Who is Peter Balakian? Unlike many Armenian parents who force their form of brutality upon their children (by conditioning them with hateful poems with lines such as “Better I be a dog or cat than a Turkish barbarian”), Balakian’s parents did not stress such medieval methods. According to his “Black Dog of Fate,” he learned the details of the “genocide” later in life, and became even more obsessed than the typical “Armeni-Lemming.” "My life has been deeply shaped by the facts of this history and the trauma…” he has been quoted as saying.
Mr. Balakian's book, which came out in Sept. 2003, provided a shot-in-the-arm for genocide proponents. Armeni-Lemmings who accept at face value what their deceitful historians (such as Vahakn Dadrian) tell them, as well as their hypocritical allies, the so-called "genocide scholars," rushed off to purchase this work, heeding instructions from leaders such as Harut Sassounian; “The Burning Tigris” briefly shot up the best seller lists as a result. With such attention, mindless supporters such as Henry Morgenthau III, shamelessly following in his grandfather’s slanderous footsteps, consequently wrote articles for Armenian mouthpiece publications as The Boston Globe. (The book spells out that the great state of Massachusetts has a proud tradition to uphold: Believe everything from the Armenians, and believe nothing from the Turks.)
Although elsewhere quoted as saying, “We have a special mission to work for human rights for all people being subjected to this kind of barbarism," the insincere author's true intention is to preserve exclusive victimhood for the Armenians. Surprisingly, there is no mention whatsoever of the likes of Armenian mass-murderers such as Hamparsum Boyaciyan, Antranig Ozanian, Karekin Pasdermadjian and Drastamat Kanayan, who systematically wiped out Turks/Muslims. Out of over 2.5 million Turks who died around WWI, over half a million died at the hands of the Armenians… more than the Armenians massacred by Turks. So when Mr. Balakian speaks of “human rights,” he is only referring to select humans... even though he attempts to make us believe he cares for "all people.")
Peter Balakian has done a thorough job of throwing everything in the book, as far as what the Armenian perspective has to offer... with important "updates," including quotes from Armenian allies (such as the "genocide scholars," and "Turkish historian," Taner Akcam), legitimizing the one-sided version of events all the more successfully. He has put into one round volume the worst of what the Armenians have been able to come up with, including Vahakn Dadrian's scraping the bottom of the "Nazi-comparison" barrel, such as his attempt to bring forth Ottoman Dr. Mengeles.
I wanted to address every issue Mr. Balakian brought up. However, this would have worked out to be an endless page, as the book is quite long. Much of what the author reports is rehashed, familiar information that has already been countered elsewhere within this site. What I have done is go through the book chapter-by-chapter, addressing the issues that stood out. (After completing this page, I realized there was no need to cram so much in a hurry to get done, and I treated the second half of "The Burning Tigris" ... Parts III and IV... in more detail.)
Let us begin with a passage from another book that establishes the framework as to how these mainly ridiculous charges were heard everywhere in the West a century ago and beyond... and, incredibly, are still being unquestioned in large part, today in the 21st Century.
From Andrew Wheatcroft's "THE OTTOMANS," 1993:
Haul Halit, an educated and liberal man, made the direct connection between the restiveness of non-Muslim minorities and European commercial domination of the empire:
Foreign Powers ... take up, some of them, the cause of those eastern Christians who are under Ottoman rule, alleging they are acting in the name of ‘humanity’. Their real motive, however, is that they may use them as a point d’appui for their political schemes and designs. . . each native Christian community entertains, nowadays more or less without disguise, sentiments of animosity towards the Osmanlis, and even sympathizes with the enemies of the Turkish empire in times of international trouble or war.
He continued to suggest that the attacks on Christian minorities, ‘which would be represented in Europe as an outburst of Musselman fanaticism’, were an understandable response to provocation: ‘The Turk’s patience is almost inexhaustible, but when you attack his women and children, his anger is roused, and nothing on earth can control it.’ The Turks were portrayed as savages and barbarians in the West; they saw themselves as slow to anger but implacable once roused. Europeans looked down on the Turks with disdain, and the Turks returned the compliment.
