Turkish Forum

Tag: genocide

  • CENSORSHIP AT WWW.BOSTON.COM

    CENSORSHIP AT WWW.BOSTON.COM

    If you click on

    To read about “Groundbreaking for Armenian memorial in Boston today” by Globe Staff, September 9, 2010, you will read readers’ comments.

    But you will also see this:

    “We removed Kirlikovali’s comment”

    Twice (so far!)

    Why?

    Were the messages using curse words, insults, slander, lies, deception, falsification, misrepresentation, or anything remotely related to any one of these traits?

    Absolutely, positively not!

    Armenian falsifiers and Turk haters may disagree with me, but that does not make what I write wrong or justify censorship.

    If anyone can prove to me that my message is not substantiated or justified by historic facts, I will stop writing altogether.

    But if my writing have legitimate historical sources and sound evidence, then I want an apology from www.Boston.com, a long overdue one, along with a chance to present my case, perhaps in the form of an unabridged, uncensored op-ed.

    Is that a deal?

    Please read the following message and contemplate. See if you can justify censorship by a major news outlet in a major American city in 21st Century.

    WHY SUCH INTOLERANCE TO DISSENT?

    Is it because the Armenian pressure in Boston, and Massachusetts, is that unbearable?

    Is it because the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, established in 1890 in Tbilisi, Georgia, and involved in many acts of violence and terrorism against Ottoman and Turkish Muslim since then, responsible for the murder of many thousands of Muslims since 19th Century, is now headquartered in Boston?

    Is it because the ABCFM (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions)—the Protestant missionaries– mentors of Armenian separatism, insurgency, revolts, treason, terrorism, and more, are also located in Boston?

    Is it because the Boston Globe is the first American newspaper to surrender to Armenian intimidation, harassment, and other forms of political, religious, and economical pressure?

    Or is it simply because of the deeply ingrained anti-Turkish, anti-Muslim in Boston Globe?

    Or is it all of the above, some of the above, and/or some other, overt or covert, considerations, too?

    Whatever the reason, www.Boston.com’ s blatant censorship is and shall remain as a shameful stain in America’s record of freedom of speech, enshrined in the U.S. constitution, and legendary accommodation of diversity, and tolerance of dissent. This is an unfortunate lapse and a reflexive return to the “sundown towns” of a dark America when slavery was shamelessly justified in the columns of newspapers, including Boston Globe.

    Boston.com failed in its duty to present all sides of a story to its unsuspecting and trusting readers. It seems Boston.com is quiet at ease with censoring opinions they do not like.

    You be the judge.

    ***

    Here is my message censored by www.Boston .com:

    ***

    A HATE MONUMENT IN BOSTON: WHAT A SHAME!

    Allegations of Armenian genocide are racist and dishonest history. They are racist because they ignore the Turkish dead: about 3 million during WWI; more than half a million of them at the hands of Armenian nationalists. And dishonest because they simply dismiss the six T’s of the Turkish-Armenian conflict:

    1) TUMULT (as in numerous Armenian armed bloody revolts between 1882 and 1920)

    2) TERRORISM (by well-armed 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 about 2.5 million Muslim dead who lost their lives due to non-Armenian causes during WWI. Grand total: more than 3 million. Source: “Death & Exile” by Prof. 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.)

    VAN REVOLT BY ARMENIANS: IT WAS THE 9/11 FOR THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

    According to the “Dictionary of WWI” by Stephen Pope & Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, 2003, ISBN 0 85052 979-4, page 34, 120,000 Muslims, mostly Turkish, were killed by Armenian nationalists in 1914. And that does not even take into account the infamous Van Rebellion by Armenians in April of 1915 where about 40,000 Muslim inhabitants of the town were cut down by Armenians and the city was turned over to Russian invader.

    The U.S. crossed oceans and continents to wage a trillion dollar global war on terrorism because about 3,000 of its citizens were killed on American soil. Why is it, then, so difficult to understand that the Ottoman Empire, having lost 120,000 of its citizens, resorted to similar , but much lesser, measures of TERESET (Temporary Resettlement) of the arrogantly treasonous perpetrators?

