Pissing of the World one country at a time

[ckafrica]

Wow. First pissing off Turkey with the Armenian Genocide Bill and now China with Dalai Lama. Is it just me or is the US government trying to piss off the entire world lately?

[CalibronXXX]

What does the Dali Lama even have to do with china? It somehow seems unlikely that the "Armenian Genocide Bill" is the real name of whatever it is you're talking about, please supply me with the real name so I can look it up.

[ckafrica]

Dalai Lama is the religious leader of the once independent religious state of Tibet that has been under control of China since the 50s. As he represents an independence movement for Tibet giving him the Congressional gold medal and having a face to face with the President is going to get on the Chinese's tits.

As usual reporters can't keep what they call things straight some call it a measure or bill and none are providing the exact name of the legislation

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/0710 ... ]Basically the house is calling for a resolution to define the Turkish treatment of Armenians as a genocide which is obviously not making the Turks too happy and considering they are an ally in this whole Iraq thing (which is also pissing them off because the US is letting the Kurds attack into Turkey) perhaps not the wisest course of action at this juncture.

[Crissa]

If he's going to meet with the Dali Lama he really should have scheduled to meet with Chinese representatives - see, the Dali Lama represents the head of a rebel government, not just a regional religion, to the Chinese.

I'm confused as to the timing of the Ottoman declaration, though. Where'd that come from? Why is it important today? And since it's been started already, ignoring it won't work, so someone really wanted us to do some more toe-kissing to Turkey, which is already strained enough, with us coddling the PPK in Kurdistan.

-Crissa

[CalibronXXX]

Oh right, China owns Tibet, I forgot; my bad.

[cthulhu]

Well china is pissing off america by refusing to let their currency appreciate (a long standing complaint of the US) despite that being 'illegal' if you are a member of the WTO. So hey, swings and round abouts. next the chinese will be off hugging iran.

[MrWaeseL]

To be fair it's Turkey's own damn fault for murdering hundreds of thousands of armenians and then acting all surprised when it gets called a genocide.

[Koumei]

1192619098[/unixtime]]To be fair it's Turkey's own damn fault for murdering hundreds of thousands of armenians and then acting all surprised when it gets called a genocide.

Though I don't know the history of it, I was amused to read an article which basically stated "It has been decided Turkey committed genocide. Turkey got pissed off and said 'did not'."

[PhoneLobster]

Now I know this is a resolution that people have been fighting for since, well, nearly 100 years ago actually.

But really, at some point it is just a bit too late.

[tzor]

The problem is that it is never too late. Heck if the Pope can appologise for the Crusades and the Iquisition after several hundred years then no one has an excuse for things that happened a century or two or even three for that matter.

The Dali Lama is a social fopar more than anything else. China has a way of treating all religions like political units and has a tradition of state run Churches. The head of the Roman Catholic Church (aka the Pope) has been playing a political game with China between it's illegal church and the state run Catholic Church for decades now.

Of course this oddly enough ties in with Turkey whose secular goverment virtually has the Patriarch of Constantinople in a state of virtual siege.

In the secular Republic of Turkey, tensions are still constant. Turkey requires by law that the patriarch be a Turkish citizen, all of whom have been ethnic Greeks since 1923. The state's expropriation of church property and the closing of the Orthodox Theological School of Halki are also difficulties faced by the Church of Constantinople.

[ckafrica]

While neither China nor Turkey are saints in any fashion (I believe China is more the devil than any other state that the US has demonized) it does not diminish the fact that both are strategic allies of the US who the US needs more right now than either need the US at this moment.

[angelfromanotherpin]

It may well have been a genocide, but Turkey didn't do it. Turkey didn't exist at the time, the region was part of the Ottoman Empire, and didn't achieve independence until years later.

[ckafrica]

1192634783[/unixtime]]It may well have been a genocide, but Turkey didn't do it. Turkey didn't exist at the time, the region was part of the Ottoman Empire, and didn't achieve independence until years later.

Well to say it wasn't turkey it was the Ottoman's is the same as to say it wasn't England who screwed up Burma, it was the British Empire. The two were one and the same people.


Anatolia was invaded in the 9th C from modern Turkmenistan and have been in turkey ever since. Ottoman empire was formed in 13th C when they finish laying the smackdown on the Byzantines and take Constantinople. after WWI The Ottoman Empire was forceably broken apart and divvied up to the Europeans. Kemal Ataturk doesn't like Turkey being chopped and leads a revolt which sees the Republic of Turkey formed in 1923.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Yes, there was a revolutionary war, which led to a change of government, one with a parliament instead of a monarch. That's a new country.

The United States isn't responsible for all the horrible things that were done to the Native Americans prior to its formation. It is responsible for all the horrible things that it did to those peoples afterwards.

Now, it gets more complicated with a treaty that recognized the Republic of Turkey as the official successor to the Ottoman Empire, but which the U.S. did not ratify.

Still, it seems to me that this is like holding Putin's government responsible for the actions of Tsar-era Russia, which is plainly ridiculous.

[tzor]

But no one is holding people responsible are they? I mean it is one thing for George Bush to deny responsibility for the triangle trade of mollasses to rum to slaves, but another thing for George Bush to deny the triangle trade. It's not a question of who is responsible, it is a question of whether it happened in the first place.

[Crissa]

No, really - Turkey hated the Ottoman Empire so much that they tore down the old capital and moved it to the regional capital in the mountains instead.

The Ottoman empire was literally different people, and ruled by religious decree as well as entrenched nobility.

-Crissa

[Neeek]

1192634119[/unixtime]]While neither China nor Turkey are saints in any fashion (I believe China is more the devil than any other state that the US has demonized) it does not diminish the fact that both are strategic allies of the US who the US needs more right now than either need the US at this moment.

China is. Turkey needs the US far more than the US needs Turkey.

See, Turkey has been trying real hard to get into the EU recently, and failing for a number of reasons, one of which is the genocide issue at hand. Now, the EU, though they often think the US is rather barbaric, still generally treat them as a close ally, especially by the UK, one of the strongest EU members. Now, if they want to get into the EU, which they do, helping the US is a good idea. Of course, they'd also have to do a whole bunch of other things, like stop oppressing the Kurds, strong crackdown on honor killings and continue to secularize their government. But contributing to destabilizing the region is not in their best interests at this time.

[tzor]

I have the feeling we will only have increased tensions with that nation in the next few months. Whether or not this will result in Americans celebrating the national holiday next month with "VICTORY BIRDS" remains to be seen.

[cthulhu]

I feel saying china doesn't 'need' the US is a bit of a stretch. The degree of obsessing the entire world is doing about the subprime morgage market and the scale of the fallout -> an issue in the US causes a run on a bank in england shows just how much the adze of 'If te US sneezes the world catches a cold' is pretty true.

but to zoom in on specifics - the US is china's biggest trading partner, and china is also a major importer of US goods too boot. Loss or damage to this key relationship would have an impact on china. And while china's support is desired for action in Burma and North Korea, china needs the US's support not to raked over the coals in the WTO, and to bask in the 2008 olympics.