ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!!!!!
Throughout much of its history, Turkey has had it's eyes on the Armenian land. Conquering Armenia was and probably still is their desire today. Geographically speaking, Armenia is the only Christian nation, aside from Georgia, in that part of the world. It is surrounded in all directions by Muslim nations who would like nothing more than uniting their religious lands of Muslim nations throughout the middle east stretching all the way to Europe and Asia.
During WWI the Ottoman empire (the ruling empire in Turkey) decided that they could accomplish their goal of taking over Armenia by exterminating the nation all-together. Exterminating the entire race and leaving no Armenian heirs to guard the Armenian nation. The Ottoman Empire plotted the mass-evacuation and extermination of Armenians from Western Turkey and Eastern Armenia and executed these plans without disdain.
For a number of reasons, they were able to get away with it. European countries turned their back on Armenian genocide that took place in front of their eyes. Armenian leaders sent letters to European governments pleading to save Armenian people from massacre, but their cry was not answered. The world witnessed and did almost nothing to stop the first genocide of 20th century.
On April 24, 1915 Groups of Turkish soldiers knocked on the doors of Armenian people convincing them that the war would be fought in their lands and an evacuation was in order. They relocated these Armenian people from their land and home by promising safety from the war. They were also told that the Turkish soldiers were fighting for their safety and that they needed every weapon or household appliance that could assist them in fighting the war. The Armenians in their naïve trust in their neighbors gladly gave the soldiers all they had to offer.
Turkish soldiers had accomplished what they set out to do: moved the Armenians out of their homes, taken all their weapons and in the process gained their trust by leading them to believe that they were saving them!
Once they found themselves in secluded parts of the regions, the Turkish soldiers began hanging, murdering, raping and burning the Armenian people who could be influential in leading an uprising against them; professional people like doctors, writers, poets, professors, philosophers and noblemen. After this first wave of executions, they began their pillage against the remaining Armenian people.
There have been many stories of victims; how their eyes were taped open and they were forced to stare at the sun until they were blinded, how men were lined up in front of camps and decapitated one by one!
Many were beaten on their way through the deserts. They were stripped of their clothes and were forced to walk barefooted and naked through the harshness of the desert! Women were forced to dance around fire pits for the Turkish soldiers. They were later beaten, raped and killed. Children were starved and murdered. Turkish people also took many Armenian children to be raised in Turkish homes so their Armenian identity would be lost! Many people courageously killed themselves, by either drowning themselves in a river or by whatever other means they could find, just so the Turks would not get to them!
When all was said and done, 1.5 million Armenians were murdered, a country was torn apart and a people left grieving for their families and friends and all this, perpetrated by the government of Turkey, the Ottoman Empire.
THE OTTOMAN TURKS ALSO KILLED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHRISTIANS IN THE BALKANS, LIKE GREEKS.....
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
The Turkish soldiers raped, and beat all women and children before they killed them. Innocent Armenian Village men were tortured and suffered greatly before they were killed by the turks. The Armenian Genocide happened. It is a fact! There are many more pictures and documents to prove it! Even Hitler recognized the Armenian genocide. Many Modern countries have officially accepted the Armenian genocide, the whole world must be educated on what happened to the Armenian christians..and Turkey must recognize the Armenian Genocide and pay retribuitions!
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
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THE WASHINGTON POST CONFIRMS FACT OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
by (hayastan.com - 3/8/2005)
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THE WASHINGTON POST CONFIRMS FACT OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
According to the March 6 issue of CNN-Turk, The Washington Post, referring to the Committee of Conscience at the Washington Museum of Genocide published the "List of the Genocides and the Crimes against Humanity." It is stated in the preface of the publication that the mass genocides of civilians and the other crimes against humanity were committed in the course of bloody wars in the last century. Here is the probable number of the victims. We can never know the real indicators."
The abovementioned list was published after the preface. Turkey occupied the first place in the list. It was written in the first place of the victims' list: "Turkish?Armenians, 1915-18. 1,5 million." In other words, The Washington Post recognized the Armenian Genocide through this publication.
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
One professor was mercilessly attacked in the press because he advised the Turkish ambassador on responding to questions about the Ottoman Armenians. It is worth noting that no one questioned the probity of the American Armenian scholar who became the chief advisor of the president of the Armenian Republic or doubted the veracity of the American Armenian professor whose son became the Armenian foreign minister. No one questioned the objectivity of these scholars or attacked them, nor should they. The only proper question is, "What is the truth!" No matter who pays the bills, no matter the nationality of the author, no matter if he writes to ambassadors, no matter his religion, his voting record, his credit status, or his personal life, his views on history should be closely analyzed and, if true, accepted.
The only question is the truth.
Professor Justin McCarthy, Let Historians Decide on So-called Genocide
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Holdwater's rebuttal follows the article. Followed further by: "Authors Against Heath Lowry," and "Another Armenian Proclamation"
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The following is an article concerning Heath Lowry that appeared in The Princeton Alumni Weekly, January 24, 1996 pages 14-15
ON THE CAMPUS
Professor Feels the Heat
Chairman of NES department is at center of academic debate about Armenians
By Lis Verderman '96
Over the past few months, Princeton has been the center of an emotionally charged debate among academics regarding Heath Lowry, the Ataturk Professor of Ottoman and Near Eastern Studies and chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Studies. A petition circulated by Peter Balakian, a poet and professor of English at Colgate University, asserts a link between a grant to Princeton from the Turkish government to finance a chair for Turkish studies and the hiring of Lowry for the position in 1993. (Among the petition's 57 signatories are intellectuals Norman Mailer and Joyce Carol Oates and genocide historians Raul Hillberg and Deborah Lipstadt.) A letter accompanying the petition suggests the Turkish government wanted Lowry for the chair because he supports its view of a historical controversy between Turkey and Armenians who accuse the Turks of killing their countrymen. The letter also attacks the university's hiring practices, which the petition asserts were co-opted by the $700,000 grant, and question Lowry's academic credentials.
The alleged connection between Lowry and the Turkish government hinges on their interpretation of the killing of up to one million Armenians in World War I. Many historians believe that the Ottoman state planned and systematically carried out the killing of Armenians, so that the deaths should be termed genocide. But the Turkish government and a small number of historians that includes Lowry hold that the deaths were part of a bloody civil war, not a genocidal campaign.
Lowry's critics note that he helped to draft a letter from the Turkish ambassador to the United States to Robert Jay Lifton, a holocaust scholar at the City University of New York, that criticized Lifton's comparison of the Ottomans' killing of Armenians with the Nazis' slaughter of Jews and other ethnic minorities. Questions have persisted about possible influence of the Turkish government in the hiring of Lowry. Lowry has been the subject of articles in "The Chronicles of Higher Education", the "Boston Globe", the "Times" of Trenton, the "Philadelphia Inquirer", and the "Daily Princetonian". In an interview with the "Times" of Trenton, university spokesperson Jacquelyn Savani said that the $700,000 given by Turkey for the chair "is not the amount of money, given the $4 billion endowment of Princeton University, that should even raise suspicion. The fact of the matter is that not for $100 million could the Turkish government put its man in that chair. Not with this faculty." (Princeton's hiring procedure for faculty is rigorous: tenured faculty members of the department recommend candidates to the Committee on Appointments and Advancements, formed from the faculty at large, which makes the final decision.) Harvard, Georgetown, and the University of Chicago received similar grants, but only Princeton has established a fully endowed chair in Turkish studies.
The man who "blew the whistle": Dr. Robert Jay Lifton. In response to his 1986 book, "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide," in which he treats the Armenian genocide as historical fact, Dr. Lifton reported he was "surprised" to receive a letter in 1990 from Turkey's Ambassador to the United States, Nuzhet Kandemir, denying the Armenian genocide. (I guess he was surprised because the professor probably only considered ? or only seriously considered ? the Armenian side of the story, like so many others. Good objectivity, Prof.!) Then he was "shocked" to discover an American academic had drafted the Ambassador's letter. He was further shocked when he learned that the same scholar had been named to a chair at Princeton University that the Turkish government had helped to endow. "We feel strongly that there's been a violation of academic standards," he is reported to have said. (Who is "WE"?) The picture is from PBS' "The Armenians, A Story of Survival." (Ah. "We" must mean "The Armenians and I.")
Scrutiny of Lowry's credentials has accompanied the criticism of his association with Turkey. Lowry lectured on history full time at Bosphorus University in Istanbul from 1973 to 1980, an experience he says was more valuable to him as a scholar of Turkish history than time teaching in the United States. Lowry then spent 12 years as head of the Institute of Turkish Studies, a Washington, D.C.? based educational organization funded by the Turkish government. Lowry's colleagues in Near Eastern studies, who recommended him for the chair in 1993, are impressed with his scholarship, and students have spoken highly of his teaching ability. Letters to "The Daily Princetonian" in his support were signed by the 11 members of the faculty in his department and by its four undergraduate majors. After a year at Princeton he was asked to head the department.