    24TH OF APRIL, 1915: IT IS THE BEGINNING OF OTTOMAN GUANTANAMO, NOT A BOGUS GENOCIDE

    24th of April, 1915, is the beginning of OTTOMAN GUANTANAMO, not the alleged genocide. On that day, some 237 Armenian suspects (not thousands as claimed) of treason and terrorism were arrested and sent to central Anatolia, and subjected to house arrest, which meant they could roam around during the day but had to check into a designated house at night. So it is not exactly even Guantanamo, is it? All of the Armenians were returned in the end, except two. They were murdered but on unrelated matters of money and trade. No matter how one slices it, this does not sound like genocide, does it?

    SINCE WHEN DEFENDING ONE’S HOME A GENOCIDE?

    Turks and Armenians had lived in a relatively harmonious cohabitation in Anatolia for nearly a millennium before the Armenian took up arms against their own government towards the end of that millennium (i.e. 1894-1915). Had the Armenians (and others) not taken up arms against their own neighbors, co-citizens, and government, they would have still been living in Anatolia today, just like the Armenians of Istanbul who mostly stayed loyal to the Ottoman Empire .

    ***

    I posted the following today. Let’s see if the white-hooded fellows at the censorship board at www.Boston.com will allow my messages to stand:

    1917

    “…For fourteen days, I followed the Euphrates; it is completely out of the question that I during this time would not have seen at least some of the Armenian corpses, that according to Mrs. Stjernstedt’s statements, should have drifted along the river en masse at that time. A travel companion of mine, Dr. Schacht, was also travelling along the river. He also had nothing to tell when we later met in Baghdad… …In summary, I think that Mrs. Stjernstedt, somewhat uncritically, has accepted the hair-raising stories from more or less biased sources, which formed the basis for her lecture…”

    Source: H.J. Pravitz, A Swedish officer, Nya Dagligt Allehanda, 23 April, 1917 issue
    (A Swedish Newspaper published from 1859 to 1944)

    1923

    “…In some towns containing ten Armenian houses and thirty Turkish houses, it was reported that 40,000 people were killed, about 10,000 women were taken to the harem, and thousands of children left destitute; and the city university destroyed, and the bishop killed. It is a well- known fact that even in the last war the native Christians, despite the Turkish cautions, armed themselves and fought on the side of the Allies. In these conflicts, they were not idle, but they were well supplied with artillery, machine guns and inflicted heavy losses on their enemies….”

    Source: Lamsa, George M., a missionary well known for his research on Christianity,
    The Secret of the Near East, The Ideal Press, Philadelphia 1923, p 133

    1928

    “…Few Americans who mourn, and justly, the miseries of the Armenians, are aware that till the rise of nationalistic ambitions, beginning with the ‘seventies, the Armenians were the favored portion of the population of Turkey, or that in the Great War, they traitorously turned Turkish cities over to the Russian invader; that they boasted of having raised an Army of one hundred and fifty thousand men to fight a civil war, and that they burned at least a hundred Turkish villages and exterminated their population…”

    Source: John Dewey, The New Republic, 12 November 1928

    1976

    “… The deafening drumbeat of the propaganda, and the sheer lack of sophistication in argument which comes from preaching decade after decade to a convinced and
    emotionally committed audience, are the major handicaps of Armenian historiography
    of the diaspora today…”

    Source: Dr. Gwynne Dyer, a London-based independent journalist, 1976

    1988

    “…In all the countries, under all the regimes, the staff of the armies in the field evacuate towards the back, the populations which live in the zone of fights and can bother the movement of the troops, especially if these populations are hostile. Public opinion does
    not find anything to criticize to these measures, obviously painful, but necessary. During
    winter of 1939-1940, the radical – socialist French government evacuated and transported in the Southwest of France, notably in the Dordogne, the entire population of the Alsatian villages situated in the valley of the Rhine, to the east of the Maginot line. This German-speaking population, and even sometimes germanophil, bothered the French army. It stayed in the South, far from the evacuated homes and sometimes destroyed until 1945….And nobody, in France, cried out for inhumanity…”

    Source: Georges de Maleville, lawyer and a specialist on the Armenian question, La Tragédie Arménienne de 1915, (The Armenian tragedy of 1915), Editions F. Sorlot-F. Lanore, Paris, 1988, p 61-63

    2005

    “…From 1911 to 1923, the Ottoman Empire and the people of Turkey participated in five long, hard, and destructive wars. These were the Tripolitanian War / Trablusgarb Harbi / Türk Italyan Harbı (1911-1912), the two Balkan Wars (1912-1913), World War I (1914-1918), and the Turkish War of National Liberation (1918-1923). To most Turkish people who lived through that era, these wars were really only one, the Seferberlik, or period of mobilization, which went on continuously throughout these years.

