The Armenian Genocide Resolution Essay

Total Length: 1491 words ( 5 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 4

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United States President Barack Obama had made a promise during the 2008 presidential elections that he would state the actions that Turkey committed in 1915 were an act of genocide against the Armenian people. However, every year since that promise, President Obama has broken it, always avoiding offending Turkey in order to keep their NATO ally happy and fighting alongside the United States. This is because not only is Turkey the only Muslim majority nation in NATO, making it a more important ally than Armenia, but it the country also has the second-biggest military in NATO (the first being the United States). As the battle in Syria wages on, and ISIS continues to grow along with problems arising in other parts of the Middle East like Iran, the United States is looking to do anything to keep Turkey on their side.

What is left is then a broken promise to show an evident genocide perpetrated by a country in complete denial. Hillary Clinton, another presidential candidate that made the same kind of promise as Obama did, just shows the flagrant hypocrisy that plagues American politics, especially during presidential election season. While it is to some extent understandable that America does not and perhaps cannot recognize the Armenian genocide at this time, it is the way they make it seem like it is a possibility that angers activists and those that with Armenian ancestry. It is one thing when someone does not recognize something as evil as a genocide took place, but when someone, several recognize it, and vow to acknowledge it as president, that is another story.

Essentially what happens is, year after year, Obama raises the hopes of those that wish Turkey would own responsibility for the genocide by simply having the United States acknowledge, forcing Turkey to do the same. However, after each year passes, even on its 100th anniversary, nothing changed. Their hopes were dashed and the President looked like a hypocrite and liar. It makes people believe Obama and Clinton for that matter, said these things to gain supporters and campaign money to vie for presidency.

This was clear in the 2008 presidential election when Hillary Clinton did an about-face on the topic after she made a statement stating as president, she would recognize the Armenian Genocide, claiming she alone stood as a long-stand supporter of the AGR or Armenian Genocide Resolution.
To argue that the country's common morality as well as credibility as a voice for preservation of human rights means the country, the President, and Congress should recognize the Armenian genocide was all for votes and support may not be much of a stretch. In July 2010, Clinton, what many considered at the time Washington's top diplomat, paid a visit to the genocide memorial in Yerevan.

She was presented with a golden opportunity to say what happened to lead to the building of this memorial and she did the opposite, making the State Department refer to the visit as a 'private' one. What happened next was even more disappointing. Clinton lobbied Congress to make sure the genocide resolution would never make it to the House floor. Two years later, when asked about the obvious show of side-stepping, Clinton showed why she and President Obama chose to never utter the words. Going back again to the alliance with Turkey being more important than any relationship or alliance with Armenia and the descendants of the Armenians that survived the genocide. "No U.S. president has ever made genocide prevention a priority, and no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on" (Tapper, 2015).

Along with wanting to keep Turkey happy, politics and Congress leaned away from the genocide issue just as they had widely accepted recognizing it when Clinton harked her support for the genocide resolution.

By using the label genocide to refer to the killings of Armenians when she was a senator from New York, Clinton was in keeping with many members of Congress. A resolution to recognize the systematic killing of ethnic Armenians by the Ottoman Empire has become a regular event in Congress (Wafford, 2015).

Kind of like how when popular kids in school say something is trendy and everyone starts copying them, wearing the trendy items. When the popular kids say it is no longer cool to wear those items, anyone caught wearing them is considered in the 'outs' in the school. That is a….....

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"The Armenian Genocide Resolution", 13 May 2016, Accessed.3 July. 2024,
https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/armenian-genocide-resolution-2156245