As for claims that he is a tool for the Turkish government, Lowry points out that his first book was banned in Turkey and that he helped initiate a petition to the Turkish prime minister to open archives that pertain to the Armenians' massacre. Although the archives have been open since 1989, Lowry says he has not yet been able to study them in depth due to the magnitude of the task. The thousands of documents are mostly handwritten in Turkish and therefore are hard to decipher. Lowry says he is reluctant to term the deaths genocide without more study of the archives: "Neither I nor any other scholar specializing in Ottoman history would deny or condone the widespread death, destruction, and decimation affecting a large portion of the Ottoman Armenian citizenry which occurred in the course of the First World War ... However, I and many other scholars in the field cannot accept the characterization of this human tragedy as a pre-planned, state-perpetrated genocide ... unless and until the historical records of the Ottoman state ... are studied and evaluated by competent scholars."
However, Lowry recently revealed that in the one volume he has studied, he found one document "which strongly suggests that there was government involvement in the killing of Armenians." Lowry said that if more such material becomes available from the archives, it would be "exactly the kind of thing" to make him change his mind.
Colgate's Balakian asserted that the Turkish archives are an unreliable historical source. "[Turkey] is a totalitarian society that has no mechanism for critical evaluation, that can't face its past with any honesty at all ... Eighty years later, you can be sure that there's not a thing of authenticity or value left, that they have sanitized their archive." Though no Ottoman historians have yet signed Balakian's petition, he says that's because the historians fear reprisal from Turkey, and because "a group of so-called Ottoman historians are simply lifelong recipients of Turkish government funds. Some of them, like Mr. Lowry, are just not reliable historians."
Lowry's colleagues at Princeton defend his academic views. Norman Itzkowitz, a professor of Near Eastern studies, says Lowry's opinion is "not renegade at all. Professor Lowry's point of view is considered the one that many people in Turkish and Ottoman history would claim." But Rouben Adalian, the director of research and analysis for the Armenian Assembly of America, told the "Times" of Trenton, "Princeton has quite a track record in employing scholars who deny the Armenian genocide. I am not aware of any other American university where so pronounced a revisionist school on the subject of Armenian genocide exists."
On May 3, history professors Anthony T. Grafton and Natalie Z. Davis will conduct a conference titled "The Historian, Nationalism, and the End of Empire," which may provide a constructive forum for debating the Armenian question. Participants will consider three case studies: the Ottoman empire and Armenia, the Hapsburgs and the Balkan conflict, and England and India. "The real issue is the responsibility of the scholar," says Grafton. "In situations in which there are different collective memories, different documents, what is the historian's responsibility? By bringing together experts in the field, we hope to generate light instead of heat."
The Professor Felt the Heat... and Got Royally Burned
Since when has the credibility of research started to be determined by the source of funding?
The martyred professor
Poor Professor Heath Lowry. The first full work of his that I've read has been his comparison of Ambassador Morgenthau's ghostwritten book and the actual letters and diaries of the ambassador. The research is impeccable, and I was genuinely impressed. This man is a first-rate scholar.
Sam Weems wrote in the preface of his book (Armenia -- Secrets of a "Christian" Terrorist State): "Professor Heath Lowry of Princeton University was recently forced out as chairman of a Near Eastern studies program because of a two-year hate and smear campaign directed against him." Hardly surprising.... who could have survived such an onslaught? (Dr. Lowry stepped down from his post on June 1997, as I subsequently learned from a Princeton newspaper called "The Princeton Packet," courtesy of an Armenian web site [As was the more balanced Princeton Alumni Weekly article, provided above]. Hopefully, if the student-writer of the article, Lisa Pevtzow, has gone on to pursue a career in journalism, she will have learned to write articles without injecting her point-of-view; one paragraph states: "Dr. Lowry... has attempted to discredit the memoirs of U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morganthau, who was an eyewitness to the tragedy. In 1990, Dr. Lowry drafted a letter for the Turkish ambassador, referring to the 'so-called genocide.' " (Sneer!)
Since the Armenians must hold on for dear life their entire raison d'etre (i.e., the "Genocide"), anyone who dares question their version of events must be attacked.... whether the aggression consists of opening up a lawsuit (as with Prof. Bernard Lewis, in France), attempted murder (as with the bombing of Prof. Stanford Shaw's Californian house) or, more typically, their reputations must be destroyed, as in the case of Judge Sam Weems, who was falsely accused by Armenians of being a "convicted felon," among other character assassinating remarks. Unfortunately, making up falsehoods comes naturally to many Armenians, because nothing else matters but the perpetuation of their Myth of Innocence that they have worked so hard to build.
Every historian who goes against the Armenians' grain must be alleged by Armenians and their supporters of being either "tainted" or "bought"... bringing to mind the same sinister tactic used by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, attempting to stifle academic debate.
The additional effect, of course, is for a writer or historian to think very carefully before taking up the Turkish truth; who would want to deal with the juggernaut of Armenian campaigning, out to destroy one's carefully cultivated reputation? (Not to mention one's life, or sense of general security? Death threats are a common tactic. Even after their hated ones are dead!!) Some might be persuaded to play it safe and consider echoing the Armenian perspective, as did Antonio ('If you can't fight 'em, join 'em") Banderas.
Of course, nobody speaks about the funding for Armenian genocide research from Armenian foundations... as if this research could possibly be impartial. And what about the history professors of Armenian descent, such as Prof. Richard Hovannisian and Prof. Levon Marashlian, both operating out of Californian universities, the "Little Armenia" of America? Regardless of how they got their jobs, are they objective? You can read how Sam Weems tears apart the former professor's biased history in his book, Armenia ? Secrets of a "Christian" Terrorist State... and the latter professor, in a February 2001 letter to The Washington Times, calls the testimony of Ambassador Morgenthau "unimpeachable." The double standard is stomach-churning.
Consider yourself in the place of the Turks. Until the 1980s, Armenians and Greeks have had a nearly uncontested open field in presenting their hateful misinformation. Finally, the Turks figured, with Armenian terrorists killing Turkish diplomats (and their families) right and left, that they ought to counter the massive anti-Turkish propaganda campaigns. Since everyone believes Turks could not possibly be telling the truth... the barbaric and dishonest nature of Turks well imbedded in Western minds... of course Turkey is going to solicit the services of historians who support the view that the Turks believe is the truthful one.
Here is an excerpt from another newspaper article (written by Amy Magaro Rubin), covering the same subject:
At the time he drafted the letter to Mr. Lifton for the Turkish Ambassador, Mr. Lowry was executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington. It was established by the Turkish government in 1983 "to facilitate greater knowledge of Turkey," said Aykut Sezgin, a counselor at the Turkish Embassy in Washington. "There is a need for a better understanding of Turkey." Turkish officials say they routinely hire American scholars as consultants. "We seek advice from academicians," said Rafet Akgunay, another official at the embassy. "They follow the publications and articles." Mr. Lowry no longer serves as a consultant to the embassy, he said.
That makes perfect sense. Who else is the Turkish Embassy in America going to hire, to further a better understanding of Turkey, but American academicians?
Do these historians maintain a facade because their pockets are getting filled? I suppose anything is possible.... but to maintain a facade, while facing classrooms day in and day out, would take an inhuman effort. There is no way anyone or any government can control a mind that is made up in the opposite direction. Imagine yourself having to teach the Holocaust from the Nazis' perspective. Imagine having to face questions from students that are supported by a mountain of evidence, contrary to what you're teaching. Wouldn't that make you sick, if you have an iota of integrity?
Maybe some Armenians are at a loss to understand such a concept, and maybe this is why they so readily accuse others of behaving in "the end justifies the means" ways that have been historically familiar to them.
(It is very difficult to believe Armenian professors have not come across the wealth of Western and ARMENIAN evidence, accessible on this web site and elsewhere, that turns the Armenian "Genocide" on its ear.)
It would be one thing if the Turkish government had bribed Heath Lowry, saying, "Dr. Lowry, here is two million dollars; come on over to our side and lie for us... forget about there being an Armenian 'Genocide,' as we both very well know there had to have been." This is the kind of sinister scenario the Armenians would have us believe, and which many of their brainwashed and frequently fanatical selves no doubt have set their hearts on. Of course, it won't stop this kind of Armenian from implying or even outright claiming such a scenario, because facts are just an annoying nuisance to be twisted and altered, as long as there can only be one genocide-affirming conclusion that suits their purposes. For the rest of us, the only "crime" of Dr. Lowry's, as far as his having been paid by the Turkish government, is that he drew a paycheck, working for the Institute of Turkish Studies (which is not, as I understand, entirely supported by the Turkish government... American companies have also been contributors.)