    During these wars, the entire infrastructure of life in the Ottoman Empire was destroyed. Fields were left barren and uncultivated; roads and railroad lines were destroyed and their equipment wrecked; harbors and quays were blown up by repeated bombing, and many of the people living nearby were killed; Istanbul and the other great cities of the empire were partially destroyed by bombing, bombarding and great fires. The entire nation, thus, was for all practical purposes destroyed. One of the greatest miracles of Atatürk’s leadership during and after the Turkish War of National Liberation was the manner in which he was able to raise the Turkish people from this wreckage and lead them to revive and reconstruct what became the Turkish Republic.

    In the midst of all this destruction, no fewer than 30 percent, one third, of all the people who lived in the Ottoman Empire at the start of the war died. In the war zones, Macedonia and Thrace, western Anatolia, northeastern Turkey and southeastern Turkey, that percentage was as high as sixty or even seventy percent, much higher than any other country that was involved in these wars. No-one was counting, so it is very difficult to give actual figures, but perhaps no fewer than four million people died in the lands of the Ottoman Empire during these wars, and these were people of all races and religions, all ethnic origins, they were Muslims, Jews and Christians, they were Turks and Armenians, Arabs and Greeks, and many more…”

    Source: From “The Ottoman Holocaust”; a lecture delivered by Stanford J. Shaw (1930-2006, Professor of Modern Ottoman History, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey; Professor of Turkish History, University of California, Los Angeles,) to the First International Symposium on Armenian Claims and The Reality of Azerbaijan, sponsored by the Atatürk Research Center, 5 May 2005, Ankara, Turkey

    ***

  • VAN REBELLION BY ARMENIANS: IT WAS THE 9/11 FOR THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

    VAN REBELLION BY ARMENIANS: IT WAS THE 9/11 FOR THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

    Why is it that the Muslim victims at the hands of Armenian nationalists during WWI is almost always ignored?

    According to the “Dictionary of WWI” by Stephen Pope & Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, 2003, ISBN 0 85052 979-4, page 34, 120,000 Muslims, mostly Turkish, were killed by Armenian nationalists in 1914.

    And that does not even take into account the infamous Van Rebellion by Armenians in April of 1915.

    Why is it so difficult to comprehend that the Van Revolt by Armenians—where about 40,000 Muslim inhabitants of the town were cut down by Armenians and the city was turned over to Russian invader—is the EQUIVALENT TO 9/11 FOR THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE?

    Consider this: The U.S. crossed oceans and continents to wage a trillion dollar global war on terrorism because about 3,000 of its citizens were killed on American soil. Why is it, then, so difficult to understand that the Ottoman Empire, having lost 120,000 of its citizens, resorted to similar , but much lesser, measures of TERESET (Temporary Resettlement) of the perpetrators?

    Rephrased, how can 3,000 victims in 2001 justify a international, global war, but 120,000 victims in 1914 (and many more in 1915) do not justify even a domestic, local TERESET ?

    Values and concepts like fairness, balance, double standards, religious bias, ethnic bigotry, racial prejudice, defamation, demonization, and others seem to all come into play here…

    24TH OF APRIL, 1915: IT IS THE BEGINNING OF OTTOMAN GUANTANAMO, NOT A BOGUS GENOCIDE

    Why is it so hard to see that the 24th of April, 1915, is the beginning of OTTOMAN GUANTANAMO, not the bogus genocide. On that day, some 237 Armenian suspects (not thousands as claimed) of treason were arrested and sent to central Anatolia, to places like Corum, and subjected to house arrest, which meant they could roam around during the day but had to check into a designated house at night. Not exactly even Guantanamo, is it? All of them were returned in the end, except two. They were murdered but on unrelated matters of money and trade. No matter how one slices it, this does not sound like genocide, does it?

