Friday, October 12, 2007

Social Issue: Armenian Geonocide

I didn't realize this Armenian Geonocide issue was a big deal until I started hearing about it everywhere (NPR, NYT). From what I understand, we (the US of A) had a House vote classifiying the killings of 1.5 Armenians in WWI, by the Ottoman Empire as geonocide. Turkey, (which used to be the Ottoman Empire) is argry with the US over this and is threatening to withdraw its militay support for the Iraq war.
Does this make any sense? We're arguing over something that happened almost 100 years ago. How many people alive during WWI are still alive today and how many even remember the Armenian geonocide? Why are we voting about what to classify this event as genocide? Does is matter? Call it ethnic cleansing if you want. It was a terrible event no matter what you call it? Don't we as a country have anything else to worry about that rewriting a nation's history for it?

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