People who believe this paycheck must have been exorbitant are welcome to their delusions, but if Turks were so crafty with such dishonest maneuvers, and if Turks really had such loose purse strings, why have they failed to overwhelmingly turn around people's conception of the Armenian "Genocide"? And why does Heath Lowry still punch in a time clock, when he could have retired to Cancun with some beautiful babes? If, then, Heath Lowry drew a conventional paycheck, can anyone realistically believe he "sold out" for a lousy paycheck? A paycheck that he could have easily gotten anywhere else... armed with a doctorate from UCLA?
The situation would have been different if Dr. Lowry were an educator on the level of Taner Akcam, who was the first in a series of professorial Turkish Turncoats. A terrorist (with issues against his homeland) and escaped convict (according to this article), his brand of mischief-making soon became old-fashioned, and he needed to reinvent himself... and guess whose arms he rushed into, to earn his new livelihood. Anytime the Armenians can get such a powerful asset on their side, they could point and say, "See! Even the Turks agree with us," and these Turncoat Turks are worth their weight in gold. Mr. "Misplaced Credulity" himself, Dr. Dennis Papazian, likely had a hand in getting Mr. Akcam a job at his university as a "visiting scholar." What legitimate university would give Mr. Akcam -- a scholar with unremarkable academic credentials -- a job, without the backing of the solidly-established Armenians?
Feedback on the article above
...University spokesperson Jacquelyn Savani said that the $700,000 given by Turkey for the chair "is not the amount of money, given the $4 billion endowment of Princeton University, that should even raise suspicion. The fact of the matter is that not for $100 million could the Turkish government put its man in that chair. Not with this faculty."
A point to bear in mind. What kind of influence would $700,000 buy for an institution with a $4 billion endowment?
Harvard, Georgetown, and the University of Chicago received similar grants, but only Princeton has established a fully endowed chair in Turkish studies.
Turkey spent $750,000 on each of these universities and didn't get a Turkish Studies program. Now there is a government with influence to spare.
However, Lowry recently revealed that in the one volume he has studied, he found one document "which strongly suggests that there was government involvement in the killing of Armenians." Lowry said that if more such material becomes available from the archives, it would be "exactly the kind of thing" to make him change his mind.
Ironically, an honest historian like Lowry could wind up being the Armenians' best friend. Since it's his area of specialty to research Ottoman history, and he is one of the few Americans who does so objectively, he is in the best position to discover any possible smoking guns. Those who might think he's a lackey of the Turks will, of course, agree he would do his sinister best to cover up such evidence. However, what if the professor is a stand-up man, as is easily believable by those many who have vouched for him? I think Professor Lowry would feel it is his professional duty to admit he has been wrong... and suddenly there would be REAL proof, for a change, of the Armenian "genocide."
Peter Balakian, from PBS's Armenians: A Story of Survival
He went so far as to call Lowry a "propagandist" in a
Dec. 1 1995 letter to The Chronicle of Higher Education
Colgate's Balakian asserted that the Turkish archives are an unreliable historical source. "[Turkey] is a totalitarian society that has no mechanism for critical evaluation, that can't face its past with any honesty at all ... Eighty years later, you can be sure that there's not a thing of authenticity or value left, that they have sanitized their archive." Though no Ottoman historians have yet signed Balakian's petition, he says that's because the historians fear reprisal from Turkey, and because "a group of so-called Ottoman historians are simply lifelong recipients of Turkish government funds. Some of them, like Mr. Lowry, are just not reliable historians."
Will you look at this! It's our old pal, Mr. "Double Killing," Peter Balakian! I wonder who would qualify as "reliable historians" in Mr. Balakian's biased mind.... Professors Richard Hovannisian and Dennis Papazian? (Of course.)
"[Turkey] is a totalitarian society"... uh-huh.
Perhaps this mud-slinging teacher of English should look up this word in the English dictionary; he will find it means an authoritarian system that suppresses opposition. The one thing Turkey needs is to adhere to the secular principles laid down by Atat?n>rk. And yet, just like in the United States, the religiously-minded know how to chip away at the separation of church and state. How could democratically elected, religion-minded administrations come to power in a "totalitarian society"?
In early 2003, for what must have been a first in U.S.-Turkish relations, Turkey refused to wag her tail the instant America snapped her fingers. Despite Turkey's being in dire financial straits, in large part due to Turkey's having lost many billions of dollars for being the very first (if memory serves) among America's allies to pledge support for 1991's Gulf War, Turkey did not jump at the six billion dollars offered to take part in "Operation Iraqi Freedom" the way America wished. Why? Because 94% of the people did not support the war. Totalitarianism... or surefire signs of a democracy?
Dr. Marashlian's book, distributed in Turkey
In this letter by Turkish citizen Yuksel Oktay, Mr. Balakian will be happy to note some teachers in Turkish high schools have been affected by the relentless Armenian propaganda, and have begun teaching about the Armenian "Genocide" from the Armenian perspective. Halil Berktay is a Turncoat Turkish professor teaching in a university within Turkey itself. Prof. Levon Marashlian, on his page of his university's web site (as of April 2003) has a genocide book written by him, in Turkish, for distribution in Turkey. I don't know of any totalitarian country that would permit its schools to put its image in a bad light, regardless of whether the reported events are true or not... only a democratic society would do such a thing. Imagine schools under Nazi Germany teaching history critical of the Germans.
Obviously, the English teacher has trouble with the definition of totalitarianism; TAT is only to happy to help him clear this up.
"A group of so-called Ottoman historians are simply lifelong recipients of Turkish government funds." How COULD Mr. Balakian POSSIBLY KNOW that?? Did these historians make their income tax records publicly available? Did Mr. Balakian hire private detectives who scrounged the trash cans or hacked into the computers of these historians?
"... Eighty years later, you can be sure that there's not a thing of authenticity or value left, that they have sanitized their archive." Correction, Mr. Balakian. YOU can be sure of that... assuming you actually believe such a statement. It's your duty as a professional minister of Armenian disinformation to make such an outrageous claim, that only Turk-haters would agree with... and not impartial observers. At any rate, over eighty years ago, every document was available to Armenians like you who tried to prove the crime of genocide while Ottoman officials were imprisoned in Malta, awaiting the trial set up by Allied occupiers. They couldn't find a single shred of evidence (in nearly two-and-a-half years of desperately searching) not only to prove genocide, but ANY war crime. Even if the Turks were of the mind to "sanitize their archive" (of course, it's your duty to make it look like the evil Turks would want to hide something), why would they need to, now?
I'd doubt Peter Balakian actually paid a visit to the archives to see how useless they really are... but here is a report from scholars who are making current use of the archives.
Though no Ottoman historians have yet signed Balakian's petition, he says that's because the historians fear reprisal from Turkey...
I wonder what form this reprisal will take. Perhaps the Turkish government will send special agents to put the historians' feet in red hot iron shoes, a punishment alluded to by at least one of the many Armenian tales of "massacre woe."
Unfortunately, an already brainwashed public can easily accept whatever nonsense this man pukes out... and that's what Peter Balakian is counting on.
Mr. "Double Killing" Balakian is qualified to advise on what constitutes killing, as he is an expert on killing himself (far from alone among his fellow Armenians and their apologists)... he is committing murder, in the form of "Rufmord."
Authors Against Heath Lowry
The biased May 27, 1997 Princeton student newspaper article mentioned above, written by Lisa Pevtzow, and entitled "University professor quits post under fire" (with the sub-headline, "School says rotation of chairmanship 'normal' ": "University spokesman Justin Harmon claims there is nothing 'surprising or newsworthy' in Dr. Lowry's resignation, terming it a normal rotation among senior faculty. Department chairmanships are normally occupied for three years, said Mr. Harmon." If that's the case, why use a misleading word like "quits"?), goes on to report a "1995 petition condemning him for working hand-in-hand with the Turkish government, which was signed by 66 artists, writers and Armenian and Holocaust scholars, including John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Norman Mailer, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Arthur Miller, Seamus Heaney and Joyce Carol Oates."
Those are very impressive names, and some very talented people... many whose works I have personally enjoyed and admired. However, writing novels is one thing. Looking into a hotly contested historical matter and blindly accepting one side of the story does not show any of these authors in a good light.
