Pelosi's Treasonous Actions Must Be Halted

For all of the guff that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has levied against President George W. Bush for his alleged mismanagement of foreign affairs, maybe it is in fact Nancy Pelosi who needs to take a serious look in the mirror.

Over the past ten months, world leader pretend Pelosi has engaged in a mammoth grandstanding effort to thwart U.S. interests abroad. First, disregarding a State Department request, she visited Syria where her actions could be construed as nothing short of legitimizing the rule of Syrian leader and renowned terror sponsor, Bashar al-Assad, who continues to engage in the systematic murder of pro-Western Lebanese members of parliament while he simultaneously increases his support for Hezbollah.

Next, Pelosi joined forces with the blathering imbecile Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and sent an open letter to the Costa Rican Ambassador to the U.S., F. Tomás Dueñas, just nine days prior to a national referendum, in an effort to quash a free trade agreement with the U.S. Luckily for the U.S., the trade pact narrowly passed in Costa Rica.

Though these two aforementioned instances lead one to question Pelosi’s competency as Speaker of the House and her general understanding of foreign affairs, her latest tussle with the White House over the Armenian genocide resolution has led some, including this blogger, to question her patriotism.

On Oct. 10, H.R. 106, the Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide, introduced by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and strongly supported by Pelosi, was approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, 27 to 21. The resolution, if enacted, would recognize as “genocide” the deaths of more than one million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during and immediately after World War I.

The following day, infuriated by the committee’s actions, Turkey recalled its ambassador to the U.S., and the country’s leader, President Abdullah Gul, publicly denounced the resolution as “‘not [being] worthy of the respect of the Turkish people.’”

Instead of heeding these warning signs and the candid advice of all eight living former secretaries of state, Pelosi decided to further rattle the cage of the Turkish government by stating that the resolution would come up for a vote in the House before Thanksgiving. It was at this point that Pelosi seriously crossed the line and demonstrated the extent to which she will go to sabotage the U.S. war effort in Iraq.

Why? Put simply, H.R. 106 is ill-timed and ill-suited for a country at war. If the measure actually passes the House, Turkey has threatened to cut off our use of Incirlik Air Base in Southern Turkey, which serves as a transfer point for 70 percent of U.S. cargo headed for Iraq, a slow withdrawal from NATO and a revamped partnership with Iran. All three actions would prove catastrophic for the U.S. effort in Iraq, not to mention its potential future dealings in the Middle East and in the War on Terror.

For those who may be inclined to think that Turkey is pulling a Daniel Negreanu and bluffing, think again. In 2006, the French National Assembly attempted to call Turkey’s bluff when it voted to criminalize the denial of Armenian Genocide. Turkey responded swiftly and forcefully by cutting contacts with the French military and terminating defense contracts between the two countries under negotiation at that time. Their threats are credible, in other words.

Genocide is certainly a heinous crime, one that the U.S. should work tirelessly to stamp out throughout the world, but this country’s efforts to eradicate genocide should not simultaneously jeopardize the lives of U.S. troops who are currently at war.

So what on earth is Pelosi trying to accomplish by furthering the passage of H.R. 106? Clearly, Pelosi is seeking to pass this resolution in order to curry favor with her constituents back home, given that her district contains a sizeable portion of Armenian-Americans. And while it is understandable that the horrors associated with this historical moment burn within Pelosi’s Armenian constituents, what is the resolution really going to accomplish for them? Other than political recognition, the answer may be very little. As Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post notes, these atrocities were committed 90 years ago by an empire that no longer exists, and there is not a single Turk under the age of 102 who is in any way culpable. Further, Mesrob Mutafyan, patriarch of the Armenian community in Turkey, has acknowledged that his community is against this resolution.

On several occasions, Pelosi has said that she is serious about eliminating genocide, “‘Genocide exists, and we saw it in Rwanda; we see it now in Darfur.’” Well if this is indeed the case, she should not risk jeopardizing the lives of our troops by taking a position on an atrocity committed 90 years ago by an empire that ceases to exist. Rather, Pelosi should stop wasting the taxpayers’ time and money and turn her attention to the present by focusing on Darfur. So what exactly is Pelosi doing about the situation in Darfur? Not a damn thing.