Along these lines, Senate Minority Leader McConnell let the cat of out the bag today and explicitly stated that Congress should never pass this resolution at any time, thus confirming that the GOP company line of the past two weeks, that this resolution will “starve our troops,” was little more than the cheap drivel that we always knew it was.

In any case, a 12-15% longer trip from the East Coast to Iraq, while not an insignificant trifle that can be lightly dismissed outright, won’t lead to a single soldier going without his rations. (Somehow we manage to provision the AFB at Diego Garcia) That an overwhelming majority of the GOP activist base seemingly bought into this fetid nonsense wholeheartedly says something depressing about the modern state of the conservative movement in particular, and modern politics in general.

It also seems to me that the timing is never going to be considered good enough to make this statement. Seven years ago, Ankara threw the same fit, even though it did not have as much leverage as it does now. In another seven years, it will be the same story–important strategic ally must not be alienated, etc. I have been generally very sympathetic to Turkey’s real concerns about security, the PKK and the war. We should work with Turkey on those real security issues, and should have heeded their warnings about the war. That is what proper realism based on tangible interests dictates. It does not require us to participate in a denialist lie for the sake of keeping up appearances.

That said, it is a bad idea to get the US Congress in the contentious historical debate subject. Do we really wan them dispensing favor and abuse on every country on earth and its historical record. And it is also a bad idea to get them into this when we have troops on the field dependent on Turkey. I think the practical consequences are simply too real for our troops in the field. There is no reason to do this to allys when we’re at war. If we could call Stalin “Uncle Joe,” surely we can shut our traps about the Armenians, at least at the congressional level and at least for now.

The “it’s the right thing to do” argument sounds like the kind of idealist clap-trap we usually hear from George Bush and Nancy Pelosi when they’re talking about Rwanda and Darfur and other third world hell holes. The US government shouldn’t generally be in the historical judgment business, in my opinion, and that includes Germany, Rwanda, Israel, China etc.