Author William Styron
One author among them gave The Packet a telephone interview: William Styron. Mr. Styron wrote Sophie's Choice and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Confessions of Nat Turner. He also published a 1990 memoir, Darkness Visible, chronicling his long struggle with depression. During the phone interview, the amateur journalist wrote that Mr. Styron "urged Princeton University to remove Dr. Lowry from his tenured professorship and position as director of the program in Near Eastern Studies."
" 'Lowry is a hired hand (of the Turkish government) disseminating lies,' said Mr. Styron. 'The evidence is quite strong that Lowry is being enlisted in a rather immoral scheme. The man has been demonstrated to me as a man who is in the pay of the Turkish government and is committing a totally immoral act.'
'When you deny one genocide, you're denying the genocidal impulse in general and you deny all genocides,' said Mr. Styron. 'Lowry is guilty of this.' "
Well! It's a good thing we have an expert like William Styron arriving at such a definite conclusion of Dr. Lowry's "guilt" so easily. As easily as he arrived at the conclusion there must have been a state-sponsored plan by the Ottoman Empire to exterminate the Armenian people. No doubt Mr. Styron got into the matter thoroughly and open-mindedly, extensively researched both sides of the equation, and answered each and every one of these following questions before intelligently arriving at his final, objective views.
Or, he just happened to be like many others with a pre-existing, deeply-ingrained belief system that the barbaric Turks must have been guilty.... and he unfairly consulted solely the omnipresent pro-Armenian sources. You might say Mr. Styron has a good excuse for such irresponsibility, since he might still have been suffering from his depression. Or perhaps making simplistic and bigoted conclusions come easily to him; one biography stated, "Styron's introspective and psychological portrayal of Nat Turner brought him immediate and bitter criticism, especially from some African-American authors who believed that Styron had little understanding of the slave experience and that Styron's Turner was tinged with racism."
The strange thing is, if William Styron and the rest of the famous authors were so quick to brand Heath Lowry as guilty because 1) He taught in Turkey 2) He was executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies, and 3) He was appointed to his Princeton chair funded by a $700,000 grant from the Turkish government (The Packet's author wrote $750,000), then they are making a giant assumptive leap in concluding Dr. Lowry is not his own scholar. Again: there are few Western scholars who tackle the topic of Turkey impartially; Dr. Lowry probably first learned the anti-Turkish negativism (that every Westerner is exposed to) was not based on fact when he got exposed to the true nature of Turkey as a Peace Corps volunteer in that country. (That's from his Princeton bio.) When Dr. Lowry made the non-conformist move of looking at Turkey with an open mind, he became a rarity among scholars, and Americans. (Just like Admiral Bristol was a rarity for his even-handedness... there was only one Bristol for thousands of Morgenthaus.) When the Turkish government became in need of American scholars to combat the tidal wave of Armenian propaganda, to conduct research and to draft letters, who were they going to call? Professor Richard Hovannisian?
The authors who signed the petition and contributed to Dr. Lowry's smear campaign participated in an ugly drive; they went purely on the basis of their assumptions, driven by their anti-Turkish prejudices, rather than looking for any proof that Dr. Lowry was a lackey of the Turks, espousing views not his own. (Styron is quoted above as having said, "The man has been demonstrated to me as a man who is in the pay of the Turkish government and is committing a totally immoral act." Who "demonstrated" that? Peter Balakian, perhaps?? Where is the PROOF? Where is the proof that he is getting paid? (Not since working at Princeton, in 1994; if he was being paid at the Institute of Turkish Studies, as I'm sure he was, was it at the expense of his principles and beliefs, or because of them... knowing there were hardly any other unbiased American scholars to take up the slack for the Turks, who are mere amateurs when it comes to telling their side of the story.) Where is the proof that his views and beliefs would have been any different even if he WAS getting paid?
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I know a few Turkish Americans who are true champions for Turkey. Sad truth is that they are too few and they have little funding to compete against a well-oiled and funded Armenian lobby organization. The Armenians have perhaps 40-50 full time professionals in Washington DC doing nothing but working each and every day to undercut Turkey and Azerbaijan and promote themselves for more foreign aid taxpayer funding. Turkish Americans have -0- staff and office working for them in Washington DC. The Turks really should do more to protect themselves. All they have to do is tell truth!
Judge Sam Weems, 2002
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Meanwhile, speaking of Dr. Richard Hovannisian, what have these authors to say about the Armenian professor and professional genocide advocate, who has proven himself to be far from objective, and holds his UCLA chair through an Armenian foundation? You can bet Dr. Heath Lowry will change his mind about the genocide the moment he gathers convincing evidence that the genocide actually existed, no differently than I would... and I want to emphasize that strongly, because I WOULD. I believe truth, honor and integrity supersede all. Richard Hovannisian has already proven that he WOULD NOT. He has already misrepresented the facts countless times, singing the "Armenian AND? Anthem."
I looked at Dr. Hovannisian's situation to expose the hypocrisy of the "whistle-blowing" friend of Armenians, Robert Jay Lifton, and if you click on the following link, you, too, may consider the hypocrisy of these authors.
ADDENDUM: I later had a chance to take a closer look at Robert Jay Lifton, in the second page of the TAT web site analyzing what happened to Professor Lowry: Three Professors Attempt to Smear Heath Lowry.
The Authors Who Signed the 1995 petition decrying "scholarly corruption," naming Dr. Heath Lowry in particular:
Agha Shahid Ali (Poet; Prof. of English, Univ. of Mass.)
Tanya Miller (Writer)
Arthur Miller (Playwright)
Henry Morgenthau III (Writer)
Joyce Carol Oates (Writer)
Grace Paley (Writer)
Harold Pinter (Playwright)
Susan Sontag (Writer)
William Styron (Writer)
John Updike (Writer)
Kurt Vonnegut (Writer)
Wendy Wasserstein (Playwright)
John Wheatcroft (Writer; Prof. of English, Bucknell Univ.)
Christopher Tilghman (Writer)
D.M. Thomas (Writer)
Bruce Smith (Poet)
David Rief (Writer)
Askold Melnyczuk (Writer)
Norman Mailer (Writer)
Alfred Kazin (Writer)
Denise Levertov (Poet)
Seamus Heaney (Poet; Prof. of Rhetoric, Harvard Univ.)
Marcie Hershman (Writer)
Michael S. Harper (Poet; Prof. of Rhetoric, Harvard Univ.)
Allen Ginsberg (Poet; Prof. of English, Brooklyn College)
Daniel Ellsberg (Writer)
Robert Bly (Poet)
Frederick Busch (Writer; Prof. of Lit., Colgate Univ.)
The relevant passage from "Taking A Stand Against The Turkish Government's Denial of the Armenian Genocide and Scholarly Corruption in the Academy":
The Turkish government is funding Chairs at prestigious American universities in order to cleanse its image and deny its past. Recently, Professor Heath W. Lowry, who holds the Ataturk Chair of Turkish Studies at Princeton University (endowed by $1.5 million by the Republic of Turkey) and formerly executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc., in Washington, DC, has been exposed as working closely with the Turkish government to discredit scholarship which mentions the Armenian Genocide. Documentation of his collaboration with the Turkish government, including drafting of letters for the Ambassador's signature in an effort to further Turkey's Denial, is provided in the Spring 1995 issue of Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Of interest is the next article:
9) Today the Turkish government pays public relations firms in the US millions of dollars each year to wage a war against scholarship and testimony about the Armenian Genocide.
How such a conclusion was arrived at aside, if that were truly the case, it's too bad these P.R. firms probably did not offer a money back guarantee. This must have been the worst investment in the history of the world.
Another Armenian Proclamation... and the Patsies Who Signed It
These authors, among others, also signed a Commemoration of "Armenian Genocide of 1915," in honor of "the 50th Anniversary of the U.N. Genocide Convention," that condemned "the Turkish Government's Denial of this Crime Against Humanity." The ad appeared in the April 24,1998 issue of The New York Times, and probably in other newspapers.
Expert historian William Styron even got a relative in on the act, Rose Styron.
The ad states the Ottomans "began a systematic, premeditated genocide of the Armenian people"... even though, Aram Andonian notwithstanding, there has not been a single genuine document discovered that proves the government was behind such an operation. Don't these intellectuals realize to conduct a genocide operation of the magnitude they claim, of exterminating "an unarmed Christian minority," (UNARMED..! Armenian revolutionary leaders had stashed away weapons and even uniforms in anticipation of the day to strike, once their nation could be caught at their weakest... that is, at war), local officials HAD to be communicated with?
"...In the early part of 1915, therefore, every Turkish city contained thousands of Armenians who had been trained as soldiers and who were supplied with rifles, pistols, and other weapons of defense. The operations at Van once more disclosed that these men could use their weapons to good advantage..."
