Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) has gained national attention for his efforts to have official recognition for the Armenian genocide. And that has made him a beloved figure in his district’s large Armenian American community. But the Pasadena Star-News reports that his stand has also helped his election opponent:
In recent weeks, Republican challenger Charles Hahn picked up thousands of dollars at a fundraiser thrown by a Turkish-American businessman who runs a Web site denying the World War I-era Armenian genocide took place. “I want to bring all sides of the issue to the party: Armenians, Turkish-Americans, the Turkish and Armenian governments,” said Hahn. “We need to all work together in solving the problem.” The fundraiser was put together by Ergun Kirlikovali of Turkish Forum , an Orange County businessman who runs several Web sites, including “www.falsegenocide.com.” The ideology represents a sharp contrast to bills sponsored by Schiff. Over the past two years, Schiff has sponsored legislation that would put the U.S. government on record as officially recognizing that the genocide took place.
More on the effort for recognition of the genocide here in this October 2007 article from The Times’ Molly Hennessy-Fiske.
— Shelby Grad
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SCHIFF HAS VOTED FOR $840 BN BAILOUT, NOT HE SHOULD “PAY” FOR IT
I find the Armenian panic about a Turkish-American fundraising rather amusing. Why is it so noteworthy? After all, it is not the first time we, the Turkish-Americans, are doing it. It is probably the first time the Armenians are noticing it.
And I don’t appreciate the innuendos like we are some sort of aliens from some planet whose political activities should cause a nationwide alarm. This strange Armenian reaction seems to be the direct result of stereotyping of Turks for decades in Armenian minds.
We, the Turkish-Americans, are hardworking, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens, who are fed up with politicians like Schiff who for years has repeatedly placed Armenian interests above American ones. We find Schiff’s attitude on the Turkish-Armenian conflict extremely racist and dishonest. Schiff takes Armenian allegations at face value, ignores Turkish suffering caused by Armenians, and dismisses Armenian terrorism, armed rebellions, supreme treason, and territorial demands, all of which caused their TERESET (temporary resettlement.) There was human suffering on all sides. It was a civil war within a world war, not genocide.
It is interesting to note that everything Turkish-Americans do is quickly attributed (by Armenians) to “the Turkish lobby” whereas everything Armenians do, to “grass roots activism”. Every function Turkish-Americans organize is chalked off to “denialism” whereas every act of harassment, intimidation, and even terrorism Armenians relentlessly conduct is credited to “advocacy”. This approach reeks of ethnic discrimination.
Charles Hahn, the Republican challenger, on the other hand, is a decent, honest, hardworking, family man who understands that there are two sides to a coin, any coin. Hahn knows well that it is the job of historians, not politicians, to sort out what did or did not transpire 100 years ago in some distant part of the world and how to characterize it. He supports establishment of a commission of historians to study this matter away from constant Armenian pressure and intimidation. For me, this is enough cause to support Charles Hahn.
Charles Hahn promises, if elected, to do away with the inheritance taxes, support the social security fairness act so teachers get their fair share, lower health care costs, and give a federal tax credit of $250 for anyone who rescues an animal from the pound and gives it a loving home. Moreover, Hahn does not support the 840 Billion Dollar bailout of Wall Street companies whose directors made poor business decisions but promptly celebrated receiving 840 billion of our tax dollars with champagne baths in lavish Florida parties. Schiff is the one whose vote in Congress made it happen. Schiff has many reasons to be concerned.
Posted by: Ergun Kirlikovali | October 31, 2008 at 08:50 AM
To the Armenian and Turkish genocide obsessives: this is America. This is 2008. We have a few more urgent matters to address. Keep this neurotic fixation on “acknowledgement” of the Armenian genocide out of American election politics–we have an economic meltdown, a decaying infrastructure, a failing educational system, a degraded environment, and–oh yes–a few tragic CURRENT civil and other wars around the world killing people NOW for our elected leaders to address. I am tired of hearing about the demands of a very very small immigrant group for our government leaders to drop everything and issue proclamations about something that happened almost 100 years ago. If you have so much time and energy, help do something for people in the Sudan. For one example.