    Here is, then, the forest for those who miss it because of a tree or two: Turks and Armenians had lived in a relatively harmonious cohabitation in Anatolia for nearly a millennium before the Armenian took up arms against their own government towards the end of that millennium (i.e. 1894-1915). Had the Armenians (and others) not taken up arms against their own neighbors, co-citizens, and government, they would have still been living in Anatolia today, just like the Armenians of Istanbul who mostly stayed loyal to the Ottoman Empire .

    Since when, then, defending one’s home a genocide?

    Would America behave differently today if three million Americans (roughly equivalent of 120,000 Ottomans killed by Armenians) were mercilessly killed by some insurgent groups who then enthusiastically joined the enemy armies equally brutally invading America?

    Please!

  • APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS PRIOR NEGATIVE DECISION, BUT ATAA WILL FIGHT ON

    APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS PRIOR NEGATIVE DECISION, BUT ATAA WILL FIGHT ON

    The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a lower court ruling in the case of Griswold v. Driscoll, in which the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) has been a party. The case challenged the ability of Massachusetts state officials to censor a curriculum guide solely on behalf of Armenian American activist groups. Among the materials censored from the guide was ATAA’s website: www.ataa.org .

    The lower court controversially ruled that the only remedy for Turkish Americans was to increase their political influence to the point where they could manipulate state officials in their favor.

    Taking a different tack, the Court of Appeals ruled that the censorship was appropriate because the guide was a part of the state curriculum. Traditionally, it is difficult to challenge state curriculum decisions.

    We disagree with the court’s analysis because the voluntary curriculum guide was much more like a school library than a recommended course of study. We, of course, strongly oppose that the court has in effect let stand the controversial ruling of the lower court.

    The ATAA seeks reconciliation between the Turkish and Armenian peoples on the basis of an open and honest accounting of history. We therefore will continue to oppose in all states efforts to enforce biased and one-sided historical accounts that foment anti-Turkish hatred.

  • ARMENIAN PROPAGANDA WINS, FOR NOW

    ARMENIAN PROPAGANDA WINS, FOR NOW

    Boston Globe reports that a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that statewide public school guidelines on teaching human rights history can exclude materials disputing that the mass slaying of Armenians in the First World War era constituted genocide. Below, please read the article first and then my reaction to it.
    ***
    SCHOOLS CAN EXCLUDE MATERIALS DISPUTING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

    Court ruled on 1999 case
    By Peter Schworm , Boston Globe Staff / August 12, 2010
    In a closely watched case, a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that statewide public school guidelines on teaching human rights history can exclude materials disputing that the mass slaying of Armenians in the First World War era constituted genocide.
    The decision, written by retired Supreme Court justice David Souter, who occasionally hears cases with the First Circuit Court of Appeals, found that state education officials did not violate public school students’ free speech rights in 1999, when they excluded all “contra-genocide’’ sources calling the Armenian genocide into question.
    Van Z. Krikorian, a professor at Pace University Law School who filed a brief defending the state’s move, said he was thrilled by the ruling, equating those who dispute the genocide designation to Holocaust deniers.
    “It would have put human rights education in reverse,’’ he said. “It’s a major defeat for genocide denial.’’
    Upholding a lower-court decision, the court ruled that although state guidelines were advisory, and “not meant to declare other positions out of bounds in study and discussion,’’ they were part of the official curriculum and therefore under the discretion of state authorities.
    Requiring that officials include references to dissenting viewpoints, Souter wrote, “might actually have the effect of foreclosing future opportunities for open enquiry in the classroom.’’
    Harvey Silverglate, a Boston civil rights lawyer representing the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, had argued that removing the references amounted to government censorship and prevented students from hearing both sides.
    “It always is a sad day when a court constricts First Amendment rights rather than expand them,’’ he said. “I think they made a mistake.’’ Silverglate said his clients will consider whether to appeal.
    The Turkish-American group disputes that the Muslim Turkish Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Christian Armenian minority population. Over 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of Turkish forces, but Turkish activists maintain it was not the result of a policy.
    In 1998, the Legislature ordered the state Board of Education to prepare an advisory curriculum guide for teaching about genocide and human rights, and a draft of the guide initially included a section on the “Armenian Genocide.’’ Under pressure from Turkish advocacy groups, the commissioner of education, David P. Driscoll, revised the draft to include references to opposing views, said the ruling.