Henry Morganthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, Doubleday, Page & Co., Garden City, New York (191 , page 301
There are many such documented photographs from ALL over the
Ottoman Empire; some "unarmed minority."
How else could the local Ottoman officials have known to implement such an extermination policy? With all the telegrams that needed to be sent, and all the telegrams that needed to be sent afterwards to "fine-tune" such a huge operation, you would think ONE telegram would have survived. Instead, the telegrams that have survived express CONCERN over the Armenians.
Boo on these ignorants and bigots who were unwilling to conduct research from unbiased sources, and allowed themselves to be trapped by the emotional issue of what clearly appears to them as a defenseless, innocent minority persecuted by a group which so easily fits the role of "villain." (Not to say many Armenians weren't innocent... but they paid the price of following their revolting leaders.)
Ottoman-Armenian population estimates
"More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches. Another million fled into permanent exile." Let me add that up... let's see. That makes over two million. Funny, over half a dozen neutral sources had the pre-war Armenian population at not over 1.5 million. Maybe the next time the Armenians organize such a petition, they should get a professor of Mathematics to help them with their calculations.
If the Armenians are claiming one million survived, subtract that from 1.3 to 1.5 million and the result is pretty much what the Turks believe are the Armenian casualties. (FINALLY! Something the Turks and Armenians can agree on..!) Not to be forgotten that even Armenian God, Henry "Holier-than-Thou" Morgenthau, was appalled by the famine and disease that struck the Turkish nation, with thousands of Turks dying daily. It stands to reason out of the half-million Armenian dead, not all could have died under the Turkish boot. (And how could "half" of the Armenians' false calculations ? this ad is claiming a million died and a million survived ? how could a whole big, fat million, have survived, by the way? What kind of an incompetently-run genocide was that?)
"You have knowledge that the government has decided the thorough extermination of the Armenian population living in Turkey. Everyone who has a contrary opinion cannot continue to be a member of the State administration. There must be an end to their existence without any mercy for the women, children and invalid persons regardless of the awful means of extermination."
Talat Pasha
Oh, hold on a minute. That wasn't really Talat Pasha, just the words of forger Aram Andonian putting words into Talat Pasha's mouth, which Armenian web sites are unethically still putting up as pure fact. Regardless, many believe Talat Pasha was behind the Armenian "Genocide," and if he were, he would have had to issue such a decree. If that's the case... if every Armenian was ordered to be exterminated... how could over two-thirds of the Ottoman-Armenian population have survived?
By the way, among the Armenians who signed this thing, how come they settled for around a million "exterminated" Armenians when elsewhere they traditionally claim at least a million and a half? That's a big difference... which is it? The loophole term "more than" a million does not get them off the hook... "more than" connotes slightly over a million, not a whole, whopping 50% more. Listen, Armenians: you can't claim one thing here, and another thing there. (What am I saying? They're Armenians... of course they can. Just one out of many examples... Dr. Dennis Papazian offers the figure of 1.5 million murdered Armenians on the Armenian FAQ page... even though he claimed THREE million just a FEW PARAGRAPHS PREVIOUSLY.)
"The Armenian Genocide was the most dramatic human rights issue of the time and was reported regularly in newspapers across the U.S." One of the few true things the announcement claims. Yes, with missionaries (of, for all intents and purposes, the "enemy camp"... generously allowed to freely move around in wartime's Ottoman Empire, which must have been unprecedented in history, showing the great heart of the Turks) making sure to scream "Barbaric Turks slaughter innocent Christians" at every opportunity, how could the Christian West not be sympathetic to what they perceived as atrocious, tyrannical acts? And the newspapers made sure to eat up everything provided by the bigoted Morgenthaus, the unscrupulous missionaries and Armenians, and the wartime propaganda of Britain's American branch of Wellington House, comprised of the false reports by Bryce and Toynbee, whose work has been discredited by IMPARTIAL observers, right after the war?
"The Armenian Genocide is abundantly documented by Ottoman court-martial records..."
These court-martials were cooked up by kangaroo courts whose purpose was mainly political retribution. Almost every defendant was found guilty... 1,376 were sentenced for things as mundane as leaving a post without permission... and sixty-two were executed. The "Ottoman" government at the time barely controlled areas beyond Istanbul, and were the puppets of the Allies... the reason why the Sevres document they went on to sign spelled the death sentence of the Turkish nation; this was not a legitimate government representing their people, as history has borne out. (In other words: Who quickly took their place?) About the only value of these courts was that at least the Ottomans attempted some form of justice for crimes against Armenians (DURING the war, they also meted out punishment to Turks who misbehaved with the Armenian relocations... executing twenty of them in 1915, and likely punishing many more in less extreme ways), while neither Armenia (the country) nor Armenian guerillas ever tried their own criminals for horrible acts against Turks that are documented even by Armenians. (By contrast, the little terrorist state of Armenia hails their mass-murderers as heroes.)
This is what happens when respectable writers and intellectuals embarrass themselves by not conducting their own research, and allow themselves to be suckered. Franz Werfel was a writer who also allowed himself to be suckered, much to his regret when he discovered the real truth. (To his posthumous shame, he did not possess the courage to undo his mistake.)
"The Armenian Genocide was... reported... by eyewitness reports of missionaries and diplomats, by the testimony of survivors, and by eight decades of historical scholarship."
The only type of non-Armenian "eyewitness" account that would help prove the genocide would be of this variety, assuming the perpetrators were clearly Turkish government troops:
The painting is featured on numerous Armenian web sites, presented among the familiar shots of bones and suffering folks, of dubious origin... and I guess the painting is supposed to present "proof" of genocide. (Since Armenians have no proof, they have a habit of utilizing or doctoring paintings to make their case.)
Mind you, even if there were impartial sources who happened to be by such a massacre scene... not that American diplomats and missionaries were "impartial"... that would still not constitute proof of a government-sponsored extermination policy, any more than the My Lai massacre at Vietnam proved America was behind a genocide campaign. The point is, there are ZERO documents of such scenes being witnessed, while Russian military onlookers have directly documented Armenian atrocities against Turks, not to mention Armenians documenting their own atrocities against Turks.
No diplomat or missionary served as an "eyewitness." The only thing they may have observed (and very few of them, to boot... among the consuls, I know of only Leslie Davis who took the trouble to take a stroll outside his compound, once or twice) were dead bodies and suffering people, but those things do not prove a government-sponsored genocide. Diplomats like Morgenthau and Horton were raging Turk-haters, moved by religious and racist bigotry. They also were representing America, a nation sympathetic to and soon to join the Allies... it was in their interest to show the "enemy" Ottoman Empire as monsters. The "moral" people the missionaries were supposed to be comprised of were the worst, breaking one of God's Commandments, "THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR." The missionaries also had an agenda; the more sympathy they could get for the Armenians, the more money they could hoodwink out of teary-eyed Americans. Regardless, both groups either swallowed wholesale whatever the Armenians told them, or made up their perverted torture tales themselves... doing Torquemada proud.
Torquemada
Armenian "Oral History" is the main force that motivates the Armenians' hatred, but accounts of "My Gran'mama Done Tol' Me" do not constitute reliable history. (Unless, of course, you feel THIS constitutes reliable history.) Turks have their own accounts of "the blues," in the hands of murderous Armenians, as well. And as far as that "historical scholarship," the authors are only referring to sources writing biased, untrue accounts as in this proclamation you are reading excerpts of. Any account that deviates from their viewpoint is open to vicious attack (as the case of Dr. Lowry poignantly demonstrates), which goes against what true scholarship is about: considering all sides of the story.
"After 83 years the Turkish government continues to deny the genocide of the Armenians by blaming the victims and undermining historical fact with false rhetoric. Books about the genocide are banned in Turkey."
It's the natural right of a party accused of committing a crime to deny the crime has been committed, when the party fully knows the crime has not been committed. I realize the writers regard Turks as a less-than-human species, but even Turks have this right. And as far as yet another bald-faced lie this declaration shamelessly offers us... WHICH EVERY ONE OF THE WRITERS AND "INTELLECTUALS" WHO ADDED HIS OR HER NAME TO MUST BEAR THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR... if books on the "Genocide" are banned in (what Armenians like Peter Balakian would have us believe is the "totalitarian" nation of) Turkey, then how could "turncoat" Turks be allowed to teach in Turkish schools (like Halil Berktay, who completely parrots the Armenian perspective)? How could Justin McCarthy write:
I go into bookstores in Istanbul and Ankara and see books in Turkish, written by Turkish citizens. These books state that the Turks did commit genocide. I read Turkish newspapers that include interviews with men whose words sound as if they were been written by Armenian nationalists. Sometimes I laugh at their arguments.
