”, Turkish general staff threatening that close military ties with the US would be in jeopardy, and playing up its potential relations with America’s main rival in the region, Iran.

If one considers the matter purely on logistics, then the troops in Iraq would be under severe pressure as most American air supplies are done through Turkey.

But is expedience or the greater good enough?

Yesterday I highlighted South Africa’s disgusting record of voting on human rights issues at the United Nations. I am singularly unmoved by the reasons that are even now being given to justify the unjustifiable.

For example, to veto a resolution on rape because it appears to condone other forms of rape that have not been included is not only ridiculous, it’s dangerous. If accepted, this creates a precedent to reject any resolution based on the failure to define a criminal act in wider terms.

Do we allow the situations in Sudan and Zimbabwe to continue while politicians and military analysts continue to dance the dance expedience?

As Fisk correctly points out, if Turkey’s strategic importance can occasion Armenian holocaust denial now, what price the same in Europe should Germany emerge as a regional power?

Against that, you must ask yourself: What would happen if Turkey aligned itself with Iran, blocked the US in Iraq and even invaded the Kurdish territories in northern Iraq?

The words “rock and a hard place” suggest themselves.