Peternocchio Balakian
In the preface, Balakian begins by proclaiming, "In recent decades, the Armenian Genocide has often been referred to as 'the forgotten genocide"... or the 'secret genocide'." Exactly who has been referring to the falsified genocide in this fashion? (Aside from Peter Balakian and friends, of course.)
What is so secret about a professed genocide that produces countless links in an Internet search, and offers rows of books on library shelves? A few pages later, Balakian refers to Cuban independence from Spain, as a result of the Spanish-American war... but he makes no mention of the 1.5 million Cubans who were relocated (perhaps twice the number of the Armenians), with deaths in the hundreds of thousands... a parallel at least as heartbreaking as the Armenians' experience... with similar conditions that would classify a genocide, at least by those who define the Armenians' experience as such. Here would be an example of a "forgotten genocide," then.... which Balakian works to have kept forgotten, in his quest to showcase exclusive victimhood. There are countless examples of Man's Inhumanity to Man throughout history, and hardly any are known as well as the Armenians' cause for existence.
Two hundred thousand Armenians were massacred by Sultan Abdul Hamid II during the 1890s, Balakian asserts... when even the wildly pro-Armenian Johannes Lepsius estimated less than 89,000, an already exaggerated figure. We will get more into this assertion, below.
Alice Stone Blackwell
(Painted by K. Skerjian)
"American intellectual and cultural leaders (Julia Ward Howe, Isabel Barrows, Alice Stone Blackwell, William Lloyd Garrison Jr., Charlote Perkins Gilman, Stephen Crane) articulated their opinion on the Armenian atrocities and often worked for Armenian relief." Later, Balakian presents an excellent framework as to how these lazy-thinking people (I would not call those who only investigate one side of a story "intellectual") came about with their partisan views. An Armenian who emigrated to the U.S. in 1893, Ohannes Chatschumian, stayed at a cultural retreat where like-minded progressives gathered... "arrived dressed in a white shirt and a black suit... carrying one worn suitcase with his life's possession" whose "penetrating eyes and gentle smile were immediately appealing" to Alice Stone Blackwell. Soon, she would be "captivated" by the "gifted linguist," who learned English in no time. "Conversations about the Armenian Question seemed to be inextricable from the passion between them." Alice "fell in love with this brilliant, handsome theology student. Soon, those in the inner circle, such as Isabel Barrows and Julia Ward Howe were similarly "inspired."
Whose cause would these people single-mindedly support, do you think? (Especially after being brainwashed by near-exclusively biased media coverage about "The Terrible Turk" for years?) The same cause that latter lazy-thinking "intellectuals" such as Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, Susan Sonntag, Arthur Miller and Joyce Carol Oates would when Peter Balakian would help them sign petitions affirming the Armenian "Genocide" in the 1990s. When people get emotionally involved with a cause they believe to be just, and don't lift a finger to objectively examine the big picture... it becomes easy to lend one's whole-hearted support. Particularly when the media is in league with a singular view. So when the biased New York Times "published 145 articles on the Armenian massacres" in "1915 alone," basing their reports from the war time propaganda emanating from Britain's Wellington House — a branch of which operated on U.S. soil during the war years, operated by a Canadian — is this supposed to constitute proof? The New York Times is less of an Armenian mouthpiece these days.... but only slightly.
(Two "press" factoids from the propaganda book, "America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915": Only one American newspaper correspondent traveled to the Ottoman interior in 1915 to personally witness conditions, as the other reporters were scrambling for the more glamorous war theater in Gallipoli. The journalist was George Schreiner, and he concluded there was no "genocide." Factoid Number Two: New York Times Publisher Adolph Ochs was a close friend of Ambassador Morgenthau's, both members of New York City's elite high society.)
"The Armenian Genocide of 1915 spawned extraordinary heroism on the part of American foreign officers" who "often risked their lives" to save Armenians. Exactly WHO risked his life? The U.S. consuls barely left their stations getting reports from pro-Armenian missionaries and the Armenians themselves.... often employed by the consuls. The few who wandered off to have a personal look, such as Leslie Davis, noticed corpses... which littered the whole of the Ottoman empire, where "thousands" of Turks were dying "daily," as Ambassador Morgenthau wrote in his ghosted "Story" book.... a man Balakian has the gall to term "a man of high moral conscience." One who deliberately falsifies the facts, as Morgenthau did when one reads his private letters and diary, and one who engages in racism as Morgenthau did, would be better characterized as being unconscionable.