    When officials filed the guide with legislators in March 1999, the state’s Armenian community protested the inclusion of “contra-genocide’’ viewpoints, and the education commissioner removed the references.
    Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.
    ***

    ARMENIAN PROPAGANDA WINS, FOR NOW
    Jewish Holocaust is supported by due process and a court verdict by a competent tribunal (Nuremberg, 1945.) What due process and court verdict support Armenian claims of genocide? The answer might surprise you: none! That’s right, Armenian claims are based on a racist and dishonest version of history, not law or the truth. They are racist because they ignore the Turkish victims at the hands of Armenian revolutionaries (120,000 in the year 1914 alone, according to the dictionary of World War One, by Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, 2003, page 34.) And they are dishonest because they simply dismiss the six T’s of the Turkish-Armenian conflict. Too bad, our children in Boston will never know that the Armenians took up arms against their own government. Too bad the “poor, starving Armenians myth” will be ingrained in their brains like zombies, never seeing the photos of the Armenian ultra-nationalists armed to the teeth (www.ethocide.com ) They’ll never hear about the Armenians revolts, terrorism, treason, territorial demands and more. Just because a “sundown town” ruling by a misinformed judge said so. The decision must be appealed in the spirit of independence in 1776, anti-slavery in 1862, and civil rights of 1960s.

    BIAS & BIGOTRY IN THE TERM “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”
    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 an inter communal warfare mostly fought by Turkish and Armenian irregulars, a civil war which is engineered, provoked, and waged by the Armenian revolutionaries, with active support from Russia, England, France, and others, all eyeing the vast territories of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, against a backdrop of a raging world war.
    Armenians, on the other hand, totally ignoring Armenian agitation, raids, rebellions, treason, territorial demands, and Turkish victims killed by Armenians, unfairly claim that it was a one way genocide.

    GENOCIDE ALLEGATIONS IGNORE “THE SIX T’S OF THE TURKISH-ARMENIAN CONFLICT”
    While some in unsuspecting public 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 the children of Turkish survivors of hate crimes committed by Armenian nationalists and other Christians. Those seemingly endless “War years” of 1912-1922 brought wide-spread death and destruction on to all Ottoman citizens. No Turkish family was left touched, mine included. Those nameless, faceless Turkish victims are killed for a second time today with politically motivated and baseless charges of Armenian genocide. Those six T’s which are censored by an ill-informed judge are:
    1) TUMULT (as in numerous Armenian armed uprisings between 1894 and 1920)
    2) TERRORISM (by well-armed 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 about 2.5 million Muslim dead who lost their lives due to non-Armenian causes during WWI. Grand total: more than 3 million, according to Prof. 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.)

    VERDICT WITHOUT DUE PROCESS AMOUNTS TO LYNCHING
    Those who take the Armenian “allegations” of genocide at face value seem to also 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”.
    4- 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.)
    5- 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.

    HISTORY IS A MATTER OF SCHOLARSHIP, NOT CONSENSUS
    History is not a matter of “conviction, consensus, political resolutions, political correctness, 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.

    POLITICAL LYNCHING OF THE TURKS BY ARMENIANS TODAY
    What we witness today amounts to lynching of the Turks by Armenians to satisfy the age old Armenian hate, bias, and bigotry. 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.
    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 “lynching”.
    FREEDOM OF SPEECH? WHAT FREEDOM?

    This unfortunate and racist decision promoting Armenian propaganda over honest scholarship and civil dialogue, turns Boston into a SUNDOWN TOWN. Remember those towns, thousands of them coast to coast that sprang up during the NADIR PERIOD OF RACE RELATIONS in America, i.e. roughly 1890-1940, where signs told so-called COLORED PEOPLE TO LEAVE TOWN BY SUNDOWN or else live with the consequences, which meant death by lynching?
    Freedom of speech is dealt such a terrible blow by this SUNDOWN TOWN DECISION by an ill-informed judge today: 11 August 2010. What a sad day for America, , indeed….

