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Obama: Armenian "slaughter," Not "genocide"

Ben Smith has the White House's Armenian Remembrance Day statement, in which Obama breaks--or, to be charitable, defers--a very explicit campaign promise to officially brand what happened to more than one million Armenians after World War I as "genocide."

I see that the statement, which focuses on recent advances in Turkish-Armenian relations, somewhat defensively notes that

I have consistently stated my own view of what occurred in 1915, and my view of that history has not changed.

Fine. But Obama's promise was to "recognize" the genocide as such, using that word, as a matter of US policy.

Obviously this is far from some defining moment of Obama's early presidency. Rather it's just another chapter in the sad tale of a people who for years have been jerked around by (but, yes, have also agressively worked) the US political system. I think the illustration above captures the recent history all too well.

--Michael Crowley