Posted by: Malby | October 31, 2008 at 09:09 AM
Imagine if the Jewish Holocaust was denied by the Germans and was not officially recognized in the United States. Imagine the outrage.
Posted by: A | October 31, 2008 at 10:31 AM
Good bless u
Posted by: Berj | October 31, 2008 at 11:12 AM
JEWISH HOLOCAUST IS A FACT, ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IS AN ALLEGATION
Jewish Holocaust is a fact based on the verdict of a “competent tribunal”, Nuremberg, where the due process” was allowed to run its natural course and the accused were given a fair chance to cross-examine the evidence and question the witnesses produced by the accusers.
Armenian genocide, on the other hand, is an allegation. A fair “due process” a la Nuremberg was never allowed in the Turkish-Armenian conflict; there is no court verdict saying it is genocide. All we have is Armenian claims based on hearsay and forgeries backed by Armenian nagging pressure, intimidation, harassment, and terrorism. People do not yet know the “other side of the story”.
Those who ignorantly compare the factual Jewish Holocaust with the bogus Armenian genocide, might wish to consider this:
Did the Jews establish Jewish armies behind German lines, attack German armies’ rear, join the invading enemy armies, and cause half millions of German casualties, all in order to establish a Jewish state on German soil?
Of course, not.
Armenians, on the other hand, did all that and much worse in the Ottoman Empire causing 524,000 Muslim dead, mostly Turkish, with Armenian rebellions, terrorism, treason, and territorial demands.
In all fairness, how can the court-proven fact of Jewish Holocaust be uttered in the same breath as the baseless allegations of Armenian genocide , let alone compared?
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.)
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, misrepresentations, 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 Muslims in general and Turks in particular. The term genocide must be used with the qualifier “alleged”, if one values ideals like truth, objectivity, and fairness.
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. Dishonest because it dismisses brutal Armenian armed revolts, domestic and international Armenian terrorism, supreme Armenian treason (as in joining an invading enemy army to kill their Muslim neighbors) and Armenian territorial demands, 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 Turks around the globe and destroy the excellent relations currently enjoyed between the U.S. and Turkey. It will, no doubt, please Armenians but also disappoint 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.
Hate-based proclamations, such as Schiff’s HR 106, have never been an American way to do business. Why start now?
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”.
Peace.
Ergun Kirlikovali
Son of Turkish survivors from both paternal and maternal sides
Posted by: Ergun Kirlikovali | October 31, 2008 at 12:05 PM
The difference between grass roots American-Armenian movements to educate people about the Armenian genocide and the Turkish individuals who parade as “offended Americans” is truth verses unadulterated propaganda directed from Ankara, Turkey.
The Turkish government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to stop any progress towards any meaningful reconciliation by hoping that the truth of the Armenian genocide can be “professionally” buried.
This issue is correctly stated that it’s not an important concern to the American voter in these turbulent economic period, but it speaks volumes to the character of those who stand for justice and truth and those who trample on a human rights issue and shamefully accept politically motivated endorsements that puts the interests of a foreign government, Turkey, above the basic American values. These are the differences between those who are running for office to represent Americans in the US Congress.
Posted by: Zareh Sahakian | October 31, 2008 at 12:41 PM
It is a proven fact my brother. I’m not going to list all the documented atrocities here in this comment section. Armenians have nothing against innocent Turkish people. In fact, they are great people. It’s your criminal government that we don’t like. Explain to me why you get 10 years in prison(if you’re lucky) if you even bring up the Armenian Genocide. I do understand why normal innocent Turkish people can’t accept the fact that their ancestors can commit such evil crimes. 99% of the people in Turkey are good people. It is a hard thing to accept. The truth will come out eventually.
A
Posted by: A | October 31, 2008 at 01:21 PM
Ergun Kirlikovali your argument that it happened 100 years ago and therefore should be forgotten without proper closure does not stand. Because the attitude from your argument is then if you commit a crime/genocide and enough time passes by it will be old news,forgotten therefore its ok to do it.As a matter of fact Hitler gave a speech before the holocaust and that is exactly what he said:”Who remembers the Armenian genocide today?.”
Have you ever thought that proper recognition may actually bring closure?
