Not satisfied with the disapproval of 4 out of 5 Americans, Congress decided this week to piss off one of our strongest - and most strategic - allies.

About 70 years ago, Turkey committed some horrible atrocities against Armenians; this week the House took a vote telling Turkey that was a very, very, bad thing.

The point? To be fair, it's generally a good thing to come clean on large scale historical human rights violations (this one being frequently referred to as "genocide") and it's nice that our government wants to support Armenian Americans who still carry a lot of emotional scars.

But, as Rep. Jane Harman pointed out in today's LA Times, Congress could have tried a little better timing - like, for example, when the genocide was happening or when we weren't supposedly fighting a war against Muslim radicalism and Turkey just happened to be the largest Muslim liberal democracy (that's not a mess - sorry Indonesia) and also our ally.

Turkey definitely has a few blemishes on the democracy and human rights fronts, but when compared to every other majority Muslim nation - these guys are pretty frickin' western. What's more - their government is by and large secular, they like us and they've been playing hard to get into the western club. When the world complains that Islam and democracy are incompatible - or that the west and Muslim countries can't be friends, it's really nice to have Turkey to point to for hope (and maybe even to lead the way).

But Turkey's been squeezed between a rock and a hard place for a few years now - and it'd be nice if our Congress appreciated that and didn't push Turkey to imploding point.

It's not easy being Turkey. The EU has been giving Turkey a hard time over its - present day - human rights issues, while not exactly rolling out the red carpet for Turkey to join the European Union. Meanwhile Turkey has to deal with the fact that it's not 100% free of radical fundamentalism at the same time that its big buddy (known as the great satan in many Muslim nations) keeps asking Turkey to help us out in our wars against other Muslim nations. I don't know about you, but I'd be a little stressed if I was head of Turkey.

Now, whether or not we're justified in giving Turkey a lecture on past human rights horrors, we should stop and think: where is it getting us? For one, it might get our troops and supply lines kicked out of Turkey. It could also create larger fractures in the moderate leadership in Turkey and give more fire to the - small but possibly growing - fringe muslim fundamentalists in the country.

Not good guys.