Crazy as it sounds, losing the Armenian vote just might cost McCain the election.
How can the votes of this “small tribe of unimportant people,†as Armenian-American writer William Saroyan described them, matter? By various estimates Americans of Armenian descent number 385,500 to 1 million – roughly one half of one percent of the total number of people who voted in the November 2004 election. But Armenians have more clout – particularly in this election – than their miniscule numbers might suggest.
Once a reliable Republican voting bloc, Armenian-Americans have left the GOP en masse after George W. Bush reneged on his campaign promises of 2000 and 2004 to support the Armenian Genocide Resolution in Congress, which characterizes the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 as a genocidal crime against humanity.
Unlike John McCain, who avoids the topic, Barack Obama has acknowledged the Armenian Genocide as settled history, and anecdotal evidence suggests that he enjoys near-absolute support of the Armenian-American community. Armenians have no idea where McCain stands on passing the Armenian Genocide Resolution, but Obama has made a convincing case to this community that he stands with them in their quest for justice.
Armenians have clustered in states that are solidly Democrat – particularly, Calif., Mass. and New York – so they will neither help Obama much nor hurt McCain much in those states by abandoning the GOP. But swing states could be another story. The Armenian population in several of the states up for grabs is small, but these votes could be decisive in two of them this year: Fla. Is home to 25,000 Armenians, Mich. to 60,000.
Armenians consider themselves in a permanent state of Diaspora, and reward candidates who support recognition of the Armenian Genocide with their wallets and their votes. Like Cubans and Evangelicals, Armenians tend to be single-issue voters. In the past, candidates from both parties made sure to pay lip service to supporting the Armenian Genocide Resolution and Armenians tended to vote Republican because of shared conservative economic and social values.
But when it mattered most last October, Democrats tried to get the Armenian Genocide Resolution passed in the House whereas Republicans repaid the decades-long loyalty of the Armenian community with betrayal after Turkey threatened to complicate Iraq war logistics by cutting off air and ground supply routes. Obama – who successfully pursued a “no vote left behind†strategy in caucus states – wasted no time capitalizing on the opportunity created by Bush to aggressively court Armenian-Americans.
Neither of the candidates’ campaign Web sites include speeches or position papers by the candidates on the Armenian Genocide. However, an officially-sanctioned coalition group, Armenians for Obama, compares Obama’s positions with McCain’s using statements and speeches from both candidates.
In contrast, McCain has shunned the term “genocide,†even in his half-hearted attempts to reach out to the Armenian community. And not only McCain does not have a counterpart to Armenians for Obama backing him – there are, however, American Indians for McCain, Bikers for McCain and Racing Fans for McCain – even the Web site of the National Organization of Republican Armenians hasn’t been updated for quite a while.
Pollster Scott Rasmussen zeros in on seven must-win swing states, which are very much in play, including Fla. Other numbers crunchers include Mich. on their lists of crucial battleground states. While a comfortable five-point margin separated George W. Bush and John Kerry in both states in 2004 (Bush won Fla. 52 percent to 47 percent; the results were flipped in Mich.) the Fla. race is much tighter this year, with most polls showing just one to two points separating McCain and Obama – and McCain has already ceded Mich. to his rival, having stopped campaigning in the state several weeks ago.Â
In the 2004 election the Bush campaign used “microtargeting†to find significantly more black votes in Ohio than he got in 2000.
McCain is using the reverse strategy with the Armenian vote. Rather than teasing out additional votes wherever he can, McCain has inexplicably chosen to leave 44 Electoral College votes on the table by writing off Armenian-American voters in Fla. and Mich. And it’s not like he can afford to lose them – especially in Fla., where Bush has also managed to alienate another important voting bloc, Cuban-Americans.
As that old rhyme has it, “for the want of a nail … the horse was lost.†By overlooking – indeed, disrespecting – this seemingly insignificant ethnic group, McCain is extending a Bush legacy that will haunt Republicans for years to come.
Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The Stiletto Blog, chosen an Official Honoree in the Political Blogs category by the judges of the 12th Annual Webby Awards (the Oscars of the online universe) along with CNN Political Ticker, Swampland (Time magazine) and The Caucus (The New York Times).
47 users commented in " As The Armenian Vote Goes, So Goes The Nation? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback1. This article refers to the “Armenian Genocide” as “Settled history”. It isn’t settled history at all; the “genocide” label is rejected by a long list of non-Turkish Historians.
2. Clearly there are more important issues facing America right now. This article suggests by implication that this issue rises to the level of serious PRACTICAL importance for Americans today – which is patently incorrect; it doesn’t and it would be wrong for Americans to regard it as such. Then there’s the moral perspective…
3. American Presidents and Legislators are not elected to uncover historical facts. They are elected to solve real present-day problems. Furthermore, they are clearly not equipped to adjudicate disputes regarding events which occurred nearly a century ago under highly obscure circumstances in a culture which experience has shown that few of them understand clearly in its present form much less in a turbulent period in a remote age.
4. Allowing one side of an historical conflict to state their case while another side is silenced and charged with “Genocide Denial” isn’t “right” or “just” or “moral” at all. It is a gross Miscarriage of Justice and completely contrary to the American Way.
Steletto it is worth noting that Republican Congressman as well as Senators have helped from day one.
Also worth noting, this is a non-partisan issue.
You stated “Armenians have no idea where McCain stands on passing the Armenian Genocide Resolution…”
McCain has a career history of opposing issues that matter to Armenian-Americans. His track record speaks for itself, many Armenian-AMerican voters know it.
If McCain did say he would recognize the Armenian genocide it would just be another Bush promise (nothing more then a lie).
Rich: Call The Stiletto a cynic but she doesn’t expect Obama to keep his promises either. The graybeards at the State Dept will get to him and he will screw the Armenians over just like every other president, except Reagan.
Informed Obserever: Americans are free to vote for or agains a candidate using whatever criteria they choose. For some, it’s taxes. For others, it’s getting the first black American president or the first woman vice president. For Armenians, it’s the Armenian Genocide Resolution. As for the rest, The Stiletto will not dignify Armenian Genocide denial with further comment, and instead suggests that you have a tete-a-tete with Ahmadinejad about the Holocaust and Genocide – you’ll have much to agree on.
“…will not dignify…”
Nice try; innuendo and insinuation and slander are clearly the best the Stilleto can do. Clearly he can’t defend his weak position with anything approaching a logical argument so he has no option but to resort to base tactics like these.
InformedObserver – looks like you are not that informed – FYI (and to become better informed) read this professional report about the issue:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=935
Stop denying the obvious, take the bat away from the hands of anybody who wants to put a pressure on you, admit the guilt and move on.
BIAS & BIGOTRY IN THE TERM “ARMENIAN GENCOIDE”
If one cherishes values like fairness, objectivity, truth, and honesty, then one should really use the term “Turkish-Armenian conflict”.
Asking one “Do you accept or deny Armenian Genocide” shows pure anti-Turkish bias. The question should be re-phrased “What is your stand on the Turkish-Armenian conflict?”
Turks believe it was a civil war within a world war, engineered, provoked, and waged by the Armenians with active support from Russia, England, and France, all eyeing the vast territories of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. Armenian claim it is genocide.
VERDICT WITHOUT DUE PROCESS AMOUNTS TO LYNCHING
Those who take the Armenian “allegations” of genocide at face value seem to ignore the following:
1- Genocide is a legal, technical term precisely defined by the U.N. 1948 convention (Like all proper laws, it is not retroactive to 1915.)
2- Genocide verdict can only be given by a “competent court” after “due process” where both sides are properly represented and evidence mutually cross examined.
3- For a genocide verdict, the accusers must prove “intent” at a competent court and after due process. This could never be done by the Armenians whose evidence mostly fall into five major categories: hearsay, mis-representations, exaggerations, forgeries, and “other”.
3- Such a “competent court” was never convened in the case of Turkish-Armenian conflict and a genocide verdict does not exist (save a Kangaroo court in occupied Istanbul in 1920 where partisanship, vendettas, and revenge motives left no room for due process.)
4- Genocide claim is political, not historical or factual. It reflects bias against Turks. Therefore, the term genocide must be used with the qualifier “alleged”, for scholarly objectivity and truth.
5- Genocide claim is based on racist and dishonest history. Racist because it ignores the much larger Turkish suffering and death toll while it honors only Armenian dead and suffering. And dishonest because it dismisses the bloody Armenian armed revolts (1890-1920), domestic and international Armenian terrorism (1882-1921 and then again 1973 to present) , supreme Armenian treason (as in joining an invading enemy army to kill their fellow Ottoman neighbors, 1914-1918) and Armenian territorial demands (1877-present) , all of which combined to cause their TERESET (temporary resettlement) in another part of the Ottoman Empire—hence cannot be labeled a deportation.
6- Recognizing Armenian claim as genocide will deeply insult Turkish-Americans as well as Turks around the globe and destroy the excellent relations currently enjoyed between the U.S. and Turkey. It will, no doubt, please Armenians but disappoint, insult, and outrage Turkey, one of America’s closest allies since the Korean War of 1950-53. Turks stood shoulder to shoulder with Americans in Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and more. American gratitude and thanks will appear to come (because of the Armenian lobby) in the form of the worst insult that can be dished out to an entire nation.
7- History is not a matter of “conviction, consensus, political resolutions, or propaganda.” History is a matter of research, peer review, thoughtful debate, and honest scholarship. Even historians, by definition, cannot decide on a genocide verdict, which is reserved for a “competent court” with its legal expertise and due process.