How could Dr. Marashlian go to Turkey and take part in a genocide conference and get interviewed by the Turkish press, as he himself reports? (Eight years before this commemoration.) The link to his own page is provided there... click on it, and see the cover of a Marashlian genocide book (reproduced above), in Turkish, that Dr. Marashlian features on his page of the university's web site (as of April, 2003). Do you think this Armenian-genocide book in the Turkish language was destined for distribution in America?
Below are the misguided, unenlightened, deceived poor souls who signed the declaration. (That is, some of the non-Armenians among them... the Armenians weren't among the fools; it's their duty to add their names to the "Genocide" that supports their very cause for existence; there are also Armenians in non-Armenian clothing, on the list) Let the world record the non-Armenian patsies' shameless ignorance, carelessness, and dogma... and in more than a few cases, no doubt, downright racism.
"We urge our government officials, scholars, and the media to refrain from using evasive or euphemistic terminology to appease the Turkish government; we ask them to refer to the 1915 annihilation of the Armenians as genocide."
Such terminology is not meant to appease the evil Turkish government; it is meant to be supportive of the TRUTH. The writers of this proclamation may need to look up the meaning of that word, since they seem to have no awareness of the concept.
While we're looking up words, perhaps you should look up the meaning for the word "annihilation" in any dictionary. Then ask yourselves why the writers would choose such an inaccurate word when previously they claimed a million out of two million (really, 1.3 to 1.6 million) Armenians survived. Did not the famous authors, experts in the English language, stop and think about this fishy discrepancy? Don't they read what they sign?
This is the main reason why the Armenians are in a tizzy to get their false
version of events recognized as a "genocide": A hopeful, eventual land grab.
The "Con Job" is alive, and still very strong. However, take heart, truth-seekers. As with the case of the American Indian, no longer regarded as the savage of the equation of their conflict, one day people will come to accept what REALLY happened. It is inevitable, even with such raging Turcophobia that runs rampant in all corners.
Regarding the non-Armenian "patsies" below: Sure, there are some in a different category, such as the Robert Melsons, Roger Smiths, and Robert Jay Liftons who may be influenced by different motivations; the majority, we must, believe, have been duped ... aided by their pre-existing, deeply-rooted anti-Turkish belief system, near-unilaterally exposed to the century-long disinformation campaign as they have been. However, I do not feel sorry for these people, even if they have been duped.
Each of the authors among them knows what it feels like to be at the mercy of an unfairly prepared book review, for works they have put their hearts and souls into. As bad as that is however, the criticism they have tacked their reputations onto, unwittingly or not, is not a mere criticism of a book, or some cooking recipe; they are attacking the reputation of an entire people, thus committing murder in the form of Rufmord; they are not accusing the Turks of shoplifting, but of being guilty of the highest crime in humanity, that of genocide. By forsaking their responsibility to even-handedly look at both sides of the equation, and not just to wholly accept a viewpoint that, on its surface, feels so "right," they have equally forsaken their integrity... and they should be very, very ashamed of themselves.
Think of aviator/environmentalist Charles Lindbergh's heroic reputation being sullied by his having chosen to support the Nazi position before World War II; even those with "good" reputations below will forever have this black mark on their records, at least posthumously... since I doubt any of them are going to correct their erroneous conclusion before they die. Perhaps if the reader knows how to get in touch with these misguided souls, at least the authors among them could be helped to see the light; otherwise, I doubt any of them will wake up and say, "Hold on a minute... I just WASN'T THINKING."
K. Anthony Appiah
Professor of Afro-American Studies & Philosophy, Harvard Univ.
Michael Arlen
(Armenian) Writer
James Axtell
Professor of History; College of William & Mary
Ben Bagdikian
Former Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism Univ. of California at Berkeley
Houston Baker
Professor of English, Univ. of Pennsylvania
Peter Balakian
Writer; Professor of English, Colgate Univ.
Mary Catherine Bateson
Clarence J. Robinson Professor in English &Anthropology; George Mason Univ
Yehuda Bauer
Professor of Holocaust Studies, Hebrew Univ, Jerusalem
Robert N. Bellah
Elliott Professor of Sociology, Univ. of California, Berkeley
Norman Birnbaum
University Professor, Georgetown Univ.,
Peter Brooks
Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale Univ.
Robert McAfee Brown
Professor of Theology and Ethics Emeritus, Pacific School of Religion
Christopher Browning
Professor of History, Pacific Lutheran Univ.
Frank Chalk
Professor of History, Concordia Univ.
Israel W Charny
Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem
Ward Churchill
Associate Professor of American Indian Studies, Univ. of Colorado
Rev. William Sloane Coffin
Pastor Emeritus, Riverside Churchm N.Y.C.
Vahakn Dadrian
Director, Genocide Study Project, H.F. Guggenheim Foundation
David Brion Davis
Sterling Professor of History, Yale Univ.
James Der Derian
Professor of Political Science, Univ. of Massachusetts
Marjorie Housepian Dobkin
Writer
Jean Bethke Elshtain
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics,
Univ. of Chicago Divinity School
Kai Erikson
Professor of Sociology, Yale Univ.
Craig Etcheson
Acting Director, Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale Univ.
Helen Fein
Executive Director, Institute for the Study of Genocide, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Lawrence J. Friedman
Professor of History, Indiana Univ.
William Gass
David May Distinguished Professor of Humanities, Washington University
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Professor of Afro-American Studies, Harvard Univ.
Carol Gilligen
Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Gender Studies, Harvard Univ.
Langdon Gilkey
Kenney Distinguished Visiting Professor of Theology, Georgetown Univ.
Daniel Goldhagen
Associate Professor of Government & Social Studies, Harvard Univ.
Sandor Goodhart
Director Jewish Studies, Perdue Univ.
Vigen Guroian
Professor of Theology and Ethics, Loyola Univ.
Geoffrey Hartman
Sterling Professor of Comparative Literature, Yale Univ.
Seamus Heaney
Harvard Univ.; Nobel Laureate for Literature
Judith Herman
Professor of Psychiatry, Har Medical School
Raul Hilberg
Professor of Political Science Emeritus, Univ. of Vermont
Richard G. Hovannisian
Professor of Armenian and Near Eastern History, UCLA
Kurt Jonahsson
Professor of Sociology; Concordia Univ.
Alfred Kazin
Writer, Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus, CUNY Graduate Center
Steven Kepnes
Director of Jewish Studies, Professor of Religion Colgate Univ.
Ben Kiernan
Professor of History, Yale Univ.
Robert Jay Lifton
Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and
The Graduate School of the City University of New York
Deborah E. Lipstadt
Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies, Emory Univ.
Expert on The Naked and
the Dead, Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Writer
Eric Markusen
Professor of Sociology, Southwestern State Univ., Minnesota
Robert Melson
Professor of Political Science, Purdue Univ.
Saul Mendlovitz
Dag Hammarskj?Professor of Law, Rutgers Univ.
W.S. Metwin
Writer
Arthur Miller
Writer
Henry Morgenthau III
Writer
You Must Remember This,
Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates
Writer
Grace Paley
Writer
Harold Pinter
Writer
Robert A. Pois
Professor of History, Univ. of Colorado
Francis B. Randall
Professor of History, Sarah Lawrence College
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
Sidney Hellman Professor of European History, Univ. of California, Berkeley
David Riesman
Henry Ford II Professor of Social Science, Harvard Univ.
Nathan A. Scott
William R. Kenan Professor of Religious Studies Emeritus, Univ. of Virginia
Christopher Simpson
Professor of Communications, American Univ.
Is Susan Sontag Regarding
the Pain of Others?
Susan Sontag
Writer
Roger Smith
Professor of Government, College of William & Mary
Max L. Stackhouse
Steven Colwell Professor of Chrisitian Ethics, Princeton Theological Seminary
Charles B. Srozier
Professor of History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and
The Graduate Center, City Univ. of New York
Rose Styron
Writer
William Styron
Writer
Ronald Suny
Professor of Political Science, Univ. of Chicago
Raymond Tanter
Professor of Political Science, Univ. of Michigan
D. M. Thomas
Writer
John Updike
Writer
Welcome to the Monkey
House, Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Writer
Derek Walcott
Professor of English, Boston Univ.; Nobel Laureate for Literature
Cornel West
Professor of Philosophy & Religion, and Afro-American Studies, Harvard Univ.
Howard Zinn
Professor Emeritus of History, Boston Univ.
(Holdwater: Henry Morgenthau III?? As if grandpappy did not display enough of a lack of ethics; talk about adding salt to the wound.)