Also the Armenian protests are not directed to average Turk in Turkey or here in the states,its aimed at the Turkish government,which by the way has nothing to do with the genocide but it’s covering it.
Josef Stalin said once :”The death of a person is tragedy the death of millions is just statistic”: that is what you saying.
Posted by: Gary | October 31, 2008 at 01:27 PM
Ergun, as a person involved in the “dispute” you are probably well aware of the fact that more than 120 Holocaust and genocide scholars have declared the Armenian genocide an incontestable fact. Furthermore, the International Center for Transitional Justice recently released a legal study implicitly supported by the Turkish government that declared “The Events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention, and legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe them.”
The scholars and lawyers have spoken. It is long past time for Turkey to face the judgment of history. Stop the shameful denial, have guts to face the truth – or else this issue will continue haunt you, your chaildren and grandchildrenn…
Posted by: Lusy | November 01, 2008 at 06:06 PM
There are some decent Turks, who dare to speak up the truth. Unfortunately, the Armenian Genocide took place, and there is no academic debate about the fact. All those who speculate on the issue of the Armenian Genocide are those who try to accumulate political points that can be redeemed for something else.
Posted by: VIlen | November 01, 2008 at 06:24 PM
When the « Los Angeles Times » will publish information about the financial support by Armenian ultranationalist groups, like ANCA, for politicians who supports Armenian claims? The man who is charge of the political financing of ANCA, Mourad Topalian, is a former terrorist, sentenced to 37 months of jail by a US court in 2001.
Posted by: Lucrèce | November 02, 2008 at 02:09 AM
“Yes, a large number of Western students of Ottoman history reject the appropriateness of the genocide label for the tragic fate of the Armenian community in Ottoman Turkey. This list includes distinguished scholars such as Roderic Davison, J.C. Hurewitz, Bernard Lewis, and Andrew Mango. Ignoring this formidable array of learned opinion, most Armenians and their supporters among so-called genocide scholars assert with superb arrogance that the Armenian genocide is an incontrovertible historical fact, similar to the Jewish Holocaust, which would be denied only by lackeys of the Turkish government.”
Guenter Lewy (professor emeritus of political science at Massachussetts University), “The Middle East Quarterly”, Winter 2006.
“As a result of three month touring the area occupied and devasted by the Russian army and Christian army of revenge, during the spring and summer 1916, I have no hesitation in saying that the Turks would be able to make out as good a case against their enemies as that presetend against the Turks in Col. Agha Petro’s letter. According to the almost universal testimony of the local inhabitants and eye-witnesses, the Russian acting on the instigation and advise of the Nestorians and Armenians who accompagnied them, the leading of whom seems to have been Agha Petro himself, murdered and butchered indiscriminately any Moslem member of the civil population who fell into their hands. A typical example that might be quoted is the extermination of the town of Rowanduz and the wholesale massacre of its inhabitants.
While Col. Petros is able to quote isolated examples of Turkish atrocities, a traveler through the Rownaduz and Neri districts would find widespread and wholesale evidence of outrages committed by Christians on Moslems. Anything more thorough and complete would be difficult to imagine. I might also mention that according to the testimony of the Kurdish population, Col. Agha Petros proved the Russians’ evil genius and was to a greast extent directly responsible for the excesses committed by Russian troops.”
Major Edward W. C. Noel, political officier of the British Army, report of 1919, Archives of Foreign Office, 371/4173/80976, quoted in Stanford J. Shaw, “From Empire to Republic: the Turkish War of National Liberation”, Ankara, TTK, vol. II, p. 922.
Posted by: Lucrèce | November 02, 2008 at 02:11 AM
Gary, perhaps you should get your “facts” updated concerning the famous Hitler quote…
The quote had been declared “a forgery” (yet another one) since 1984, that was 24 years ago !!!
Dr. Robert John, a historian and political analyst of Armenian descent from New York City, declared that a commonly used quotation of an alleged statement by Adolf Hitler concerning the Armenian massacres was a forgery and should not be used.
During the Nuremberg trial, the German defense lawyers were able to introduce the most complete account of the August 22 1939 address, taken down by German Admiral Hermann Boehm, which runs to 12 pages in translation. There is NO mention of the Armenians or the rest of the “quotation.”