8- What we witness today amounts to lynching of the Turks by Armenians to satisfy the age old Armenian hate, bias, and bigotry. American values like fairness, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, objectivity, balance, honesty, and freedom of speech are stumped under the fanatic Armenian feet. Unprovoked , unjustified, and unfair defamation of Turkey, one of America’s closest allies in the troubled Middle East, in order to appease some nagging Armenian activists runs counter to American interests.
9- Hate-based proclamations, such as Schiff’s HR 106, have never been an American way to do business. Why start now?
10- Those who claim genocide verdict today, based on the much discredited Armenian evidence, are actually engaging in “conviction and execution without due process”. Last time I looked in the dictionary, that was the definition of “lynch mobs”.
Isn’t it time for Armenians to stop fighting the First World War and give peace a chance?
Peace.
1. All Genocide Historians agree it was genocide, including The International Association of Genocide Scholars. Our own U.S. archives are filled with 37000 pages of official documents depicting the “systematic extermination” of the Armenian population. It is well documented, studied and agreed upon. Yes, a handful of “Turkish Paid” historians do help the turks deny the Armenian Genocide. None though, are taken seriously. We acknowledge all other genocides why not the Armenian?
2. Since the act of Genocide is State sponsored, then all governments, including the U.S. have the “moral duty” to condem all genocides such as the Armenian genocide. If we pick and choose according to our political comfortabilty then we are no better then the perpitrators and are only asking it to happen again. Denial is the last phase of genocide.
3. Turkey is no ally. That notion is a myth. It is the most anti-U.S , Anti-Semitic pariha state on this planet. It tried extorting 36 billion us dollars at the start of the Iraq war and after getting only 26 Billion it refused our 4th ID through causing harm to our troops. It now wants to further harm our troops if the truth be told. Turkey needs U.S. dollars more then we need Turkey.
4. America is the becon of truth and justice. We need politicians to stand up against mass murder. Time will tell if the next President will finally acknowledge the truth of the facts of the Armenian Genocide or follow the same turkish denialist stance. Hopefully those days are over.
Denialists rear there ugly heads again.
These people are an abomination to human rights.
Cut and paste this post on your denialist web sites they eat this like red bloody meat.
“Genocide scholars” is a recent invention of the Armenian lobby. Most are not even historians (they are sociologists, retired psychologists, etc. looking for benefits for the Armenian community: money, awards, recognition, book deals, film deals, panel invitation, etc.) They are not credible and frequently wrong. They are discredited mouth-pieces for the AFATH lobby (Armenian-Falsifiers-And-Turk-Haters)
Truth, on the other hand, has a way of coming out of even mud, and shining through Armenian lies and fabrications.
My question is…
Are you people (Stiletto, Bobby, John, Rich) going to be able to come up with anything better than “Anyone who disagrees with me is a ‘Genocide Denier'” and an “Ahmadinejad” ? Do you really think the American public is so ignorant that they won’t be able to see through your slander and weakness?
The Self-proclaimed “Genocide Scholar” movement is laughable as an authority. They recently signed a document declaring a “Greek Genocide”, thus publicly proclaiming their gross incompetence and partiality in view of the fact that there is overwhelming evidence of Greek Aggression in the conflict in question. To them, when Christians kill Moslems, it’s “War” but when Moslems retaliate it’s “genocide”. Deep, Deep Scholarship!! As for splcenter, their present-day credentials should be evident to any unbiased observer after a quick google search. And sorry but NO, the historians rejecting the “genocide” label for the 1915 events are not “paid by the Turkish government” for doing so. Here’s a partial list of highly reputable and authoritative Non-Turkish Historians rejecting the “genocide” label for the 1915 events:
1. William Batkay, associate professor at Montclair State University;
2. Roderic Davidson (RIP), former professor at George Washington University;
3. Paul Dumont, Professor at Strasbourg-II University, director of the Institut français d’études anatoliennes (French Institute of Anatolian Studies, Istanbul);
4. Gwynne Dyer, Ph.D. in Ottoman military history;
5. Edward J. Erickson, Ph.D. in Ottoman military history, researcher at Birmingham University;
6. David Fromkin, professor at Boston University;
7. Edwin A. Grosvenor;
8. Michael M. Gunter, professor at Tennessee University;
10. J.C. Hurwitz, former professor at Columbia University;
11. Eberhard Jäckel, professor emeritus at Stuttgart University;
12. Steven Katz;
13. Avigdor Levy, professor at Brandeis University;
14. Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton University;
15. Guenter Lewy, professor emeritus at Massachusetts University;
16. Heath Lowry, professor at Princeton University;
17. Andrew Mango, researcher at university of London;
18.Robert Mantran (RIP), former Professor of Turkish and Ottoman history at Aix-Marseille University;
19. Justin McCarthy, professor at Louisville University;
20. Pierre Nora, former professor at School of High Studies in Social Sciences (École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris), member fof the French Acadamy;
21. Pierre Oberling;
22. Dankwart Rostow;
23. Jeremy Salt, Professor of political science at Melbourne University;
24. Stanford J. Shaw (RIP), former professor at UCLA and Bilkent University;
25. Philip H. Stoddard, Ph.D. in Ottoman military history;
26. Norman Stone, professor at Bikent University;
27. Gilles Veinstein, professor at Collège de France;
28. Annette Wieviorka, researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris).
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jew coined the term “Genocide” in 1943 and stated that he created the term based on the Armenian and Jewish experiences.
“I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times – It happened to the Armenians and after the Armenians, Hitler took action”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g6FjTNvs3I
A televised interview with lemkin just after WWII discussing the creation of the term genocide and its legal implications in the United Nations
So, if you recognize the United Nations,or have ever used the term “genocide” then you have recognized the Armenian genocide for what it is; The TRUTH.
Thank you.
Frequent arguments proffered by the Turkish Government are in bold italics below. The answers follow in plain text.
1. Forget the Armenian Genocide. Why should we be concerned with something that happened 90 years ago and 8,000 miles away?
Genocide is a crime against humanity, and there is no statue of limitations on genocide — not even one 90 years old. At the time the Armenian Genocide was being carried out, the Allies called it “a crime against humanity and civilization.” The term genocide had not yet been created by Rafael Lemkin, but “genocide” means the murder of a nation, a term which the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, used in his report to the U.S. State Department.
The fact that a major crime against humanity takes place 8,000 miles away from the United States makes it no less a crime. Was Hitler justified in killing Jews because he was 5,000 miles away? Should American troops not defend Saudi Arabia because Saddam Hussein was 9,000 miles away?
It was the old Ottoman Empire that committed the crime, but present-day Turkey becomes an accomplice after the fact by its expensive campaign of denial, denial not only for itself but for the old Ottoman Empire. This principle of becoming an accomplice by the cover-up of a crime is part of the rule of law.
2. What have Americans to do with the Armenian Genocide?
America was the first country to recognize the Armenian killings as “the murder of a nation,” that was before the word genocide was invented, and continued to recognize it until misguided officials sought favor with the Republic of Turkey by joining in an ugly, and quite unnecessary, distortion of history.
The Armenian Genocide was witnessed by hundreds of American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire who worked among the Armenians for nearly 100 years. They have testified to the destruction of the Armenians by the Young Turk controlled Ottoman government
The Genocide was also witnessed by American consular officials, stationed in the areas inhabited by the Armenians, who reported it to the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople (now Istanbul), Henry Morgenthau.
American Ambassador Morgenthau confronted the Young Turk leaders, trying to persuade them to cease and desist, and then he telegraphed the American Secretary of State calling the Turkish action an attempt at “racial extermination,” another synonym for genocide.
The American Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, wired U.S. Ambassador Morgenthau to continue the strongest possible protests to the Ottoman government on behalf of the Armenians.
The Armenian Genocide was well-reported in the American press, such as the New York Times, and in dozens of weekly and monthly journals such as were read by the American public before the spread of radio and television. Furthermore, the U.S. Senate held contemporary hearings which affirmed its reality.
President Woodrow Wilson agreed to draw the boundaries of a free Armenia and sent a message to Congress asking for permission to establish a U.S. mandate over the new state.
I ask this] “Not only because it [the mandate] embodied my own convictions and feeling with regard to Armenia and its people, but also, and more particularly, because it seemed to me to be the voice of the American people expressing their deep sympathies. At their hearts, this great and generous people [the Americans] have made the case of Armenia their own.
The American people raised millions of dollars to aid the victims of the Genocide. Our older citizens will remember aid to the “starving Armenians.
President Herbert Hoover wrote in his Memoirs:
Probably Armenia was known to the American school child in 1919 only a little less than England … of the staunch Christians who were massacred periodically by the Mohammedan [sic.] Turk, and the Sunday School collections of over fifty years for alleviating their miseries. . . .
3. All these Americans who reported the Armenian Genocide were biased against us. They were not telling the truth.
There was no reason for the Americans to lie. America was a neutral power during the time of the Armenian Genocide. In fact America never did go to war against Turkey but kept up diplomatic relations so that it could retain missionary property, try and gain economic concessions, and give relief to those Armenians who survived, mostly children.
Anyway, who are these Turkish propagandists and their fellow travelers to accuse the Americans of lying? The Turkish state is far from having a clean record in this regard.
4. Why not leave historical questions to the historians? Why should the issue of the Armenian Genocide be fought out in the U.S. Congress, the European Commission, the European Parliament, or among world governments?
