Recently, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by US Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), passed a resolution that recognized the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 as genocide. While the circumstances surrounding the slaughter are disputed, the killings did occur. The larger questions this action presents could very well be as disturbing as the killings themselves. What was there to gain by issuing this non-binding resolution at this moment in time? And, did the issuance of the non-binding resolution usurp the Executive Branch's authority to establish foreign policy?