ARMENIAN PAYROLL RECIPIENT AKCAM SPEAKS AGAIN

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Akcam: Obama Should Recognize Genocide and Liberate Turks and Armenians

By KhatchigMouradian • on March 24, 2009 •

Prof. Taner Akcam

WORCESTER, Mass. (A.W.)-On March 19, prominent Turkish-born genocide scholar Taner Akcam delive red his inaugural lecture at Clark University titled, “Facing History: Denial and the Turkish National Security Concept.” In 2008, Akcam was appointed the Robert Aram and Marianne Kaloosdian and Stephen and Marion Mugar Chair in Armenian Genocide Studies at Clark University.

Speaking to an audience that had packed the Tilton Hall of the Higgins University Center, Akcam sent a powerful message to U.S. President Barack Obama, asking him to liberate Turks and Armenians by properly recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

Talking about the reluctance of Congress and some former U.S. presidents to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, Akcam said, “[T]here’s an ongoing theatrical drama-perhaps ‘comedy’ would be a better term-that all the parties engage in every year, and that has started to grow old. It’s time to end this dishonorable play-acting.” He explained how every time a U.S. president or Congress has the issue of the genocide on their table, “Rhey end up denying for one day what they believe the other 364 days of the year.”

Akcam continued, “All of the parties involved know very well what the U.S. administration and Congress think about 1915. But Turkey asks them to tell a lie only for one day. I have never understood why the Turkish government extracts so much joy out of making the United States lie for one day. I also find it completely dishonorable. Not only does this lie fail to lead to a resolu tion, it needlessly locks up the debate.”

Hence, Akcam argued, the importance of official U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide-“if the United States declares what it believes to be the truth and stands behind it”-would not only gain it “some self-respect on the subject, but it will liberate Turks, Armenians, and itself in the process.”

Akcam ended his lecture by asking Obama to stand up for truth. “I believe that we will enter a new era where morality and real politik will not be considered mutually exclusive, if President Obama should put an end to this lingering problem and liberate everybody in the process by an official acknowledgment of genocide,” he said.

Obama, both as a Senator and a presidential candidate, was an outspoken advocate for proper U.S. reaffirmation of the Armenian Genocide. He repeatedly called on former president George W. Bush to recognize the genocide and expressed reservations over the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Marshall Evans for his remarks recognizing that crime. In January 2008, Obama issued a campaign statement, noting that “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President.” The complete statement may be read at www.barackobama.com/2008/01/19/barack_obama_on_the_importance.php.

Last week, Representati ves Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), George Radanovich (R-Calif.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) were joined by 70 of their House Colleagues in the introduction of Armenian Genocide legislation (H.Res.252) calling on the president to recognize the Armenian Genocide. That resolution is identical to the one introduced in the previous Congress, which was adopted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee by a vote of 27 to 21, and had over 200 co-sponsors.

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2 responses to “ARMENIAN PAYROLL RECIPIENT AKCAM SPEAKS AGAIN”

March 25, 2009

jda

why can’t this publication and its slavish followers deal with Akcam’s ideas instead of screaming your beliefs that he is on anyone’s payroll?

If the ‘payroll’ claim is true – and I doubt that it is – then the work of all ITS scholars, and all pro-Turkish scholars working for the THS should be dismissed without reading them for the same reason. Akcam’s work has been peer-reviewed and well-received. Moreover, he is only one of about a dozen ethnic Turkish scholars who support the Genocide thesis, or who assert that Armenians and other Christian subjects sufffered colossal crimes at the hands of the state. Still others, who say the AG is an open question reject the ‘civil war’ defense championed here and by the State, see Lewy at page 122.

This publication shows childish fear: you seek to intimidate and harass him, but you never point out why he should not be allowed freedom of inquiry and speech or why his evidence and arguments are faulty. Instead you scream ‘traitor”. Apparently you cannottake him on on the merits, so you unleash Kirlikovali and others to scream defamation.

If you believed a CUP-organized Genocide occurred, and you kept silent, you would be the traitor and coward, not he. Your followers act as if they are being called criminals, when the accusations of Genocide are tightly focused on the CUP leaders, and those who carried out the orders; ironically, it is the AG scholars who point out the heroicTurks who warned, fed and sheltered Christians. This group you disdain and ignore. You trumpet your humanity and ignore the best examples history gives us of it.

Why can’t you believe that a scholar can look at the evidence and in good faith come to a contrary conclusion than the one the State has been pursuing since 1923?
March 27, 2009

mok10501

If the world problems could have been eliminated by the paid pipers and hate mongers, it would have been done by now. Since when we have forgotten the atrocities against the humanity by the Hitler and Stalin. Those were the Genocides, with capital G. We, the most Americans know that Turks have never did those horrible things to anyone in the history. Ask the British, Germans and French they will tell you the same. They were magnanimous, even if they beat their enemies. Have you ever heard Turks yearning about loosing and bitching about their lost ones. They rather prefer not to remember bad things and bad people. Ask Anzac’s (Australians) about the Turk if you don’t believe anyone else.

ARMENIAN PAYROLL RECIPIENT AKCAM SPEAKS AGAIN

Akcam: Obama Should Recognize Genocide and Liberate Turks and Armenians

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