"Today Turkey would like the media and the public to believe there are 'two sides' to the Armenian Genocide," Balakian writes. That is because, as we all know, there are always two sides to every story. And it's not just Turkey who realizes the near-unilaterally presented Armenian propaganda is the false version of these events. "When scholars and writers of Armenian descent write about the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish government calls this a biased 'Armenian point of view.'" Not just the Turkish government, but all objective truth-seekers who study up on the real facts recognize this to be a biased Armenian point of view. Armenians like Balakian are obsessed with their genocide, their unfortunate raison d'etre, and their version of history is marked by falsifications and forgeries, in a desperate attempt to prove their case. The genocide scholars, whom Balakian proudly lists some names of (Samantha Power, Elie Wiesel, Yehuda Bauer, Israel Charny, Stephen Feinstein, Richard Falk, Robert Melson) have varying motivations... some are Holocaust obsessed, and can't help but cuddle with whom they perceive to be brothers-in-arms. Some have the irrational fear that negation of the Armenians' experience can serve to invalidate the Holocaust... and some jump on the genocide bandwagon to achieve instant credibility (after all, who is going to argue with genocide?); their hypocrisy is unbelievable, paying lip service to Rwanda and Bosnia, but mainly dwelling on the Holocaust, and the very "sexy" Armenian "Genocide".... where easy impressions in the West have been pummeled for a century and longer, the Turks making easy villains.
Balakian further explains: "This accusation is as slanderous as it would be for the German government to claim that the work of Jewish scholars ...represented merely a 'Jewish side' of the Holocaust." The difference, however, is that the Holocaust is irrefutably a fact. The notion that the Ottoman government systematically embarked on a plan of extermination has not been proven. The British desperately tried to prove this genocide after the war, in the form of the Malta Tribunal, but failed.
Estimates of the Ottoman-Armenian population: M. Zarchesi, French Consul at Van: 1,300,000; Francis de Pressence (1895): 1,200,000; Torumnekize (1900): 1,300,000; Lynch (1901): 1,158,484; Ottoman census (1905): 1,294,851; British Blue Book (1912): 1,056,000; L.D.Conterson (1913): 1,400,000; French Yellow Book: 1,475,000; Armenian Patriarch Ormanian: (*)1,579,000; Lepsius: 1,600,000
Estimates of the Ottoman-Armenian population;
for more figures, go to the Census page.
"Genocide scholars are comfortable putting the number of dead at more than a million (some estimates put it at 1.5 million)." Yet another bit of evidence that proves just how unscholarly these so-called "scholars" are, comfortable in accepting one view of a version of events. If a dozen pre-war neutral (i.e., non-Turkish; which translates to pro-Armenian) counts estimated the Armenian population at no more than 1.6 million (the 1912 British Blue Book had the count at a million; so did, ironically, Arnold Toynbee. After joining his Majesty's propaganda house, suddenly the Armenian Patriarch's figure of 2,100,000 became credible), and if one million Armenians survived as Armenians themselves claim (Balakian signed his name to a 1998 commemoration stating as such, and openly stated this conclusion in a letter printed in The New York Times), how could over a million to 1.5 million have died?
Further Factoids:
JOHANNES LEPSIUS, as a defense witness in the trial of Soghoman Tehlirian, stated "Just before the war, the Armenians in Turkey numbered 1,850,000," further adding that the figure came from the Patriarchate in "Constantinople." The Patriarch then would have fabricated his 2.1 million figure by having adding 250,000... assuming the zealous Lepsius was not himself exaggerating, as Armenian historian Kevork Aslan put the figure at 1.8 million (in 1920)... statistics he must have also received from the Patriarch.
Keep in mind Armenians like Balakian concede 1 million died, and you can see the deception with their "over a million" claims. Once the Patriarch offered the ballooned 2.1 million figure, he split it up as 840,000 dead, and 1,260,000 Armenians alive in the Ottoman Empire of Dec. 1918. Since the "alive" could be verified with better accuracy than the "dead," the 1,260,000 figure becomes better acceptable. Subtract the inflated 250,000 difference (2.1 million minus 1,850,000) from the 840,000 alleged dead, and you arrive at a mortality of less than 600,000.
