Nancy Pelosi, Sorry Excuse for a Human Being

This is what the Middle East needs right now, the Turkish army crossing into Iraq:

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's centre-right government is under heavy public pressure to act after a series of attacks on Turkish troops by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which seeks an independent homeland in eastern Turkey.

The prospect of NATO's second largest army crossing into mainly Kurdish northern Iraq helped propel global oil prices to an all-time high of $86 a barrel on Monday while the lira currency fell more than 2 percent against the dollar.

The United States has urged restraint on Turkey, a key NATO ally strategically located between Europe and the Middle East. But Washington's influence in Ankara is being severely undermined by U.S. Congressional moves to brand as genocide the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

If you haven't following this issue, you might not know that this situation has been ongoing and was definitely a problem before the US congress decided to accuse the Turks of genocide. But on Sunday Nancy Pelosi said she intends to press on with the resolution. Why accuse them now, 90 years later? Just because the President asked Congress not to? To try to inject more trouble into the region to secure an American defeat? Or do they just not care what happens. Was throwing this in Bush's face just so sweet that they said 'screw the consequences'?

Everyone who might have done genocide is dead now. It's been 90 years. This could have waited.

The WaPo seeks to cloud the waters though:

[President Bush] came out forcefully last week against a congressional resolution labeling as genocide the killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians between 1915 and 1923, even though most historians agree with that conclusion. Yet Bush continues to describe atrocities in Darfur as genocide, even though many experts, including some in his administration, doubt that the situation there of late qualifies.

Unmentioned is the fact that Darfur is something that we can do something about today. Atrocities that you can do something about matter; history isn't urgent. (Not that our congress would approve of any action in Darfur, especially if it was GWB calling for intervention)