  • ARMENIAN TERRORIST SASSOUNIAN IS DENIED PAROLE

    ARMENIAN TERRORIST SASSOUNIAN IS DENIED PAROLE

    ATAA ASSURES CALIFORNIA PRISON PAROLE BOARD DENIES PAROLE TO ARMENIAN TERRORIST SASSOUNIAN

    On August 4, 2010, the California Prison Parole Board denied Armenian terrorist, Hampig Sassounian, parole. The Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), representing over 500,000 Turkish and Turkic Americans nationwide, participated in the hearing, submitting a Statement in Opposition to the Parole of Sassounian. Click here to read the ATAA’s statement and supporting documents.

    The ATAA actively participates in judicial processes to support the conviction and sentencing of terrorists with a view toward achieving complete justice for the victims. ATAA is pleased that Sassounian was denied parole, as he and his followers continue to be a threat to the public. ATAA will appear at Sassounian’s next parole hearing in 2013 to make sure that he remains behind bars for life.

    ARMENIAN TERRORIST HAD TRIED TO SNEAK TO LEBANON

    Sassounian is serving a life sentence for the racist and political assassination of Turkish Consul General Kemal Arikan on January 28, 1982 in Los Angeles. The first attempt on Mr. Arikan’s life occurred on October 6, 1980, when Hampig Sassounian’s older brother, Harout Sassounian, fire-bombed the Consul General’s home. Harout Sassounian was convicted of the attempted killing.

    Two years later, Hampig Sassounian and his accomplice Krikor Saliba massacred Mr. Arikan just outside of his residence as he waited in his vehicle at a traffic light. Their reason was that they hate Turks. LAPD captured Sassounian shortly after the killing. Sassounian’s father stated on national television that he was glad that a Turk was killed. LAPD searched Sassounian’s automobile, seizing a .357 caliber bullet and a one-way airline ticket from Los Angeles to Beirut. LAPD also searched Sassounian’s home, where they seized a gun receipt, pistol targets, and a manifesto of “The Armenian Youth Federation.”

    TERORIST CAMPS ROUTED OUT

    Federal authorities connected Sassounian and Saliba to the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG) terrorist group, which recruited members from the Armenian Youth Federation. JCAG serves as the militant wing of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) political party in Armenia, whose foreign agent in the United States is the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). ANCA is represented in California by ANC Western Region in Glendale. Hampig Sassounian bears an ARF tattoo on his chest. It should be noted that Sassounian’s partner, Saliba, fled to Beirut shortly after the assassination, in response to which Turkish and Israeli intelligence joined efforts to uproot Armenian terrorist camps in Lebanon.

    ATAA’S VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT: A FIRST

    The ATAA’s statement was the first appearance of a Turkish American organization at a parole hearing of an Armenian terrorist. In 2000, the ATAA also appeared at the criminal sentencing of Mourad Topalian, the former chairman of ANCA who was convicted of weapons and explosives charges which federal authorities connected to at least four terror attacks on American soil.

    NAMELESS, FACELESS WARRIORS BEHIND THE SUCCESS STORY

    On behalf of the ATAA Board of Directors, I thank ATAA Western Region VP Maria Cakırağa for submitting the ATAA’s statement on behalf of the citizens of California. I thank ATAA legal intern, Lale Eskicioğlu, and research assistant, Duygu Ozcan, for their tireless research and technical support.

    The LAPD required the provision of bullet-proof vehicles, followed and lead by several secret service vehicles during the trip to San Luis Obispo Prison, indicating the threat level of modern Armenian political violence.

    Though Sassounian’s lawyer, Michael Geragos degraded ATAA at the hearing, Parole Commissioner Peppler expressed that the ATAA’s Statement provided a much necessary history of Armenian terrorism and political violence.

    I take special note here that based on ATAA’s information and belief, the Armenian Republic submitted to the Parole Board a statement in support of Hampig Sassounian, including providing him Armenian citizenship and a residence in Armenia. By doing so, the Armenian Republic supported terrorism and undermined rapprochement.

    DINK MARTYRIZED, ARIKAN FORGOTTEN

    On behalf of Turkish Americans nationwide, ATAA expresses its deepest condolences and respects to Mrs. Arikan and her family for their loss and for their sacrifices. We have not forgotten you. You will always be in our hearts.