"Lying is an act of conscious deception. Much of British atrocity propaganda was unconscious deception built upon erroneous reports and impressions"
James Morgan Read, ATROCITY PROPAGANDA, 1914 - 19, Yale, 1941, p.187
Exactly what the Armenians are doing by preparing documents as the above proclamation, and successfully pulling the wool over the eyes of bigoted, ignorant Americans. Their historians know the real truth. They are CONSCIOUSLY DECEIVING.
Quote:Peace at home, Peace in the World. M.K Ataturk
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
The term Armenian Genocide (also known as the Armenian Holocaust or Armenian Massacre) refers to the deportations and related deaths of Armenians during the government of the Young Turks in 1915-1917. Several facts in connection with the Armenian Genocide are currently causing dispute between parts of the international community and Turkey. Most Armenian and Western and some Turkish scholars believe that the Armenian deaths were the result of a state-sponsored extermination plan. Most Turkish and some Western scholars, on the other hand, claim that a clash between the two sides, along with famine and disease, was the reason why a number of Armenians perished. Death toll claims range from 200,000 to 1.8 million, and while there is no official international consensus regarding exactly how many Armenians died, most Western sources maintain that at least one million deaths took place. What is referred to as the Armenian Genocide is the second most studied cases of what is called genocide and often draws comparison with the Holocaust.
Some countries, as discussed below, have officially recognized the Armenian Genocide.
Contents
1 Armenians in Anatolia
2 The Armenian Genocide
3 The Camps
4 The special organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa)
5 Millitary trials, Istanbul, 1919
6 Recent History - Timeline
7 Official Recognition
8 Turkish intellectuals who support the theses of genocide
9 Armenian Genocide memorial
10 See also
11 References
12 External links
12.1 Websites supporting the genocide theses
12.2 Websites opposing the genocide theses
Armenians in Anatolia
In 1914, before World War I, there were an estimated 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the vast majority of whom were of the Armenian Orthodox or Roman Catholic faith. Until the late 19th century, the Armenians were referred to as "millet-i sadika" (fidel nation) by the Ottomans, as they were living in harmony with other ethnic groups in Eastern Anatolia without any major conflict with the central authority—this despite religious and ethnic differences and the Christian Armenians being subject to Islamic dhimmi laws. While the Armenian population in Eastern Anatolia was large and clustered, there was also a considerably large community of Armenians in the west, most of whom lived in the capital city of Istanbul where a substantial community remains to this day. The communities in Eastern Anatolia suffered the heaviest fatalities.
The Armenian Genocide
Before World War I, the Ottoman Empire came under the government of the Young Turks. At first some Armenian political organizations supported the Young Turks, in hopes that there would be a significant change due to a variety of Abdul Hamid's policies towards the general and Armenian population. In this respect, many Armenians were elected to the Ottoman Parliament, where some remained throughout World War I.
In 1914, the Ottoman government passed a new law to support the war effort that required all enabled adult males up to age 45 to either be recruited in the Ottoman army or pay special fees in order to be excluded from service which would still be used in the war effort. Late in 1914, the Armenians were accused of treachery and siding with the Russians, and plans for a forcible evacuation from the front to what is today Syria were made.
On April 24, 1915, the Young Turk government ordered the relocation of hundreds of thousands, or perhaps over a million, Armenians from the Caucasus regions to Mesopotamia and what is today Syria. One consequence of this relocation was a significant number of fatalities. The statistics regarding the number of fatalities are disputed; the numbers range from 200,000 to 1.8 million, as aforementioned. Official German and Austrian documents record that the total may be over a million, while the official Ottoman records present 800,000 killed (suggesting that over a million may have perished); most Western scholars accept the contention that one million or more died. The Turkish government, most Turkish scholars, and some Western scholars dispute those figures, claiming that the actual number of casualties was much lower.
The Camps
The Ottoman Empire had set up a recorded twenty-five to twenty-six of what are often called major "concentration camps" (Deir-Zor, Ras Ul-Ain, Bonzanti, Mamoura, Intili, Islahiye, Radjo, Katma, Karlik, Azaz, Akhterim, Mounboudji, Bab, Tefridje, Lale, Meskene, Sebil, Dipsi, Abouharar, Hamam, Sebka, Marat, Souvar, Hama, Homs and Kahdem), under the command of Çukru Kaya, one of the right hands of Talaat Pasha. The majority of the camps were situated near the Iraqi and Syrian frontiers, and some were only temporary transit camps. Other camps were only used as temporary mass burial zones—such as Radjo, Katma, and Azaz—that were closed in Fall 1915. After reports of deaths, the camps Lale, Tefridje, Dipsi, Del-El, and Ras Ul-Ain were built specifically for those who had a life expectancy of a few days. The majority of the guards inside the camps were Armenians.
Even though nearly all the camps, including all the major ones, were open air, according to records, some were not. Other camps existed, according to the military court, that were irregular Red Crescent camps used to kill by morphine injection (two Saib (health inspector) colleagues, Dr. Ragib and Dr. Vehib, testified during the court) and from which bodies were thrown into the Black Sea. In other instances, according to records, there were some small-scale killing and burning camps where the Armenian population was told to present itself in a given area, and was subsequently burned en mass. Other records from the military tribunal suggest that gassing installations existed as well. Other tribunal testimonies put forth that Dr. Saib and Nail, an Ittihadist deputy, were heading two school buildings used as extermination camps for children. Both Saib and Nail were allegedly in charge of providing the list of children who were to be distributed among the Muslim populace; the rest of the children were to be sent to the mezzanine floor to be killed by a mass gassing installation. The children were sent there under the pretext of taking baths but were poisoned instead.
While the total number of victims that perished in all such camps is hard to establish, it is by some sources estimated that close to a million would be a reasonable figure. This excludes Armenians who may have died in other ways, but may include the special organizations’ participation in the events; the majority of the excluded losses are recorded in Bitlis and Sivas.
The special organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa)
While there was an official special organization founded December 1911 by the Ottoman government, the second organization that participated in what led to the destruction of the Ottoman Armenians community was founded by the lttihad ve Terraki technically appeared in July 1914 and was supposed to be different than the already existing organization in one important point, according to the military court and other records, it was meant to be a government in a government(without needing any orders to act). Later in 1914, the Ottoman government decided to draw the direction the special organization was supposed to take by releasing criminals from central prisons to be the central elements of this newly formed special organization. According to the Ottoman commissions attached to the tribunal, example, the Mzhar commision, in Sivas, as soon as November 1914, 124 criminals were released from Pimian prison, and many other releases followed, in Ankara following few months later, 49 criminals were released from its central prison. Little by little from the end of 1914 to the beginning of 1915, hundreds of prisoners were freed to form the members of this organization that later were charged to escort the convoys of Armenian deportees, the number then grew to thousands. The commander of the Ottoman third army, Vehib called those members of the special organization, the “butchers of the human specy.” This organization was led by the Central Committee Members Doctor Nazim, Behaeddin Sakir, Atif Riza, and former Director of Public Security Aziz Bey. The headquarters of Behaeddin Sakir were in Erzurum, from where he directed the forces of the Eastern vilayets. Aziz, Atif and Nazim Beys operated in Istanbul, and their decisions were approved and implemented by Cevat Bey, the Military Governor of Istanbul.
According to the same commisions and other records, the criminals were chosen by a process of selection, they had to be ruthless butchers to be selected as a member of the special organization. The Mazhar commission during the military court, has provided some lists of those criminals, in one instance for example, from the 65 criminals released 50 were in prison for murder, the lists all gave such a disproportionate ratio between those condemned for murder and others for minor crimes which constituted a clear minority. This process of selection of the criminal was according to most Western researchers was a clear indicative of the government intention to commit mass murder of its Armenian population. It must be noted as well, that according to records, physicians participated in the process of selection, where health professionals were appointed by the war ministry to determine whether the selected convicts would be fit to apply a degree of savagery of killing that was required.
It is estimated that the members of the special organization have killed hundreds of thousands of Armenians.
Millitary trials, Istanbul, 1919
Many of those responsible for the genocide where sentenced to death in absentia, after having escaped their trials in 1918. The accused succeded in destroying the majority of the documents, that could be used as evidence against them, before they escaped. The martial court established the will of the Ittihadists to eliminate the Armenians physically, via its special organization. The Court Martial, Istanbul, 1919: "The Court Martial taking into consideration the above-named crimes declares, unanimously, the culpability as principle factors of these crimes the fugitives Talat Pasha, former Grand Vizir, Enver Efendi, former War Minister, struck off the register of the Imperial Army, Cemal Efendi, former Navy Minister, struck off too from the Imperial Army, and Dr. Nazim Efendi, former Minister of Education, members of the General Council of the Union & Progress, representing the moral person of that party;... the Court Martial pronounces, in accordance with said stipulations of the Law the death penalty against Talat, Enver, Cemal, and Dr. Nazim."