Kevrok Bardakciyan in a June 11, 2005 interview admits clearly that the statement of Hitler saying that “who remembers the murdered Armenians?” could not be found out despite all the searches in the archives. “… I have conducted researches for eighteen months in order to reach an evidence of this statement. I could not find out valid evidence proving that Hitler said such a statement…”
Posted by: Robert | November 02, 2008 at 06:24 AM
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?”
Posted by: Mark | November 02, 2008 at 07:19 AM
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?”
Posted by: Mark | November 02, 2008 at 07:19 AM
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.
Posted by: Mark | November 02, 2008 at 07:20 AM
« Unfortunately, the Armenian Genocide took place, and there is no academic debate about the fact. »
Who is responsible? The Turkish Historical Society invites Armenian and pro-Armenian scholars since 1990. Few accepted, including Levon Marashlian in 1990, and Hilmar Kaiser in 2006.
Posted by: Lucrèce | November 02, 2008 at 09:50 AM
“Genocide is a crime against humanity, and there is no statue of limitations on genocide”
The Geneva convention on genocide (1948) is not retroactive. Even the Nazi leaders were not sentenced for “genocide”, but for war crimes, on the ground of the The Hague (1907) and Geneva (1928) conventions.
And what about the massacres, rapes, pillages… committed by Armenian and Nestorian gangs, by Cossaks or by Greek soldiers, between 1914 and 1922? Hmm?
“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.”
It is a lie. The word genocide did not exist before 1944. Let’s open a dictionary! And see Lucy S. Dawidowicz and Zygmunt Bauman for understand the specificity of the Shoah.
“The assassinations of Turkish officials which began by two small clandestine groups in 1973 were stopped in 1985 by Armenian public opinion.”
The Justice Commandos of Armenian Genocide were not a “small clandestine group”, but the terrorist branch of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, i.e. the party which controls the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). Mourad Topalian, president of the ANCA between 1991 and 1999, currently in charge of political financing distributed by the ANCA, was sentenced to 37 monts of jail by an US court in 2001.
The Armenian Secret Army for Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) was supported by many Armenian associations, at least until 1983. Many money was sent to the ASALA from the so-called diaspora, many committee for support the incarcerated terrorists were created by Armenians in Switzerland or in USA. Ara Toranian, president of the Comité de coordination des associations arméniennes de France (like ANCA + AAA in France) was spokesman of the ASALA between 1976 and 1983.
The terrorist attacks were not stopped in 1985: for example, the ASALA attempted in December 1991 to assassinate the Turkish ambassador in Hungary.
Posted by: Lucrèce | November 02, 2008 at 10:04 AM
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 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 fanatically claim it is genocide. They intimiadet, harass, and terrorize if you don’t agree with Armenians.
Until this controversial dispute is sorted out in a “competent tribunal” where the “due process” is allowed to run its course and Turkish side of the story is also understood, evidence and witnesses mutually cross examined, all decent people should use the qualifier “alleged” before the term genocide. Fairness and honesty require it.
Blaming an entire people with a crime uncommitted and without a court verdict is lynching and un-American.
It was a civil war within a world war, not a genocide. Human suffering did not discriminate on the basis of ethnicity; all the people of the area suffered equally terribly.
Embellishing and cherishing Armenian suffering and ignoring or dismissing Turkish suffering is selective morality and ethnic discrimination.
Posted by: Ergun Kirlikovali | November 03, 2008 at 08:14 AM
Of all the comments posted by the Armenian symphatizers or PAC leaders here, the one that explains the mindset of the average Armenian-American the best is, “history is too important to leave to historians”. Inside this smog of confusion and hatred they create, hints like this can always be found by those who care more about the facts.
Under the supervision of their PACs, it appears Armenians have unilaterally decided that the history is too important to leave to the historians. They may also feel the economists should stay away from the economy, or scientists should not be allowed into labs, I don’t know. All I know is it should be clear to an objective, competent person that only the ignorant or ill willed could carry such an idea that disrespects the science and the scientists.