The Turkish government and its supporters have adopted the line of “leave Armenian history to the historians” because they do not have objective scholarship supporting their allegations and have resorted to propaganda. Currently, they are losing their propaganda battle. The issue of the Armenian Genocide is not a question of historical truth; that has been settled by historians. It is rather an issue of morality, legality and the acceptance of the truth.
History is too important to leave to historians. By leaving the Armenian injustice of World War I uncorrected, the stage was set for the Holocaust of World War II. The abandonment of the Armenians was not lost on Hitler. Hitler said before sending his troops into Poland, “Go, go kill without mercy. Who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?”
5. Why should America acknowledge the Armenian Genocide now?
America is the moral leader of the world. We must set the record straight, to rehabilitate America’s innocence, extricate the U.S. from an ugly distortion of history, and restore America’s respectability in the eyes of our European allies who, accepting the truth, are amazed at America’s hypocrisy.
No principled Turk should be offended by the truth. After all, a large number of Armenian survivors of the Genocide owe their lives to devout Muslim Turks, Kurds, and Arabs. To be a patriotic Turk does not require hating Armenians or distorting history. In fact, there are Turkish scholars who recognize the Genocide and urge their government to come to terms with Turkish history. A few, including Taner Akcam, have published books on the Armenian Genocide
6. There is more than one side to every story.
Truth is not divisible by two. Is there another side about Hitler who gassed Jews, about Stalin who starved Ukrainians, or about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge who massacred Cambodians? Of course not. Genocide is so blatant an evil that it has no other side to the story.
7. It is your word against ours.
The Turkish government has confessed in earlier times. Prime Minister Damat Ferid Pasha placed the blame squarely on the Young Turk Party and held war crime trials in which the chief perpetrators were condemned to death.
PrinceAbdul Mecid, the heir apparent to the Ottoman Throne, said during an interview: “I refer to those awful massacres. They are the greatest stain that has ever disgraced our nation and race. They were entirely the work of Talat and Enver. I heard some days before they began that they were intended. I went to Istanbul and insisted on seeing Enver. I asked him if it was true and they intended to recommence the massacres that had been our shame and disgrace under Abdul Hamid. The only reply I could get from his was: ‘It is decided. It is the program.'”
Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later surnamed “Ataturk”) said in a 1926 interview with a Swiss reporter that “these holdovers from the Young Turkey [sic.] Party should be made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse from their homes and massacred. . . .”
And, of course, Hitler knew and drew a lesson from it. As he sent his Death Heads troops into Poland to start World War II, he said: “Go. Kill without pity. Who nowadays remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?”
8. Why do Armenians get all the sympathy, Turks died too. Perhaps some three million Turks died during the period of the alleged genocide against the Armenians.
It is doubtful that three million Turks died in World War I. Turkish propagandists sometimes use the more correct, but still deceptive, expression “three million Muslims.” Yes, three million Muslims probably did die in WW I, but so did twenty million Christians. What has that got to do with the Armenian Genocide?
The Turks died, unfortunately, because their own government led them into World War I against the European Allies. Many Turkish Muslims also died fighting Arab Muslims, who were seeking their freedom from Ottoman oppression, and Indian Muslims who were with the British Middle East army in Mesopotamia. All this Muslim blood, then, is on the head of the Ottoman Turkish government and not on the victimized and helpless Armenians.
There were at most around three million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, most of them old men, women, and children, and they can hardly be blamed for the death of three million “Turks or Muslims.” That is absurd.
9. The Armenians were killed in a civil war, or an ethnic feud; it was not genocide.
When the armed government of 25 million people turns on and attempts to exterminate an unarmed minority of three million old men, women, and children, it is hardly an “intercommunal struggle,” “an ethnic feud,” or “civil war”; it is nothing more or less than genocide. The Turkish government had a bureaucracy, tax money, an army, irregular troops, the local police, and special killing squads to carry out its mission. What did the Armenians have?
If it was a feud between Turks and Armenians, what explains the genocide carried out by Turkey against the Christian Assyrians at the same time?
Furthermore, Turkish armies invaded the fledging Armenian Republic in the Caucasus inhabited by indigenous Armenians in order to wipe out not only Armenians in the Ottoman Empire but also Armenians who lived elsewhere.
10. Why pick on Turkey? Turkey is a “model modern Moslem country.”
Since when do model countries deny their citizens human rights and religious freedom?
Turkey’s thinly veiled military dictatorship with its long history of human rights abuses, its repression of the legitimate aspiration of the Kurds for cultural autonomy, its historic antagonism towards the Arabs, its invasion of Cyprus, and its current denial of freedom to Armenian and Greek institutions in Turkey hardly make Turkey a “model modern Moslem country.”
If the Turks as a group are disliked and feared by most Europeans, the Kurds, the Arabs, the Greeks, and the Armenians, perhaps there is some reason. The Turkish people ought to demand that their government throw off its atavistic ghazi mentality, modernize its feudal agrarian economy, outgrow its penchant for military government, and end the abuse of human rights and persecution of minorities. Many Turks want this change and should be encouraged.
11. We have opened the Turkish archives. The Turkish archives do not prove there was an Armenian Genocide.
The Turkish archives covering the period of the Armenian Genocide are not opened to the public. They are only open to Turkish scholars and persons friendly to Turkey.
The Turkish archives have been closed so long that scholars have no idea of what is being, or has been, purged. Furthermore, the work of the Genocide was done under the aegis of the Committee of Union and Progress, a shadow government similar to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and in particular by its Special Organization (Teshkilat-i Mahsusa) under the notorious Dr. Behaettin Shakir who was sentenced to death in absentia by a Turkish court-martial following World War I. Will their records be opened? There is no talk of that.
12. We will open our archives if the Armenians open their archives.
What could possibly be of interest to the Turkish government, relevant to the Armenian Genocide, in the Armenian archives? Armenia was not even reestablished until 1918 after the Genocide has been effectively completed. Rather we already have the American archives, the American missionary archives, the British archives, the Russian archives, the Italian archives, and even the archives of the Germans and Austrians, the allies of the Turks.
13. American Admiral Mark Bristol’s testimony proves there was no Genocide. Admiral Bristol proves that Morgenthau was lying.
Ambassador Morgenthau, who informed the world about the Armenian Genocide, was there when it happened. Admiral Mark Bristol, who became U.S. High Commissioner in Turkey after World War I, did not even arrive in Turkey until 1920. Since Bristol was not in Turkey during the Genocide, and the Armenians had already been killed, he had to ask the Turks what happened. Bristol could only talk to the executioners of the Armenians, the Turks. The Turks are hardly creditable witnesses to deny their own crime.
Bristol, a stern military man, liked the military junta ruling the post-World War I Turkey, and he eagerly talked about the “bad qualities” of the Armenians and Greeks. Do “bad qualities” justify genocide? If so, that might put even many Turks and Americans at risk.
14. The only reason that the Turks aren’t allowed into the European Community is their Islamic religion.
What concerns the Europeans is not the religion of the Turks, but rather their values. Judeo-Christian culture, which characterizes the Western world, is dedicated to developing a moral society with civic institutions. Democracy and faith in the beneficent value of truth is the current manifestation of this aspiration. If the Turks were to thirst after justice and righteousness, values to which we in the West aspire, they would most certainly be welcomed in any society. As I said earlier, many Turks do, but they are hindered by their government.
The first sign of this new morality would appropriately be for present-day Turkey to acknowledge the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians.
15. No one to date has been able to come up with creditable documentation of Hitler’s alleged statement about the Armenians. Hitler never made the statement.
The Hitler statement, which Turkish propagandists have questioned, was authenticated by Dr. K.B. Bardakjian, at Harvard in 1985 from secret notes taken by German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris during Hitler’s speech. (See K.B. Bardakjian, Hitler and the Armenian Genocide [Cambridge, MA: Zoryan Institute, 1985]).
16. How do the Armenians expect the American people to feel sorry for them when they support terrorism?
The assassinations of Turkish officials which began by two small clandestine groups in 1973 were stopped in 1985 by Armenian public opinion. Armenians do not need terrorists, because people of good will, having studied the Armenian case, now have greater understanding and sympathy. There is no Armenian terrorism today, and the Armenian public has sympathetic feelings toward those who were killed.
17. Only 600,000 Armenians died in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, not 1.5 million, and they were killing Turks during that time.
The Turkish apologists play with numbers in a grotesque way. They argue that only 600,000 Armenians were killed not 1.5 million. Would this change the basic truth that a genocidal massacre occurred in 1915-1923? Almost the entire Armenian population of Turkey was wiped out by its own government, the Turkish government. Does it really make the actions of Turkey better if they succeeded in killing only 600,000 Armenians and not 1.5 million? In any case, it was genocide.
The Turkish apologists insist that Armenians were also killing Turks. It is true that scores of Armenians fought back successfully. But how can you compare pockets of self-defense with murder by a government? The Armenians were killed by their own government, the Turkish government; they sometimes fought back to protect themselves.
18. The Turks had to deport the Armenians from the eastern war front where they were helping the Russians who promised them a homeland.
Armenians all over Anatolia, not just on the eastern war front, were wiped out. The cities of Yozgad, Sivas, Caeserea, Hadjin, Marash, Adana, and Ankara — just to name a few — are hardly in the east. One needs but to look at a map of Turkey to see this. Turkish apologists depend on American ignorance of geography to make such foolish claims
Both the Turks and the Russians offered the Armenians autonomy. Neither promise could be trusted. Truth is the first victim of war. Neither the Turks nor the Russians had a history of granting their subjects freedom. The last tsar, Nicholas II, would not even share power with his own Russian people, which prompted the Russian revolution during World War I. Russia even forbade Armenian refugees, who had managed to flee the Genocide, from returning to their ancestral lands, which the Russian armies had overrun during the war. Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, foreign minister of Russia in 1895, summed up Russia’s traditional stance by saying, “Yes, Russia wants Armenia, but without the Armenians.”