Recent History - Timeline
April 24, 1994: President Bill Clinton issued a news release to commemorate the "tragedy" that befell the Armenians in 1915, yet he bowed to political pressure and refused to refer to it as "genocide," despite referring to the massacre as such before being elected president.
2002: The Armenian Genocide is the subject of the film Ararat, by Armenian-Canadian director Atom Egoyan.
February 20, 2003: A recent report on "The Applicability (www.tarc.info/ICTJ%20Memo...%2003.pdf) of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to Events which Occurred During the Early Twentieth Century" by the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ (www.ictj.org)) states that "...at least some of the perpetrators of the Events knew that the consequence of their action would be the destruction, in whole or in part, of the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia, as such, or acted purposively towards this goal, and, therefore, possessed the requisite genocidal intent." The report concludes that "...the Events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the [UN] Convention, and legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe them" (p. 17).
April 21, 2004: the Canadian House of Commons voted to officially recognize and condemn the Armenian Genocide. The motion passed easily by 153 to 68, however, the Liberal-controlled Cabinet was instructed to vote against it. The federal government, in opposing the motion, did not express a position on whether the genocide took place, but rather cited a desire to avoid reopening old wounds and to maintain good relations with Turkey.
April 24, 2004: in marking the 89th Anniversary of the genocide, John Kerry issued a statement calling for international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
????: Also breaking a campaign promise, the subsequent President George W. Bush refused to use the word "genocide" to describe the killings, though promising Armenian-Americans during his election campaign to recognize the "genocidal campaign" to which Armenians were subjected.
????: The American rock band System of a Down, whose members are Armenian in ancestry, wrote the song "P.L.U.C.K." ("Political Lying Unholy Cowardly Killers"), about the Armenian Genocide and the denial of it as genocide.
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Official Recognition
Several countries officially recognize the Armenian Genocide, including Argentina, Armenia, Canada, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and Vatican City.
The majority of US states also recognize the Armenian Genocide, however there is no federal (Country-wide) recognition.
the Canadian House of Commons voted to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide. The federal government, in opposing the motion, did not express a position on whether the genocide took place.
International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) Report Prepared for TARC
La Ligue des Droits de l'Homme
Parlamenta Kurdistanê Li Derveyî Welat
Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
European Alliance of YMCAs
The Association of Genocide Scholars
Union of American Hebrew Congregations
World Council of Churches
The Turkish Human Right Organization
United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly
European Parliament
Turkish intellectuals who support the theses of genocide
The number of Turkish intellectuals supporting the theses of genocide has grown over the years, the Turkish government has taken steps to prevent this growth, by making it illegal under the Turkish penal code, the support of the theses of genocide. Orham Pamuk, the famous Turkish novelist, felt victim of this law, because of his position regarding this issue.
The reason why some Turkish intellectuals accept the theses of genocide, lies behind three important points. First, the fact that this organization members were criminals, and that those criminals were specifically sent to escort the Armenians, for them is enough evidences of a government criminal intention. Second, the fact that not only the Armenians living in the war zone were removed, according to them this plays against the theses of military necessity vehiculed by the Turkish government. Thirdly, according to them, the theses of simple relocation does not make sense, because there was no dispositions taken suggesting a “resettlement,” which could mean that the government didn't expected Armenians would survive. Dr. Taner Akçam, a Turkish specialist, write about this point: “The fact that neither at the start of the deportations, nor en route, and nor at the locations, which were declared to be their initial halting places, were there any single arrangement, required for the organization of a people's migration, is sufficient proof of the existence of this plan of annihilation.”
Those Turkish intellectuals believe that at the very least 800,000 perished.
Armenian Genocide memorial
Genocide memorial at the Tsitsernakaberd hill, YerevanThe idea of the memorial arose in 1965, at the commemorating of the 50th anniversary of the genocide. Two years later the memorial (by architects Kalashian and Mkrtchyan) was completed at the Tsitsernakaberd hill above the Hrazdan gorge in Yerevan. The 44 metre stele symbolizes the national rebirth of Armenians. 12 slabs postioned into circle, represent 12 lost provinces in present day Turkey. In the centre of the circle, in depth of 1.5 metres, there is an eternal flame. Along the park at the memorial there is a 100 metre wall with names of towns and villages where massacres are known to have taken place. In 1995 a small circular museum was opened at the other end of the park where one learn about basic information about the events in 1915. Some photos taken by German photographers (Turkish allies during World War I) and some publications about the genocide are also displayed. Near the museum is a spot where foreign statesmen plant trees in memory of the genocide. Each April 24th (Armenian Genocide Commemoration Holiday) hundreds of thousands of people walk to the genocide monument and lay flowers (usually red carnations or tulips) around the eternal flame. Armenians around the world mark the genocide in different ways, and many memorials have been built in Armenian Diaspora communities.
zarifian Moderator
Posts: 155
(3/31/05 8:01 pm) Reply
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
Every educated person knows that the Armenian genocide did happen! Many countries recognize it! Turkey must recognize the Armenian genocide and pay the victims familys. The Ottoman Turks also murdered hundreds of thousands of Greeks. Turkey must pay for it's crimes. The victims deserve justice!!
I support Armenia in the battle against the fake republic of azerbaijan!! So does the rest of the world!!
zarifian Moderator
Posts: 161
(4/2/05 12:24 am) Reply
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
"I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915." Henry Morgenthau, Sr. US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
Quote:"I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915."
Henry Morgenthau, Sr. US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire
where does it say genocide?
Quote:Peace at home, Peace in the World. M.K Ataturk
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
If they take eastern Turkey the Iranian kurds will also join say byebye to your land dear also,,
Quote:Peace at home, Peace in the World. M.K Ataturk
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
No, you got it all wrong!
Kurds will join Iran, I mean, its sooooooo obvious
If that happens, Iran will be embroiled in religious conflict, believe me, then we will see who is laughing (If you forgot, Kurds are Sunni Muslims while Persians are Shiites. Equal number of Sunnis and Shiites in a country = religious conflict)
While you are at it, claim Iraq too, I mean, Iran is the 'protector' of the Shiites, and those Arabs already voted in an Ayatollah. So, in effect, you have made what they call a multi-ethnic state. Do you really want Iran to look like this:
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!first of all, Iranian kurds are SHIA. The kurds speak an IRANIAN langauge and their culture is Iranian.. The kurds make up 25% of turkeys population and they want too seperate!! the whole world sympathizes with them and agrees with them. It is a very real possibility that the kurds in turkey will get their own country soon!! at least an autonomous republic, like they already have in IRAQ. Iran has a very small kurdish minority, they live in very remote mountain villages and are bi-lingual in Farsi and kurdish. They would NEVER even dream of seperating!! many of them are Rich and live very well! they all have the same legal and social status...they have every single human right imaginable, not like the kurds in turkey! FREE TURKISH KURDISTAN!!!!
the iraqis' new leader ALI SISTANI is PERSIAN, he was born in the northern Iranian city of Mashad,,and he speaks Farsi, is very pro Iranian, that is so ironic!! I love it!!
Re: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE:TURKS MURDERED 1.5 MILLION ARMENIANS!!
persianplaya, Im new here, and Im supposed to be neutral since I have no "personal-interest" in Caucasus.. there for you(or anyone else) should Not take this as an offense in any way..
My question is about your statement:
"The Armenians and Kurds Dont want to join turkey, that want to take ALL of EASTERN anatolia away from you and they will!!!!
FREE turkish KURDISTAN!!!!"
What do you base your statement on?? From my corner in the world Turkey is entering the EU and that means no change of Turkish borders what so ever for a very long time.
The Turkish government is funding Chairs at prestigious American universities in order to cleanse its image and deny its past. Recently, Professor Heath W. Lowry, who holds the Ataturk Chair of Turkish Studies at Princeton University (endowed by $1.5 million by the Republic of Turkey) and formerly executive director of the Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc., in Washington, DC, has been exposed as working closely with the Turkish government to discredit scholarship which mentions the Armenian Genocide. Documentation of his collaboration with the Turkish government, including drafting of letters for the Ambassador's signature in an effort to further Turkey's Denial, is provided in the Spring 1995 issue of Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
at: 4/3/05 6:57 am
(If you forgot, Kurds are Sunni Muslims while Persians are Shiites. Equal number of Sunnis and Shiites in a country = religious conflict)
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