I am trying to understand exactly why Turkey is considered such an important ally of the USA by our State Dep?

• Read or do not reply. 1. Turkey has defied US & UN condemnation for over 30 years by illegally invading & occupying Cyprus. 2. Turkey refused to allow US aircraft to fly over their airspace to deliver humanitarian aid to the survivors of a major earthquake in Armenia on Dec. 7, 1988 at which time 30,000 souls perished in the middle of winter. 3. Amnesty International has consistently named Turkey as one of the worst human rights violators in the world. A few years ago over 100 political prisoners starved themselves to death in protest of their treatment & incarceration. 4. At one time they had more journalists in prison than any other nation. So much for free speech & democratic values. 5. Turkey has been and may still be a military dictatorship. Regardless of the fact that elections are held, if the military is unhappy, the government is replaced. They have had many Prime Ministers over a short period of time. 6. They have received economic, humanitarian & military aid from the USA, and in some instances have used our money to lobby Congress for more. 7. They have established chairs of Turkish studies in major Universities throughout the USA, funding them with millions of dollars, much of which they received from us, for the primary purpose of revising history and denying the Armenian Genocide. They have found it cheaper to bribe academicians than politicians. We successfitlly defeated such an attempt at the University of Michigan almost 10 years ago. They did this while their own higher educational system was in shambles. 8. They have spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress hiring former Congressman Bob Livingston to lobby Republicans and more recently former Congressman Dick Gephardt (who was a staunch supporter of the Armenian Genocide while in office for 27 years) to lobby Democrats. Congressman Joe Knollenberg calls them, "former statesmen, now salesmen". 9. For decades millions of Kurds in southeastern Turkey have been denied their linguistic and cultural rights, they were not allowed to speak or teach their language. Thousands of Kurds have been killed, beaten and imprisoned. When they retaliated, they were called terrorists. 10. After the first Gulf War, President Clinton allowed Turkey to invade northern Iraq and kill the same Kurds that President Bush promised to protect from Saddam Hussein. By the way, they used American tanks, aircraft and weapons 11. In 2005 Secretary Rumsfeld in an interview on Fox News said that the invasion of Iraq was delayed, that many of the insurgents would have been eliminated, the cost of the war and the loss of American lives was elevated by Turkey's refusal to allow us to invade from the North. 12. One of the best-selling books in Turkey is Mein Kampf.. 13. A recent film, "Valley of the Wolves, Iraq, is the hottest film in Turkey and Prime Minister Erdogan and his wife thought it was a very good movie. The US military advised their personnel not to be around theaters that were showing the film. The movie portrays a Jewish doctor (played by an American actor) who supposedly harvests body parts of Iraqis and sells them to "wealthy Brits, Israelis and Americans". 14. A Turkish newspaper editor of Armenian descent, Hrant Dink. was shot dead in January by a teenager, who was treated like a hero by the local police. Mr. Dink was being tried in court subject to article 301 of their penal code for his comments about the Armenian Genocide in his newspaper Agos. 15. Recently Hrant's son was also convicted of "insulting Turkishness" for reprinting his father's comments about the Genocide in the same newspaper. His sentence and that of his publisher, who was also convicted, was suspended. 16. Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish author who won the Nobel Prize for literature was also convicted. His sentence was also suspended. Elif Shafak, another author was also tried under this law because one of her fictitious characters in her novel spoke of the Genocide of the Armenians. International attention has been focused on this law that does not allow any open discussion of any subject that the court feels is derogatory to Turkey. So much for free speech. Turkey would never be allowed to become a member of the European Union as long as this law was in effect. 17. The Turks have been amassing thousands of troops along the Iraq border and intelligence indicates that long before HR106 passed in committee, the Turkish army had already crossed the Iraqi line to hit Kurdish areas where they suspected PKK insurgents were hiding. Passing this resolution only gives them justification for something they would do anyway. 18. When the French Parliament simply stated that the Armenian Genocide did occur, without mentioning Turkey, they immediately withdrew their ambassador and canceled weapons contracts. Shortly thereafter, they resumed business as usual and their volume of business with France is many times greater than before. 19. In October 2000, when this same bill had passed in committee and was about to be voted on by the full House, President Clinton called Speaker Hastert and said that the Turks told them that they could not be responsible for American lives in Turkey if the resolution passed. Speaker Hastert killed the resolution, Turkish intimidation was successful. They said then that the time was wrong. 20. In February 2000 then Governor Bush, in a letter to me, wrote that if elected he would affirm the Armenian Genocide. 21. In 2002, The International Center of Transitional Justice concluded a study that the massacres met the internationally accepted definition of genocide. 22. Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, coined the term "genocide" in 1944 based on the planned extermination of the .Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 and the Jews during World War II. 23. The Turks speak of wanting an open dialogue, but article 301 prevents any discussion. 24. Armenia's Foreign Minister in a letter to Speaker Pelosi regarding a letter sent to her and signed by 8 former Secretaries of State, states: "It is unfortunate that eight experienced diplomats would buy into Turkish manipulation. I regret to say that there is no process in place to promote normalization between Armenia and Turkey. Expressing concern about damaging a process that doesn't exist is at the very least, disingenuous. Let me go further. Not only is there no process, I can honestly tell you that we have no hope that Turkey will seriously engage with the expectation of achieving minimal normal relations as an outcome." 25. He further states that: "A resolution that addresses matters of human rights and genocide cannot damage anyone's bilateral relations, either yours with Turkey, nor ours." 26. The US ambassador to Turkey at the time the Genocide began, wrote in his memoirs, "The murder of a nation" and he called the massacre "the greatest crime in modern history." 27. An editorial in the Calgary Herald, Sunday Oct. 14, 2007, states: "There is not a shred of doubt that the Genocide happened. The Turkish interior minister at the lime, Talat Pasha, even told a German reporter that they had to get rid of all the Armenians regardless of guilt because "those who were innocent today might be guilty tomorrow." News and evidence of the killings were leaked by foreign observers to Western governments, but as with the genocide in Rawanda nearly 80 years later, nothing was done. 28. Turkey is now trying to elicit U.S. support against the Kurds as a kind of quid pro quo. In a statement on October 11th, Egemen Bagis an MP and foreign policy advisor to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan stated: "I don't know of any other option that can somehow soften the hearts of 72 million Turks." He is referring to:, "the only remedy of yesterday’s mistake is cooperation in the fight against the PKK.." 29. H.Res.106 enjoys bipartisan support from over 224 cosponsors and has been approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is endorsed by human rights, academic, faith-based and ethnic groups representing millions of Americans. 30. The Armenian Genocide is officially recognized by 40 U.S. States and more than 20 nations, including 11 NATO allies.

• Answer:

  Location, location, location.