19. Individual Armenians and individual Turks should develop friendships which will ease the relationship between the Turkish government and the Armenian people and let bygones be bygones.
The question is not that of individual Turks and individual Armenians. Historically, many Armenians and Turks have developed close friendships, and I for one have many Turkish friends. The issue is the stance of the Turkish government toward the Armenian Genocide and indeed of the Turkish government’s current repression of minorities. When the Turkish government faces reality and changes its backward policies, then individual friendships between Turks and Armenians can extend to a comparable relationship between the Armenian Republic and the Turkish Republic. One first sign of Turkish change would be to lift the embargo which it has presently in place between Turkey and Armenia.
Those who question the Armenian Genocide, also question the Holocaust. No matter what you tell them, they will never accept it. It is the Ottoman Empire that murdered the Armenian Nation as whole. Ottoman Muslim Turks killed 1.5 million Christian Armenians. Armenia is the first nation in the world to accept Christianity as a national religion in 301 AD. It is time to respect the death and serve justice, it is time for USA to formally accept the Arenian Genocide.
For all of those who seem to believe the Ottoman empire didn’t conduct a genocide of its Armenian citizens, they should really ask some key questions: where did the Armenians, who represented 25% of the population of Anatolia, go post-1915? how and why would they leave their ancient homeland of many thousands of years? They should also ask why the key people who planned the eradication of the Armenians were not Turkish at all. Most of the masterminds of the genocide and key members of the CUP were not Turks, however they were people who decided that the only way to reverse the bankruptcy of the Ottoman Empire, was to steal from its most ancient and loyal inhabitants. The Armenian genocide was an act of theft…who benefited from it? With every criminal act the key to finding the answer is to follow the money. All of you who say a genocide did not happen should examine what happened to the land, the buildings, the businesses, the bank accounts of all those people – citizens of the Ottoman empire – who were exterminated by the CUP. I don’t blame all Turks for the genocide, but I do blame the members of the CUP and any govt official after that who benefited from it. We should all remember that Ataturk himself (another Salonikan non-Turk), called the actions of the CUP towards the Armenians a ‘shameful act’, but continued anti-Armenian policies throughout his life.
Regarding Mark Boyadjian’s statements above, first of all, it’s refreshing to see a series of coherent arguments instead of a barrage of blatant slander.
However, this statement epitomizes all is wrong with the Armenian Propaganda:
“6. ‘There is more than one side to every story.’ .. Hitler… Pol Pot …Kmer Rouge… Genocide is so blatant an evil that it has no other side to the story.”
This is Child’s play and completely circular logic. You must first prove the fundamental aspects of your charges then you can talk about what a blatant evil it is. You can’t simply throw out names like Hitler, Pol Pot, Kmer Rouge, call genocide a blatant evil and them argue that on these grounds the other side must be silenced! You must first prove that the events in question do in fact constitute genocide, then you can go ahead and expound on what a blatant evil it is and compare it to Hitler, Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge. THEN you can treat the other side (most of the population of Turkey in this case together with most Turks living outside of the country) like a criminal and demand that no further consideration be given to their arguments! You have it completely backwards; this is what enrages Turks so much and they are absolutely right in this. Here we have an individual who is obviously coherent, rational and intelligent but he is arguing that Turks must be silenced, must not be given a chance to tell their side of the story, and that Western Governments must condemn them. Such a blatant disregard for the fundamental principles of fairness and impartiality can only be explained by an atmosphere of ethnic hatred which clearly does exist in the Armenian Community today!
I intend to respond to the other points Mark has raised but do not have the time at the moment …I expect to be able to respond later or tomorrow.
Responses to several of the issues raised in Mark Boyadjian’s posts:
GROUP 1:
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1. Forget the Armenian Genocide. Why should we be concerned with something that happened 90 years ago and 8,000 miles away?
2. What have Americans to do with the Armenian Genocide?
4. Why not leave historical questions to the historians? Why should the issue of the Armenian Genocide be fought out in the U.S. Congress, the European Commission, the European Parliament, or among world governments?
5. Why should America acknowledge the Armenian Genocide now?
10. Why pick on Turkey? Turkey is a ‘model modern Moslem country.’
19. Individual Armenians and individual Turks should develop friendships which will ease the relationship between the Turkish government and the Armenian people and let bygones be bygones.
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RESPONSE: These are misrepresentations of the real objections to the Armenian Position. The issue is that Legislators are not elected and not equipped to adjudicate on obscure facts of history. Armenians need to admit this! Even courts have limitations on how far back they will go for certain classes of crimes. Even the World Court at the Hague will not go back past the mid 20th Century and the International Criminal court stops at the late 20th century. Yet Armenians insist that Legislators must pass legislation condemning Turks as “deniers”, demanding that normal judicial channels be circumvented!
GROUP 2
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8. Why do Armenians get all the sympathy, Turks died too. Perhaps some three million Turks died during the period of the alleged genocide against the Armenians.
18. The Turks had to deport the Armenians from the eastern war front where they were helping the Russians who promised them a homeland.
9. The Armenians were killed in a civil war, or an ethnic feud; it was not genocide.
” 17. Only 600,000 Armenians died in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, not 1.5 million, and they were killing Turks during that time. It is true that scores of Armenians fought back successfully. But how can you compare pockets of self-defense with murder by a government?”
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RESPONSE: No this is quite wrong; it is a deliberate distortion of historical facts. Armenians repeatedly deny the clear fact that there was an Armenian Revolt before 1915 and that many innocent Turkish Civilians were killed by these Armenian Revolutionaries. Ergun Kirlikovali is not the only one whose grandparents were killed by Armenian Revolutionaries. There are many more Ergun Kirlikovali’s. And much of it happened before 1915. Then the War started in 1914 and in March of 1915 Turks thought their day of doom had come as the Gallipoli invasion got underway; first by sea and later by land. All able bodied men were called to defend the country; even policemen were called from Eastern Anatolia to the Western war Front at Gallipoli leaving Eastern Anatolia in a state of near-anarchy. Meanwhile the central government had the Armenian Revolutionary problem to worry about in it’s rear; which enjoyed a conspicuous level of support from the civilian non-combatant Armenian Population. So the decision to relocate these people was not genocide. You can call it an unwise decision, even a heartless decision, but the danger was very real. It is a complete distortion of historical facts to argue that “It is true that scores of Armenians fought back successfully. But how can you compare pockets of self-defense with murder by a government”. It was not all self-defense, it was a real revolt that failed and the Armenian Revolutionaries could not have picked a worse time to do it.
########## Morganthau’s story: ############
13. American Admiral Mark Bristol’s testimony proves there was no Genocide. Admiral Bristol proves that Morgenthau was lying.
RESPONSE: Morganthau’s own diary, not Admiral Bristol’s testimony, has impeached his “Morganthau’s Story” and shown it to be untruthful. Furthermore, by his own admission it was written for the purpose of securing America’s entry into World War 1. What we are saying is that these facts diminish the authority of the work significantly.
Interesting piece, though I don’t think the Armenian vote (or lobby) plays too big a role in the national elections.
The blog comments are equally interesting. There is some justification for what happened to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The thesis for the genocide is Toynbee’s The Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, known as the “Blue Book.” Deniers/revisionists have called it propaganda and somehow came to the conclusion that Toynbee also considered it such, but the critical edition by the Gomidas Institute clears all of that up. It is pretty pricey, but I think some parts of it can be read online.
Informed Observer, it wasn’t only Armenians in the eastern region of the empire that were exterminated or deported. It occurred just about everywhere except for the capital (where only community leaders and intellectuals were deported and killed).
That being said, I’m not a big fan of curtailing free speech. If people want to deny something, they should be free to do so.
The postings by the Armenian writers above seem to deliberately misrepresent the Turkish-Armenian conflict, a complex human tragedy where suffering of one side (Armenian) is embellished and exaggerated while the other side (Turkish) is part belittled, part ignored, and part dismissed.
Such unfair, lopsided, and ethocidal [1] treatment of any controversy, historic or not, ought to be a cause for concern for disinterested third parties and truth-seekers. Without getting personal, I will try to organize my responses to the above Armenian posts under the following headings:
1) POLITICATION OF EDUCATION: A POLITICAL MOVE BY ARMENIANS BASED ON A RACIST AND DISHONEST INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY
Such moves, without exception, are planned, implemented, financed, supported, and “rammed through” the political system by the Armenian lobby, including the Armenian political machine, clergy, academia, and others as well as Armenian sympathizers, a group which I abbreviate as AFATH community (Armenian-Falsifiers-And-Turk-Haters). These moves are worst in states where Armenians reside in large numbers: California and Massachusetts. Press in these states are, not surprisingly, the most anti-Turkish: Los Angeles Times & Boston Globe. Try getting Turkish views published in those newspapers. Good luck. Talk about freedom of speech. You may like or dislike me, a Turkish-American, or my ideas, but you should respect my freedom to express them.. When you shut me out by labeling me a “denier” or even lynch me, you may hurt my feelings or me physically, but you can not destroy the truth. The turht is, it was a civil war within a world war, not genocide.
