From early childhood on, what I remember most as an Armenian 
 offspring, was that Armenia was the first nation in the world
 to accept Christianity and that the Ottoman Turks committed 
genocide on our people to the tune of 1,500,000 victims.

More recently, however, I witnessed how our great nation went to war
 against terrorism in Afghanistan.   And even more recently, how we
 ignored the U.N. and preemptively went to war against Iraq because 
we felt that they had weapons of mass destruction.

To date, after spending hundreds of billions of dollars and 
sacrificing many American lives in the process, the most important 
terrorist leaders remain unapprehended and we have not found positive 
proof of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.

What I’m alluding to, at this point, is that if our President is 
hell bent on building a brave new world, he might have started 
with the well-documented genocide of our Armenian people at the 
hands of the Ottoman Turks from 1915 to 1923.

At present, Turkey’s pseudo democracy is in dire financial straits 
and they are seeking membership in the E.U. as a respected partner 
nation.  But Turkey doesn’t seem to be having an easy time of it 
because most, if not all of the nations in the E.U., know of the 
Armenian genocide and they have gone to great lengths toward making 
it a part of their national archives.   Turkey, on the other hand, 
not wishing to expose its brutal past, continues denying the genocide
 and, in turn, the E.U. continues denying Turkey.

Meantime, our State Department, not wishing to anger Turkey, sits 
passively and silently by,  neither denying nor confirming the truth.   Is this what President Bush’s brave new world is going to look like in the future?

According to past news accounts, our nation seems to be following 
William Crystal’s geopolitical road map.  And since Crystal’s map 
points toward Syria and Iran, our government seems to be heading 
in that direction.  The Russians, on the other hand, who were 
initially opposed to our preemptively invading Iraq, have been 
moving troops into Armenia.  Whether or not their intention is 
to forewarn Turkey of any possible encroachment into Armenia or 
to demonstrate that they would be very unhappy if our gladiators 
unilaterally invaded Iran, I don’t know.  But if such a unilateral
 strike did take place and if Russia’s intentions were to support 
Iran, it would be the start of a war much bigger than anyone can 
imagine.

And to confuse matters even further, there have been talks going 
on between Turkey and Armenia toward establishing trade relations. 
 And if anything comes of it, I am certain it will be without 
Armenia’s government bowing to Turkey’s genocide denials. 
Furthermore, since there are undertones that our State Department 
may be promoting such a relationship, it leaves me to wonder 
whether it is also a part of that infamous road map.

Such being the case, I would strongly advise our President to 
start clearing the air by getting our government to recognize 
the Armenian genocide and thereafter to get the Turks to own up
also.  If he could do this, I believe Turkey could get some of the 
respect it’s looking for from the E.U. and it might even be the start 
of an overdue closure to a horrendous past between Armenians and 
Turks.

To go even further, it might even help to diffuse any form of 
preemptive aggression.  And last but not least, it might even go 
a long way toward bringing peace between Israel and Palestine by 
demonstrating that at long last our nation is truly trying to 
bring peace on earth and good will toward men.   

In short, whatever problems we’re facing as a nation today, are 
problems that the whole world is involved in.   Rather than upping
 the ante by initiating more unilateral conflict, I think it’s about 
time we get the rest of the world involved.  After all, if we are a 
democracy, we have to realize that it’s not only our world, it’s
 everybody’s world.  And as for determining who are the truly rogue 
nations, I believe that should be determined by the U.N.

And as for that infamous road map, I believe the best place to file 
that would be in the shredder.

Joseph Vosbikian