How did such an unsophisticated, one-sided argument grow so wide in such an anti-democratic fashion, in a country that is built on the idea of the superiority of science, freedom of speech and equality of justice, is the real question one should ask. Next time they bash George W. Bush for his not-so-scientific comments on global warming, democrats should remember to practice what they preach.
Posted by: Sarp Ersoylu | November 03, 2008 at 02:31 PM
What I read from the genocide deniers it’s like you try to convince yourself more then anything else
The bottom line is no nation goes for 100 years claiming a fake genocide for some personal gains. Your arguments against it changed from: nothing ever such thing happened to if it did it does not constitute for genocide because it was a century ago,WW1,Turks suffered too & more circumstances that could go on.The history repeated itself with very similar circumstances during WW2.The same arguments can be made here too but
Genocides are black and white: deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
I hope though we have forgiveness for each other after all we have more things in common as neighboring countries.
Posted by: Gary | November 04, 2008 at 09:46 AM
What I read from the genocide deniers it’s like you try to convince yourself more then anything else
The bottom line is no nation goes for 100 years claiming a fake genocide for some personal gains. Your arguments against it changed from: nothing ever such thing happened to if it did it does not constitute for genocide because it was a century ago,WW1,Turks suffered too & more circumstances that could go on.The history repeated itself with very similar circumstances during WW2.The same arguments can be made here too but
Genocides are black and white: deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
I hope though we have forgiveness for each other after all we have more things in common as neighboring countries.
Posted by: Gary | November 04, 2008 at 10:30 AM
RE: Mark’s #16. “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.”
Yes, several hundred of us were fortunate enough to experience the sympathy and understanding of 2 Armenians in particular when they so kindly infiltrated our annual Turkish Republic Day Ball in Long Beach (Oct. 25th) and began screaming and yelling during our moment of silence for the fallen victims of terrorism….I felt their sympathy as they were escorted out by police (and again, two hours later as about 20 of them screamed at us as we left the event in our car).
Very classy display of good will and understanding….
Posted by: anonymous | November 04, 2008 at 01:43 PM
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.
Posted by: Ergun Kirlikovali | November 04, 2008 at 09:42 PM
RE: Yes, several hundred of us were fortunate enough to experience the sympathy and understanding of 2 Armenians in particular when they so kindly infiltrated our annual Turkish Republic Day Ball in Long Beach (Oct. 25th) and began screaming and yelling during our moment of silence for the fallen victims of terrorism….I felt their sympathy as they were escorted out by police (and again, two hours later as about 20 of them screamed at us as we left the event in our car).
Very classy display of good will and understanding….
So they shouted at your gathering, does this make them terrorists? If so, man I wish Osama Bin Laden was this type of terrorist on 9/11.
This is America, had they done that in Turkey, they’d be put in jail for 10 years. Also, you know there are many many poor countries in the world, did you ever wonder why it is Armenians that are proportionally the most dispersed? Hey you kill and deport them from Eastern Turkey, a lot of them move to the US, then you bitch that they might have some political power in their new country of residence???
That said, as an Armenian, I must say now is not the time for a resolution. First we must leave Iraq so we no longer need those military bases in Turkey, then it’s time for the resolution and hopefully Obama will follow through on his promise. You better hope the US is in Iraq for a loooong time buddy, or that resolution would have passed years ago. That said, I don’t hate anybody not even a Turk, I can see how you believe what you believe, I just strongly disagree, and now we can peacefully fight it out politically and see who wins and I hope we win and you lose. Later.
Posted by: SoCalHye | November 04, 2008 at 09:59 PM
SoCalHye,
If a minority group, which strongly argues against terror and for peace & human rights, secretly leaks into another country’s republic day celebrations to scream and yell words of hatred during a moment of silence to honor victims of terror, you can’t call that freedom of speech. That is hypocrisy.
As a last note, you are absolutely right. There is nothing wrong with Armenians having political power in the US. What is wrong with it is that they use it in an unjust and unethical way to dishonor and hurt Turkey and its people, rather than using it in a positive way to bridge between Turks and Armenians who once co-existed for hundreds of years.
Posted by: Sarp Ersoylu | November 05, 2008 at 05:14 PM
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