Democrats vote to condemn Turkey...why? ...why now?

here we are in the middle of a titanic struggle in the middle east...an area of the world where we have few "friends"...and we have a stategically vital country who also happens to be one who tries their best to keep their fundamentalists from running the country...

and the democrats vote to condemn them...AFTER ALL THESE YEARS...for the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the WWI era, which many want labeled a "genocide".

according to the NYT article linked above, this resolution was also attempted while Clinton was president, and he helped stop the effort because he realized what a crucial strategic partner Turkey was and he didn't want to damage that relationship.

turkey has reacted to the largely "symbolic" vote by recalling it's ambassador to Washington. because, the Democrats, who accuse the Bush administration of not using diplomacy enough, voted to condemn Turkey even though they knew good and well that it would be a diplomatic headache...

but, none of that matters. Turkey is crucial airspace for our military, and one of the main paths our supplies to the coalition soldiers in Iraq take. ANYTHING that can hamper our efforts there, it seems, is good politics for the Dems. nice job, traitors.

UPDATE: fromReuters:

The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved on Wednesday a resolution branding the killings during World War One as genocide.

The issue of the Armenian massacres is deeply sensitive in Turkey, where it is a crime to portray them as "genocide."

The non-binding resolution now goes to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, where Democratic leaders say there will be a vote by mid-November.

Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO, has said bilateral ties and military cooperation could be damaged if Congress passes the measure.

the Reuters article also discusses Turkish plans to invade the Kurdish portion of Iraq.