It’d be far too easy to smirk and enjoy the huge kettle of hot water the Genocide-denying U.S. Department of State finds itself in as a result of the Wikileaks dump of more than a quarter million diplomatic, sorta-secret, documents onto the public stage of the Internet. And you can get that elsewhere. Here, let’s relish the stewing of some of the “favorite” characters on the Armenian stage.
For me the biggest hoot came from Turkey’s Foreign Minister Davutoghlu. This charlatan had the unmitigated nerve to claim his country would have no problem if its own diplomatic communications were disclosed publicly. Perhaps he can explain to us how that jibes with the “openness” manifested by his country when it comes to making access possible to UNSANITIZED Ottoman archives under his country’s control. Also, Davutoghlu is deemed to be full of hot air in his “zero-problems with neighbors” approach since none of the issues with adjacent countries have been resolved.
This brings us to Armenia. Turkey is shown to be doing exactly what it claimed not to do regarding the infamous Protocols—setting preconditions and tying their ratification with Artsakh. Even Azerbaijan gets into the act by urging that the Protocols consideration be delayed until after April 24th. And while we’re in Baku, let’s smirk over Aliev’s exposure as one trying to undercut his “friend” Turkey’s efforts to become an energy hub and his claims of tensions between Medvedev and Putin. Of course, we can’t leave out the third state of the Caucasus, Georgia, whose leaders are outed for disregarding Yerevan’s outreach during the Russo Georgian War of 2008.
Many of the leaked documents discuss backbiting, and Turkey’s leaders are no exception. Davutoghlu, Erdogan, Gonul, and Gul are named as the givers or recipients of unflattering comments about their colleagues. And this is not the only indication of less than serious behavior. Erdogan is described as a power hungry Islamist and hating Israel based on his religious convictions. No wonder the Bush and AKP regimes got along so well, they both prefer religion based biases rather than hard facts as the bases for their policies.
But my favorite bit of schadenfreude doesn’t rise from Wikileaks. It comes at the ever-so-justified expense of the exterminated exterminator, “Hammer” Tom DeLay. This former Republican House Majority Leader was found guilty of money laundering and conspiracy and faces stiff prison terms. Undoubtedly this crook will work the court system and judges appointed by extremist Republicans to get off the hook. But meanwhile, let’s hope he suffers enough to make up for just a little bit of the damage he helped cause to the country.
Maybe we should all be sending sarcastic congratulatory cards to all these public figures that have been exposed with their hands, and mouths, where they shouldn’t be! Enjoy! It’s not often that we get this much transparency into the workings of devilish diplomats.
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