    Respectfully submitted,

    Gunay Evinch
    President
    Assembly of Turkish American Associations

    ———————–

    PS: For exhibits provided to the parole board, please log on to www.ataa.org.

    PPS: The paragraphs heading above added for emphasis by the columnist; they do not appear on the original letter.

  • ANATOLIAN LIONS : TURKISH BRIGADE OF THE KOREAN WAR

    ANATOLIAN LIONS : TURKISH BRIGADE OF THE KOREAN WAR

    The heroic but unpublicized role of the Turkish troops during the 1950-53 Korean War is not fully acknowledged by most Western historians and public, although the Turkish Brigade named “Anatolian Lions” (composed of the 241st Infantry Regiment with three infantry battalions, a motorized artillery battalion with three artillery batteries) were awarded the highest honorable citation of the U.S. Army for saving the U.S. Eighth Army and the IX Army Corps from encirclement and the U.S. 2nd Division from total annihilation. In this legendary effort, the Turks lost 717 men and suffered 2,413 wounded representing the highest combat casualty rate of any U.N. unit engaged in Korea. Turkey was the first country after the United States to send forces to Korea on November 7, 1950 and contributed to the U.N. military efforts in Korea between 1950 and 1966. There were 5,450 Turkish troops, the third-largest contingent after the U.S. with 348,000 and Britain with 14,198.
    I thought this news piece was worth sharing with you in remembrance of the Turkish Brigade for its courageous battles in the “Forgotten War”.
    (To read more about the Turkish Brigade:
    This entry was posted on Friday, June 24th, 2005 at 10:49 am and is filed under Index, Military.
    Source :

    ***
    Here is how JOHN M. VANDER LIPPE put it in his “Forgotten Brigade of the Forgotten War: Turkey’s Participation in the Korean War.” (Middle Eastern Studies, January 1, 2000 )

    THE TURKS IN THE KOREAN WAR
    The advance party of the Turkish Brigade or Turkish Armed Forces command arrived in Pusan on 12 October 1950. The main body numbering 5190 troops arrived five days later, on 17 October. Brigadier General Tahzin Yazici commanded the brigade. Colonel Celal Dora was assistant Brigade Commander. When the main body arrived the brigade went into bivouac near Taegu where it underwent training and received U.S. equipment. The brigade was attached to the U.S. 25th infantry division so after limited training the brigade moved north to the Kaesong area to join the division.
    The Turkish Brigade has been the subject of the world’s praise, by showing a very superior combat capability which provided our state with honor through the successes it won one after another during the three year period of blood and fire starting from the hardest and most critical moment it entered the battlefield until the signing of the “Ceasefire” agreement.
    Turkey was one of the larger participants in the U.N. alliance, committing nearly 5,500 troops. The Turkish Brigade, which operated under the U.S. 25th Infantry Division, assisted in protecting the supply lines of U.N. forces which advanced towards North Korea. However, it was the Battles of Kunu-ri and Kumyanjangni that earned the Turkish Brigade a reputation and the praise of U.N. forces. Because of their heroic actions and sacrifice in these battles, a monument was created in Seoul in the memory of the Turkish soldiers who fought in Korea.
    BILL ALLI, A TURKISH-AMERICAN WHO SERVED AT THE KOREAN WAR
    Bill Alli, a Turkish-American who served at the Korean War and who is a member of the Korean War Veterans Armistice Day Coordinating Committee in Washington, DC said:
    Korean Veterans Memorial is the only Memorial in the National Mall with Turkey’s name on it. It symbolizes the American-Turkish friendship and the sacrifices that both Nations did to protect a democratic nation that needed help. Therefore it is very special for us and we cannot emphasize it enough.
    Heart-wrenching words from an old soldier, especially made poignant when one thinks how that great friend and ally of the United States, Turkey, after all its sacrifices, is mistreated by some viciously anti-Turkish lobbies and hate groups in Glendale and Boston and their proxies in the U.S. Congress. Think about it: when Turkish boys were fighting shoulder to shoulder with Americans and dying in Korea and elsewhere, Armenia was on the Soviet camp, its soldiers shooting bullets and lobbing bombs at Turkish and American boys. Those Armenians are now the darling of some politicians with little or no memory or scruples. Go figure!