Historical evidence belies the Armenian characterization of WWI. Typically, those politically motivated genocide courses include a unit on the “alleged” Armenian genocide which mentions “1.5 million Armenians” as having perished.. But Paris Peace Conference of 1919 put this figure at 200,000 in its March 29 report (please see: NUMBERS DON’T LIE; LIARS DO ! , http://www.turkla.com)
What such courses fails to expose is the extent of suffering of the Ottoman-Muslims, mostly Turks: more than three million! Tragic demise of 524,000 of those can be directly attributed to the unspeakable acts of Armenian revolutionaries. This genocide courses, therefore, triy to whitewash war crimes by and responsibilities of the Armenian nationalists, supported by the powers at the time, i.e. Britain, France, Russia, as well as the U.S. Protestant missionaries and U.S. media (New York Times leading the way in anti-Turkish biased coverag.e)
2) A WAR-TIME HOME SECURITY MEASURE” IS HARDLY A GENOCIDE
Guenter Lewy, world renown professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts, rebuked the Armenian claims of genocide using historical evidence and arguments. Lewy, and many others like Lewis, Shaw, McCarthy, Stone, Mango, Gurun, Sonyel, Cicek, strenuously reject the efforts to classify the Armenian genocide in the same category as the Holocaust.
3) HOLOCAUST IS PROVEN BY NUREMBERG; WHERE IS THE COMPETENT TRIBUNAL “PROVING” ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?
After all, did Jews resort to armed revolts, terrorism, and treason, in order to establish a Jewish state on German soil? Did Jews establish Jewish armies armed with British, French, and Russian weapons to kill half a million German citizens? Did Jews receive for nearly a century money, education, healthcare, divisive and polarizing teachings, money and more from missionaries from Europe America, all hell bent on dividing and eliminating Germany? Did Jews join the invading enemies of Germany and slaughter their German neighbors while Jews were wearing invaders’ uniforms? Of course, not. But Armenian committed all that and more heinous crimes in the Ottoman Empire. Armenian used propaganda, agitation, terror, revolts, and treason, in that order, from 1890 to 1920. How can Armenian Tereset (temporary resettlement) caused by Armenian war crimes and provocations be held in the same esteem as with the undisputed, court-proven, unique Jewish Holocaust? Isn’t that an insult to the silent memory of six million Jews who were exterminated just for being Jews? What Armenians and their ethocidal [1] sympathizers are trying to attempt here is “credibility by association.” They think if they can manage to have the “proven Holocaust” uttered in the same breath with the “bogus Genocide”, then the obvious inference shall be that genocide must be true because we know Holocaust is. But Armenians are wrong in this respect as the fair-minded, honest truth-seekers are on to the Armenians tricks.
4) IF MONEY FROM TURKS DISCREDITS SCHOLARS, WHAT ABOUT MONEY FROM THE ARMENIANS?
The A”poster boy” of the AFATH community, Taner Akcam, has been exposed last spring that he was on the payroll of two notoriously anti-Turkish Armenian institutes: The Zoryan Institue and the Cafesjian Foundation. What now? Will the AFATH community be honest to discredit him or continue to bankroill him? Akcam recently changed employers, perhaps due to Turkish-American inquiries into his financial dealings with the AFATH camp, and went to Clark U. That doesn’t change the fact that once a paid Armenian agent, always a paid Armenian agent. Where do you think most of the genocide scholars, AFATH historians, and others get their funding all these years? Why cannot the Armenians see that the AFATH camp is guilty as charged when it comes to paying the pipers. The AFATH camp doles out money and benefits in the form of not only cash, directly or indirectly, from sources that can be considered Armenian or Armenian-related, but also as expenses, honoraries, fees, campaign funds, gifts, awards, book advances, book sales, jobs, projects, service or product contracts, funding for a documentary, full- feature, or other films, income from testimonies, promotions, or other benefits that can have monetary and/or goodwill value. (See the exposure of at least one AFATH scholar in this link: “ IT IS OFFICIAL: TANER AKCAM IS PAID BY ARMENIANS” I personally wrote to the president of the University of Minnesota, Akcam’s employer at the time, and heard from UM’s legal counsel that Akcam was indeed paid by Zoryan Institute and Cafesjian Foundation.)
5) ARMENIAN ALLEGATIONS HAVE ENORMOUS FLAWS AND MAJOR ERRORS IN IT
They simply ignore the massive Turkish suffering and devastating death toll, a major portion of which caused by the Armenian revolutionaries; dismissed Armenian revolts, terrorism, and treason; and tried to pass Armenian-provoked TERESET (TEmporary RESETtlement) as Turkish-planned genocide.
They also conveniently ignore the current Armenian aggression in Karabagh and military occupation in Azerbaijan where more than a million Azeris were expelled from their homes at gunpoint after Armenians committed a genocide-like massacre in Khodhaly: “…on the night of February 25-26, 1992. The gruesome statistics indicates that 613 people had been killed (by Armenians), of which 106 were women and 83 were children; 1275 taken hostage, 150 went missing; 487 people became disabled and invalid, 76 of whom are teenage boys and girls… ( see: genocide-like massacre in Khodhaly )
One would think that those who seem so concerned about a human tragedy of 100 years ago would certainly be concerned about one that is still unfolding as you read these lines… But since the perpetrators are Armenians, those same “genocide scholars” look the other way. So much for honesty, integrity, truth, balance, fairness, objectivity, scholarship, and more… In the face of such blaring double standards, pushed forward by such “partisan scholars and intellectuals”, so aggressively and arrogantly, I remain humbled and speechless…
6) APRIL 24, 1915 IS NOT THE START OF GENOCIDE, IT IS SIMPLY TURKISH GUANTANAMO
What is the purpose of Guantanamo? Bringing together suspects of 9/11 and other acts of terrorism, involved directly or indirectly, into one secure location, to sort out the truth, right? Well, Turks did the same back in 1915. They gathered the obvious leaders of on-again, off-again Armenian violent revolts, persistent terrorism, and supreme treason, at a wartime no less, and sent them to secure locations in the heart of Anatolia, awaiting trials and/or removal of the threat of war. Gomidas, one of those detained, for example was later cleared and allowed to go back to Istanbul, proof for open-minded truth –seekers that this was no systematic elimination or genocide as maliciously claimed. Some may have been man-handled or abused, but these thinly veiled Armenian revolutionaries were not exactly 5-star hotel guests and they did not exactly cooperate with Ottoman authorities. These were the insurgents, rebels, or terrorists, or whatever you wish to call them, who took up arms against their government, killed their neighbors, and used their own Armenian women and children as human shields. They would launch their bomb attacks in the cover of darkness during the night form Armenian neighborhoods. When the Ottoman security forces came the next morning looking for the perpetrators, they would show women and children as proof of their innocence.
Also, consider this: the largest armada man has ever seen to date of allied ships with half a million men are pounding the Dardanelle shores with an eye on delivering a quick knockout punch to the Ottoman Empire by capturing Istanbul, the capital . Consider further that the colossal Tsarist Russian armies, using Ottoman-Armenian divisions and Ottoman-Armenian scouts in its makeup, are brutally invading the Northeastern territories of the Ottoman Empire. Most Armenians (though not all) are colluding with the enemies of their government from both the West and the East. What would you do with this lot today? Let me tell you that if it was not for the centuries long Turkish tolerance for other religions or if this happened to any other country, these Armenians would be killed. Instead, they were sent on an TERESET 9temporary resettlement) in non-war zones of the empire. That’s genocide?
7) “UNARMED ARMENIAN” IS AN OXYMORON
Some Armenian writers are still talking about unarmed Armenians, an oxymoron.. Please see the photos of armed Armenian bands here which later coalesced into a 150,000 men Armenian army.
8) ARMENIAN LOSSES INFLATED ; TURKISH LOSSES IGNORED
“…More than a million Armenians were exterminated…” asserts the writer. In actual fact, none were “exterminated”, lots of people, both Muslim and Armenian, however, did perish. Some died of war, regular and irregular, but more died of starvation and epidemics. Ottoman war effort reduced the harvest and British naval blockade during war prevented the emergency food supplies, sent by overseas Ottoman provinces and fellow Muslim communities, from reaching the mainland. More Muslims than Armenians died. But because of religious bias, Muslim (mostly Turkish) victims of starvation, epidemics, and war are cruelly dismissed.
9) WHY THE ARMENIANS REALLY LEFT AFTER COMING BACK TO TURKEY
Honest researcher will note that most Armenians survived the Tereset (temporary resettlement.) Some of those Armenian did come back to their homes but left in panic in 1918-1921—after Bolshevik Russia vacated the Northeast Anatolia and France ended its occupation of Southeastern Anatolia and—because Armenians had treated the Muslim population so evilly that they were fearful of Turkish retaliation once the French and Russians were gone. That is from where today’s Armenian communities of the U.S., Canada, France, Lebanon, and other places originated.
10) BIAS & BIGOTRY LURKING IN THE TERM ARMENIAN GENCOIDE
I believe there may be a miscommunication in the this quote:…Hahn said he does not deny that the Armenian genocide took place, but says he would not have supported Schiff’s legislation… According to the Hahn statement on the Turkish-Armenian conflict, released to the Turkish-American community on September 20, 2008, Hahn acknowledges Armenian suffering without calling it a genocide. Hahn also acknowledges, however, the Turkish suffering in the same era and area.
