Keller @ Large: Time For Leaders To Acknowledge Armenian Genocide
BOSTON (CBS) -- Kind of a sad story out of the Armenian Mirror-Spectator of Watertown about Berj Najarian, a top official of the New England Patriots, and his exchange about the Armenian Genocide with President Obama during the team's recent White House visit.
Najarian's grandfather was a survivor of the atrocity 100 years ago this year in Turkey, where more than a million Armenians were slaughtered.
Pope Francis called it "the first genocide of the 20th century" at a recent memorial mass, but the Turkish government doesn't like it when other governments use that word, and since Reagan, U.S. presidents have – pathetically - caved in to the pressure.
Najarian used his moment with Mr. Obama to ask him to acknowledge the genocide, as he once promised he would, and says the president told him "that's a tough one. I am trying to prevent future genocides."
But "what about the Pope," Najarian reportedly said. "Well, the Pope doesn't have a government to run like I do."
This is especially hard to swallow after returning from a visit to the Czech Republic, where the locals still can't fathom why political leaders sold them out to the Nazis in 1938 when Germany annexed a huge portion of their country under circumstances very similar to the recent Russian takeover of Crimea.
At least Neville Chamberlain and his fellow appeasers didn't yet know about the Nazi extermination camps; the same can't be said for Franklin Roosevelt.
There is no real justification for not acknowledging the Armenian Genocide, nor for anything less than outrage over what Russia is doing. Go visit a Nazi camp, as I did, and you'll understand that.
And if you do, you'll return wondering what on Earth our contemporary appeasers are thinking.
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