Not all suffering, not all killings, not all wartime measures moving people can be casually classified a genocide, a specific term reserved by the 1948 U.N. genocide convention solely for the use of a competent tribunal which proves intent after due process is allowed to take its course, where the accused can cross examine the accusers’ evidence, question their witnesses, and produce the accused party’s own evidence and witnesses. This has never been done in the Turkish-Armenian case— save a Kangaroo court in occupied Istanbul which was staged to settle old scores rather than a due process.
The constant drum beat of genocide we hear today, therefore, are not based on the verdict of a competent tribunal , a la Nuremberg, but an invisible blanket of bias, called consensus, arrived at using only the Armenian version of history and under constant Armenian pressure. If one cherishes values like fairness, objectivity, truth, and honesty, then one should really use the term Turkish-Armenian conflict instead of Armenian genocide.
Asking one Do you accept or deny Armenian Genocide shows anti-Turkish bias. The question should be re-phrased What is your stand on the Turkish-Armenian conflict? Turkish-Americans believe it was a civil war within a world war, engineered, provoked, and waged by the Armenians with active support from Russia, England, and France, all eyeing the vast territories of the collapsing Ottoman Empire. Armenian fanatically claim it is genocide and they will intimidate, harass, and terrorize you if you disagree with Armenians.
Hahn believe a joint commission of historians should be allowed full access to all relevant archives to sort out the complexities. A similar proposal was officially made by Turkey to Armenia in 2005, but Armenia rejected it. Hahn believes in research and dialog, whereas Schiff acts like a mouth piece for Armenian lobby. That is why I support Hahn.
11) GENOCIDE ALLEGATIONS IGNORE “THE SIX T’S OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT”
I must stress once again that while some amongst us may be forgiven for taking the blatant and ceaseless Armenian propaganda at face value and believing Armenian falsifications merely because they are repeated so often, it is difficult and painful for someone like me, the son of Turkish survivors on both maternal and paternal sides, of yet untold, unfairly dismissed, or prejudicially ignored massacres of Turks during the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 (which preceded the World War I of 1914-18 and the Turkish Independence War of 1919-1922.) These seemingly endless “War years” of 1912-1922 brought wide-spread death and destruction to Ottoman Muslims as well as others. Those nameless, faceless victims are killed for a second time today with politically motivated and baseless charges of Armenian genocide.
Allegations of Armenian genocide are racist and dishonest history. They are racist because they ignore the Turkish dead: about 3 million during WWI; around half a million of them at the hands of Armenian nationalists. By ignoring the suffering of one side completely, any war, including the American civil war, may be made to look like a genocide.
And the allegations of Armenian genocide are dishonest because they simply dismiss “THE SIX T’S OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT”:
1) TUMULT (as in numerous Armenian armed uprisings between 1890 and 1920)
2) TERRORISM (by Armenian nationalists and militias victimizing Ottoman-Muslims between 1882-1920)
3) TREASON (Armenians joining the invading enemy armies as early as 1914 and lasting until 1921)
4) TERRITORIAL DEMANDS (where Armenians were a minority, not a majority, attempting to establish Greater Armenia, the would-be first apartheid of the 20th Century with a Christian minority ruling over a Muslim majority )
5) TURKISH SUFFERING AND LOSSES (i.e. those caused by the Armenian nationalists: 524,000 Muslims, mostly Turks, met their tragic end at the hands of Armenian revolutionaries during WWI, per Turkish Historical Society. This figure is not to be confused with 2.5 million Muslim dead who lost their lives due to non-Armenian causes during WWI. Grand total: more than 3 million, according to Justin McCarthy)
6) TERESET (temporary resettlement) triggered by the first five T’s above and amply documented as such; not to be equated to the Armenian misrepresentations as genocide.)
Armenians, thus, effectively put an end to their millennium of relatively peaceful and harmonious co-habitation in Anatolia with Muslims by killing their Muslim/Turkish neighbors and openly joining the invading enemy. Turks were only defending their home like any citizen anywhere would do.
Isn’t it time to stop fighting the First World War and give peace a chance?
Peace,
ERGUN KIRLIKOVALI
Son of Turkish Survivors from Both Maternal & Paternal Side
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References:
[1] Ethocide: a term coined by Ergun Kirlikovali in 2003 to describe bogus genocide claims; a brief definition of which is: “ Systematic extermination of ethics via malicious mass deception and propaganda for political and other benefits. “
Ergun your existence is a living example of mans inhumanity to man.
Cut and past this on your hate web sites.
It is very funny when you say something about the Armenian Genocide Turks say leave it to historians, but they prove you wrong anyway. I wonder if they are ALL “historians”. I have a question for this denialist “historians” as whole: Why were the lands stolen from the Armenians in 1915? Why did the Turks also killed 300,000 Greeks in the same period of time? Why did the Turks killed 150,000 Assyrians at the same period of time? Why were the Kurds promised the Armenian ancient lands if they side with Turkey, but today they are “terrorists”? Why are Turks mentioning the deaths of Turks during WW1 who died fighting war by siding with Germans, and now the deaths of the Turkish soldiers are blamed for the death of Armenian men, women, children, elderly who were tortured, raped, killed in the Syrian deserts. The wealth, homes, lands of Armenian were stolen, plus now Turkey doesnt even want to apologize.
1. Lets be perfectly clear: ALL GENOCIDE Historians/ Scholars, including the 126 World wide members of the International Association of genocide Scholars agree it was Genocide. The only ones who don’t are the perpetrating turks and a handfull of ‘turkish paid scholars” that is it. It is true not all are historians but that is equally true of the “paid turkish seudo scholars” that peddle Armenian Genocide denial. This includes Guenter Lewy, (world renound? What a joke.)a Poly Science prof that wrote a ridiculious book trying to discredit our US Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morganthau, who also witnessed the Genocide firsthand and contributed volumes of offical U.S. documents describing the “death sentence to the whole Armenian nation”.
2. If the Armenian Genocide is ‘mass deception and propaganda’ why would Germay/Austria, Turkey’s own ally during the war, who all witnessed the Armenian Genocide first hand, acknowledge the Armenian Genocide? Why would Germany, having 4 to 5 million turks living within it’s borders today, ‘mass deceive’ all it’s population? You turks give the ‘Armenian lobby’ way to much credit and most all state official archives no credit. It should occur to you that all who do acknowledge the genocide do so because it is the truth. Those who don’t, do so for political/financial reasons.
3. The truth is; The ottoman empire was a brutal occupying, nazi like, 100% racist state. Their miss-rule lasted hundreds of years and by WW1 most nations being occupied by the ottoman regime freed themselves of this brutality. (Yes, let’s all bow our heads and shed a tear for Genacidal perpetrating turks)
The Armenian however were not so lucky. The Armenian ancient homeland of over 2500 was in Anatolia itself so the Turks feeling nationalistic pride at their losses, did what they do best, that is to exterminate all non-turks. This includes the Armenians, Greeks ande Assyrians. Under the guise of ‘relocation’ to an empty desert, most all were murdered in ways you can’t imagine and property and money quickly confiscated and given to turks.
James Russell, Prof of Armenian Studies of Harvard University, said it right when he wrote in a recent article, “In 1915 the Turks decided upon genocide and proceeded to do just that”.
4. The Armenian Genocide isn’t just between the Armenians and turks anymore then the Holocaust is just between the Nazi and the Jews. Genocide is a crime against all humanity and needs condemnation by all humanity.
Karekin,
You are accepting the fake arguments that non turks committed the genocide. These dumb lies have been spread by turkish agents and accepted by some brilliant minds in Armenia and diaspora. If non turks committed the genocide, Karekin, then you are releasing Turkey from its responsibility.
GENOCIDE VERDICT ONLY BY A COMPETENT TRIBUNAL
Armenian writers frequently quote the 1948 The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide for a definition, but fail to read the article 6 of the same convention which clearly sets out a methodology as to how that verdict of genocide shall be reached: via a competent tribunal. Such a tribunal, a la Nuremberg, was never convened and a genocide verdict was never given. How can then so many (Armenians and their sympathizers) benefit from a non-existent verdict for so long (since 1915) ? Isn’t that what “lynching” is all about?
The genocide verdict is not reserved for bloggers, columnists, activists, politicians, academicians, and others. It is reserved for legal experts of a competent tribunal as genocide is a legal term where the “intent” has to be proven. Do not underestimate or dismiss that tiny word, like so many others, overwhelmed with stories of pain and suffering of only one side, find it so irresistible to do.
INTENT MUST BE PROVEN
The whole controversy is surrounded around that one tiny word, intent, and Armenian propagandists and their allies know it well. That is why Armenians never dared to take Turkey to a competent tribunal since 1915 and chose to “fabricate” evidence instead. Talât Pasha telegrams, for example, were forged to fill that gaping hole in their genocide allegation. Armenians falsified many other records after that. The infamous Hitler quote which was proven to be bogus by Prof. Heath Lowry of Princeton (It is a good thing the US prosecutor refused to use as evidence that bogus document in Nuremberg trials; it was unsigned, undated, out of sequence, and stuck out like a sore thumb in a pile of otherwise neat and orderly Nazi documents.) The American Ambassador Morgenthau, a rabid anti-Turk, is frequently used as a credible source. He posed as a career diplomat and a historian, but he was neither. He was a real estate agent and a developer from upstate New York who raised the most funds for the Wilson campaign in 1912 and was rewarded with an ambassadorial post by the president elect Wilson. Armenian falsifications go on and on.
ARMENIAN UPRISING AND TREASON
If the Armenian allegation of genocide ever goes to a competent tribunal one day in future, which it may yet, the intent will be the fulcrum around which the final verdict will hinge. Turkey is confident that if non-partisan, dispassionate scholars looked at the communications, they will quickly realized that the intent was to temporarily resettle (TERESET) the Ottoman-Armenians who overtly or covertly supported Armenian uprising and treason.
Langer, William L., Prof. of History, Harvard, in his book “The Diplomacy of Imperialism”, Alfred a. Knopf, New York (1960), p 157, was more thorough and fair than you in your lynching piece:
“… Revolutionary placards were being posted in the cities and there were not a few cases of the blackmailing of wealthy Armenians, who were forced to contribute to the cause. Europeans in Turkey were agreed that the immediate aim of the agitators was to incite disorder, bring about inhuman reprisals and so provoke the intervention of the powers. For that reason, it was said, they operated by preference in areas where the Armenians were in a hopeless minority, so that reprisals would be certain.
One of the revolutionaries told Dr. Hamlin, the founder of Robert College, that the Hunchak bands would ‘watch their opportunity to kill Turks and Kurds, set fire to their villages, and then make their escape into the mountains. The enraged Moslems will then rise, and fall upon the defenseless Armenians and slaughter them with such barbarity that Russia will enter in the name of humanity and Christian civilization and take possession’. When the horrified missionary denounced the scheme as atrocious and infernal beyond anything ever known, he received this reply: ‘It appears so to you, no doubt; but we Armenians have determined to be free. Europe listened to the Bulgarian horrors and made Bulgaria free. She will listen to our cry when it goes up in the shrieks and blood of millions of women and children. We shall do it’…”
These findings are supported by another prominent scholar, a history professor at UCLA, Stanford J. Shaw (died in 2006), said in his book History Of The Ottoman Empire And modern Turkey , Cambridge University Press (1977), Volume II, page 315:
“…Armenians again flooded the czarist armies, and the czar returned to St. Petersburg confident that the day finally had come for him to reach Istanbul. Hostilities were opened by Russians, who pushed across the border on November 1, 1914, though the Ottomans stopped them and pushed them back a few days later….A subsequent Russian counter offensive in January caused the Ottoman army to scatter…and the way was prepared for a new Russian push into eastern Anatolia , to be accompanied by an open Armenian revolt against the sultan.
…Armenian leaders in Russia now declared their open support of the enemy and there seemed no other alternative. It would be impossible to determine which of the Armenians would remain loyal and which would follow the appeals of their leaders. As soon as the spring came, then, in mid-May 1915 orders were issued to evacuate the entire Armenian population from the provinces of Van, Bitlis, and Erzurum, to get them away from all areas where they might undermine the Ottoman campaigns against Russia or against the British in Egypt, with arrangements made to settle them in towns and camps in the Mosul area of Northern Iraq. In addition, Armenians residing in the countryside (but not in the cities) of the Cilician districts as well as those of north Syria were to be sent to central Syria for the same reason. Specific instructions were issued for the army to protect the Armenians against nomadic attacks and to provide them with sufficient food and other supplies to meet their needs during the march and after they were settled. Warnings were sent to the Ottoman military commanders to make certain that neither the Kurds nor any other Muslims used the situation to gain vengeance for the long years of Armenian terrorism. The Armenians were to be protected and cared for until they returned to their homes after the war…”
HISTORIANS SPEAK OUT
69 other historians, scholars, and other experts on this issue, representing top American universities and colleges in this field, have signed a statement addressed to congress and published it in New York Times and Washington Post on May 19, 1985, supporting Lange’s and Shaw’s findings, saying:
“… The undersigned American academicians who specialize in Turkish, Ottoman and Middle Eastern Studies are concerned that the current language embodied in House Joint Resolution 192 is misleading and/or inaccurate in several respects. .. (W)e respectfully take exception to that portion of the text which singles out for special recognition: ‘. . . the one and one half million people of Armenian ancestry who were victims of genocide perpetrated in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 . . ..’
Our reservations focus on the use of the words ‘Turkey’ and ‘genocide’ and may be summarized as follows:
From the fourteenth century until 1922, the area currently known as Turkey, or more correctly, the Republic of Turkey, was part of the territory encompassing the multinational, multi-religious state known as the Ottoman Empire. It is wrong to equate the Ottoman Empire with the Republic of Turkey in the same way that it is wrong to equate the Hapsburg Empire with the Republic of Austria. The Ottoman Empire, which was brought to an end in 1922, by the successful conclusion of the Turkish Revolution which established the present day Republic of Turkey in 1923, incorporated lands and people which today account for more than twenty-five distinct countries in Southeastern Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, only one of which is the Republic of Turkey. The Republic of Turkey bears no responsibility for any events which occurred in Ottoman times, yet by naming ‘Turkey’ in the Resolution, its authors have implicitly labeled it as guilty of ‘genocide’ it charges transpired between 1915 and 1923;
As for the charge of ‘genocide,’ no signatory of this statement wishes to minimize the scope of Armenian suffering. We are likewise cognizant that it cannot be viewed as separate from the suffering experienced by the Muslim inhabitants of the region. The weight of evidence so far uncovered points in the direct of serious inter communal warfare (perpetrated by Muslim and Christian irregular forces), complicated by disease, famine, suffering and massacres in Anatolia and adjoining areas during the First World War. Indeed, throughout the years in question, the region was the scene of more or less continuous warfare, not unlike the tragedy which has gone on in Lebanon for the past decade. The resulting death toll among both Muslim and Christian communities of the region was immense. But much more remains to be discovered before historians will be able to sort out precisely responsibility between warring and innocent, and to identify the causes for the events which resulted in the death or removal of large numbers of the eastern Anatolian population, Christian and Muslim alike.
Statesmen and politicians make history, and scholars write it. For this process to work scholars must be given access to the written records of the statesmen and politicians of the past. To date, the relevant archives in the Soviet Union, Syria, Bulgaria and Turkey all remain, for the most part, closed to dispassionate historians. Until they become available, the history of the Ottoman Empire in the period encompassed by H.J. Res. 192 (1915-1923) cannot be adequately known. We believe that the proper position for the United States Congress to take on this and related issues is to encourage full and open access to all historical archives and not to make charges on historical events before they are fully understood. Such charges as those contained H.J. Res. 192 would inevitably reflect unjustly upon the people of Turkey and perhaps set back irreparably progress historians are just now beginning to achieve in understanding these tragic events.
As the above comments illustrate, the history of the Ottoman-Armenians is much debated among scholars… By passing the resolution Congress will be attempting to determine by legislation which side of the historical question is correct. Such a resolution, based on historically questionable assumptions, can only damage the cause of honest historical inquiry, and damage the credibility of the American legislative process…”
If the scholarship above does not satisfy you, perhaps you would like to hear from the horse’s mouth. Look how Boghos Nubar, leader of the Armenian delegation at Paris Peace Conference, in a letter to the Times of London, published on January 30, 1919, begs the allies at Paris conference at the end of World War I, urging them to reward the Armenians for their service:
“…The Armenians have been, since the beginning of the war, de facto belligerents – since they fought alongside the Allies on all fronts – in Palestine and Syria, where the Armenian volunteers, recruited by the Armenian National Delegation at the request of the French government, made up more than half of the French contingent. In the Caucasus, where, without mentioning the 150,000 Armenians in the Imperial Russian Army, more than 40,000 of their volunteers offered resistance to the Turkish Armies.”
What genocide are you talking about? This is war… Plain, simple…and ugly… As all wars are…
You say “you reviewed” the evidence and found it damning. You simply fall for the same mistake many other scholars usually do: you use the pro-Armenian, partisan sources, all of which take wartime propaganda and bias produced by Armenian nationalists, clergy, and their Western supporters at face value and regurgitate them. Look what another historian, Guenter Lewy, who also reviewed existing Armenian evidence, says in his article titled Revisiting the Armenian Genocide published in Fall 2005 edition of Middle East Quarterly :
“…Most of those who maintain that Armenian deaths were premeditated and so constitute genocide base their argument on three pillars: the actions of Turkish military courts of 1919-20,…, the role of the so-called “Special Organization” accused of carrying out the massacres, and the Memoirs of Naim Bey which contain alleged telegrams of Interior Minister Talât Pasha…. Yet when these events and the sources describing them are subjected to careful examination, they provide at most a shaky foundation from which to claim, let alone conclude, that the deaths of Armenians were premeditated….”
ETHOCIDE, NOT GENOCIDE
Based on this, isn’t it a bit dishonest to present a complex, contested, and clearly unresolved historical event as “settled history” to unsuspecting masses? Don’t you think you should perhaps qualify your views as those of the Armenian camp?
It is because of these considerations, I have coined the term “ETHOCIDE” back in 2003, a brief definition of which is “extermination of ethics via malicious mass deception for political and/or other benefits”.
Ergun Kirlikovali
Son of Turkish survivors from both paternal and maternal sides
http://www.turkla.com
Ergun Kirlikovali is an immuture and all he does is cut & pase.I have noticed he posts the same thing on all the webs,I bet it’s not even his writing.Grow up man.
The idea that non-Turks masterminded the Armenian genocide is not a fiction at all. Yes, these men were all ‘Ottoman’, but those of them were not, in fact, Turkish. This is not about absolving Turkey at all, but about pinning the blame squarely on those who were responsible for the planning and execution of such a scheme. Does anyone seriously think that Turks, real Turks, would go out of their way to kill the goose that had layed the golden eggs for the Ottoman Empire for over 900 years? The reality is that the real impetus for this was theft…grand theft on a major scale. Please take a look at exactly who stepped in and took over all the Armenian businesses and land in Turkey. Follow the money, people. Look at those who were rewarded for their participation in the scheme and profited from it. More often than not, the arrow points to Salonika. This truth is the main obstacle to discussing the genocide honestly in Turkey and other places. Everyone in Turkey knows what happened to the Armenians there…it is no secret. The government elites know very, very well. They don’t discuss it openly and honestly because it is illegal, but behind closed doors, you will be told the truth, the dirty little secret of what happened to the Armenians. It is not pretty, but once the Turkish government can be honest about its past and apologize to the Armenians around the world who all originated in Turkey, the Turkish people will be set free from this noose of lies and deception.
Like we haven’t read this cut and paste crap before.
Your only feeding the flames of your ilk into hating more Christians. Enough Christians have died at the hands of Turkish Muslims.
Here is a question which is at the heart of the Turkish-Armenian conflict I would like to direct to the open-minded truth-seeker:
How many Muslims, mostly Turks, did Armenians kill during WWI (1914-1918)?
Ergun,
Simply do a google search and get your answer.
But I want to hear from you… People who seem to know everything there is to know about everything… Here is a simple question. Two sides in the conflict. You know the Armnenian side. What about the Turkish side? So, I repeat:
Howe many Muslims, mostly Turks, were killed by the Armenians during WWI?
Hey Ergun,
Please enlighten us. I did a google search, only to find information on Turks killing Armenians.
Where would I need to go to read your side of the truth??
Oh, I did find some stuff with you on Turkish web sites as well.
Jill,
What did you find on Ergun, he’s on Turkish web sites?
have not been able get a straight answer from any member of the AFATH community (Armenian falsifiers and Turk-haters) in any of the debates over the years. Isn’t that strange?
I mean, really. Here, you have a dispute. Two sides fighting. Only one sides makes all the claims, lists numbers, facts, figures, and appears to know all there is to know about every aspect of that dispute.
Except…
… the other side of the story.
OK, let me try another tack.
Here are the Armenian “defacto belligerents” straight from the horse mouth. The question is, who did they fight against? How many of their enemies did they kill during WWI? Who were their enemies?
BOGHOS NUBAR PASHA LETTER TO THE TIMES OF LONDON DOCUMENTS ARMENIAN TREASON
Boghos Nubar Pasha, the leader of the Armenian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference after World War I, reveals in his letter dated 27 January 1919 to The Times of London, that it was the Armenian support for the allied war effort (read: treason) which led to the TERESET (temporary relocation, not extermination) of those Armenians by the Ottoman authorities.
Below, he lists how many thousand Armenian volunteers fought their fellow Ottoman citizens on the side of the invader, the Allies.
Here is a smoking gun, one of many, that proves beyond a shadow of doubt, that Armenians were not innocent , unarmed, non-combatant victims, as portrayed, but well armed, trained, motivated combatants..
Let’s read:
BOGHOS NUBAR PASHA TO THE TIMES OF LONDON
To the Editor of the Times,
Sir, the name of Armenia is not on the list of the nations admitted to the Peace Conference. Our sorrow and our disappointment are deep beyond expression. Armenians naturally expected their demand for admission to the Conference to be conceded, after all they had done for the common cause.
The unspeakable suffering and the dreadful losses that have befallen the Armenians by reason of their faithfulness to the Allies are now fully known. But I must emphasize the fact unhappily known to few, that ever since the beginning of the war the Armenians fought by the side of the Allies on all fronts. Adding our losses in the field to the greater losses through massacres and deportations, we find that over a million out of a total Armenian population of four million and a half have lost their lives in and through the war. Armenia’s tribute to death is thus undoubtedly heavier in proportion than that of any other belligerent nation.
For the Armenians have been belligerents de facto, since they indignantly refused to side with Turkey.
Our volunteers fought in the French “Legion Entrangere” and covered themselves with glory. In the Legion d’Orient they numbered over 5,000, and made up more than half the French contingent in Syria and Palestine, which took part in the decisive victory of General Allenby.
In the Caucasus, without mentioning the 150,000 Armenians in the Russian armies, about 50,000 Armenian volunteers under Andranik, Nazarbekoff, and others not only fought for four years for the cause of the Entente, but after the breakdown of Russia they were the only forces in the Caucasus to resist the advance of the Turks, whom they held in check until the armistice was signed. Thus they helped the British forces in Mesopotamia by hindering the Germano-Turks from sending their troops elsewhere.
These services have been acknowledged by the Allied Governments, as Lord Robert Cecil recognized in the House of Commons.
In virtue of all these considerations the Armenian National Delegation asked that the Armenian nation should be recognized as a belligerent. Had the recognition been granted, we should now have been admitted, ipso facto, to the Conference, to which even transatlantic States have found access, though having merely broken off diplomatic relations with Germany, without the least sacrifice on their part.
At the moment when the fate of Armenia is being decided at the Peace Conference, it is my duty, as the head of the National Delegation which has no tribute from which its voice can resound, to state once again, in the columns of The Times, the important part played by the Armenians in this frightful war.
I wish strongly to urge that the Armenians, having of their own free will cast their lot with the champions of right and justice, the victory of the Allies over their common enemies has secured to them a right to independence.
Believe me, sir, yours very truthfully,
Boghos Nubar
Paris, January 27, 1919
—
Does any of this sound like a genocide to any open-minded truth-seeker?
Going back to my still un-answered question, how many Turks did Nubar’s “defacto belligerent” Armenian armies kill during WWI?
Hi Bill,
Yea this guy (Ergun) likes to give money and hold fundraisers to political leaders and candidates who are (likely) or oppose the Armenian genocide.
He asks questions of people (like on this blog), then cuts and pastes responses to Armenian genocide denialist web sites.
He seems to be a little delusional.
As far as the rest of what I found on the web sites, you can do a web search on his name and find all his old and latest antics.
Since when was there a ‘conflict’ between the Ottoman govt and its own citizens? Or, was it with the non-existent Armenian govt? I don’t recall ever reading about such a conflict. When a government turns its army on its own citizens…and its leader…in the face of Talaat, Enver and Cemal demand their destruction…no matter what the reason…and then issues orders for deportation, kills them at will and then appropriates their property… that’s what genocide is all about…a thorough ethnic cleansing. The fact that some Armenians took up arms in self-defense does not constitute a ‘conflict’…they had every right to oppose their elimination by the CUP. Let’s remember, a huge number of Armenians were fighting in the Ottoman army on behalf of Turkey, before they were all executed. Get your facts straight, everyone. The Turkish Empire and all its power was turned against its largest minority group. And by the way, the International Association of Genocide Scholars is not made up of idiots. They have studied this for years and came to a very well thought out conclusion. The fact is, the only place on earth where their judgement is not valid is in Turkey. Rather strange, don’t you think? Even at this late date, Turkey must issue an apology….because the Armenian diaspora is actually a Turkish diaspora created by Turkey.
By the way, if the govt of Germany decided tomorrow to begin deporting and killing all of its Turkish residents, and taking their businesses and property, perhaps Turks would understand the full meaning of being a persecuted minority. Let’s ignore the fact that Germany isn’t even their ancient homeland at all….I guarantee you someone would call it a genocide…plain and simple.
How many Muslims, mostly Turks, were killed by the Armenians during WWI?
This question is the key to solving this conflict.
I am still waiting to hear any attempt by any member of the AFATH community (Armenian falsifiers and Turk-haters) to tackle this question honestly and courageously… (And if you do, it would be a first!)
The information available and accepted by academia trumps your question.
I am still waiting…
That is not an answer. Please try harder. Let me give you a hint:
“… Religious communities had long become revolutionary hearts of the Armenian revolutionary parties and most diabolical plans had been drawn up there. Religious spaces had become warehouses of arms and hearths of plots. Religious leaders had been exhorting the people to rise up against the state with their speeches and writings, people that had trusted them. They did not preach any more the teaching of the Gospel and utter noble words in their sermons. Rebellion had replaced loyalty and righteousness in their sermons, hatred and revenge had taken the place of humanity. Meanness and ignominy were preached in place of high morality. Religious leaders presided over festivities, meetings and ceremonies organised by revolutionary committees.”
Source: Gevand Turyan, Armenian bishop and Ottoman citizen, “A Qui la Faute?” Aux Partis Revue Arménien.(Publication de la Revue Dadiar). Constantinople, 1917, pp. 40-41.
Now, does that help?
South Australia Passes Armenian Genocide Motion
ADELAIDE: An Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC Australia)
delegation was present as South Australian Parliament’s Legislative
Council passed a motion recognising the Armenian Genocide as “one of
the greatest crimes against humanity”.
The motion, introduced by the Hon. David Ridgway MLC (Leader of the
Liberal Opposition in Legislative Council) and seconded by the
Hon. Bernard Finnigan (Member of the Labor Government in Legislative
Council) went through unopposed, and sees the Upper House of South
Australia’s parliament join the New South Wales parliament in
condemning “the genocide of the Armenians and all other acts of
genocide”.
However this motion is unique, as it is the first to include
recognition of recently-uncovered material detailing the significant
humanitarian effort by the people of South Australia who aided the
victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide almost a century ago.
http://anc.org.au/news.php?extend.140
Armenian propaganda infested Australian politics, too. A sad day for the truth.
Obama, on the other hand, acted in the best interests of the United States.
Armenia and Armenian lobbies in the West are bad news for global peace. Sad, but true.
[…] UPDATE: The Stiletto has just published a post titled, “As The Armenian Vote Goes, So Goes The Nation?”. […]
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