Even the unreliable Patriarch has been outdone by today's dishonest genocide scholars.
Armenians hate it when the word "holocaust" is linked strictly with the genocide of the Jews. Balakian stakes his claim on the word by pointing out an 1895 New York Times article used the headline, ANOTHER ARMENIAN HOLOCAUST.
Balakian writes that the missionaries "had millenial views, and hopes that the conversion of the world to Christianity would bring about the Second Coming of Christ and thus the fulfillment of history. But it became clear... the Muslims of Turkey were not going to become Christian..." and so they concentrated on the Christians, and "the Armenians seemed among the most welcoming to the Protestant mission." All true. Not so true is the assertion that the missionaries concentrated on the Christians when they "realized that the Ottoman authorities and Turkish families punished and sometimes even killed Muslims who showed an interest in Christianity." Not the part that some Muslims had enough fanaticism to wish to harm those who wanted to convert... that part is believable, although once again Balakian doesn't lose an opportunity to lend further potential evidence of the barbarism of the Turks. (I wonder how a strictly Christian community from those times in America would have treated one of their own who expressed an interest to turn Muslim.) No, the part that he would want us to believe is one where the missionaries turned their attention to the Christians for humanitarian reasons, out of concern their preaching would bring harm to the Turks from other Turks. The missionaries' already-existing prejudices against the Turks intensified when the Turks refused to be converted. This is how these people of God engaged in an awful eight year program of vilification against the Turks (from 1915 on; they weren't friendly before, either), fueling their drive to raise money with the ensuing demonization. Arnold Toynbee stated ALL of the testimony from the now-discredited Bryce reports came from the missionaries, who forgot one of the basic commandments: THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR.
As Balakian proudly writes that "Armenia became the first nation to adopt Christianity," one would think such good Christians as the Armenians would be the first to honor this particular commandment. By weaving selective facts to serve his agenda, Peter Balakian is certainly not one of these good Christians.
Once the Ottomans took over, Balakian writes the Armenians were subjected to a set of oppressive social and political rules. Is he implying Muslim citizens were not subjected to similar rules that would be frowned upon in a democracy? At a point in history, for example, one of these silly rules required ethnic groups to wear different colored shoes. Balakian outlines the beastliness of the Turks in a sub-chapter entitled, "Infidel Status in the Ottoman Empire." No doubt there were injustices, but here lies the danger when one neglects perspective. As an example, Robert Curzon suggested (in his 1854 book partly entitled "Armenia") that injustices stemmed from inferior officers getting out of line without the knowledge or acquiescence of their superiors... pointing out arbitrary power was not exclusive to the Ottomans, reminding us that the USA was "a land of liberty, where every free and independent citizen had the right to beat his own nigger."
The big picture, however, was that the Ottoman Empire was an extremely tolerant nation, especially when compared to the European nations, where a Muslim was not even considered a human being. The Armenians greatly prospered under the Ottomans... how else could they have become as wealthy as they did? Quite a few Armenians even rose to the highest governmental rank of Pasha, during the days when a Catholic in America had little hope of getting elected dog catcher.
When Balakian begins quoting the hopelessly racist Prime Minister of England, William Gladstone, as the author does at the beginning of Chapter 4, we know we're in trouble. (Gladstone referred to Sultan Abdul Hamid II as "the bloody Sultan" and "the great assassin"; not to be outdone, French President Clemenceau joined in the chorus with "the Red Sultan." A more reasonable Armenophile, however, had painted a different picture of the Sultan, in 1895.) Gladstone used his hopelessly exaggerated Bulgarian massacres for political gain, keeping quiet... as to be expected.... regarding Bulgarian atrocities against Turks.
Let us be reminded by where Gladstone was coming from ("The Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East," 1876): he asserted the Turkish race was... from the first black day they entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity... as far as their dominion reached, civilisation vanished from view. Just one propagandistic example of The Terrible Turk corrupting western minds, from early on.
Balakian throws selectively incriminating passages from two Britons, P.H. Massy, who wrote (among other things) that the Armenians couldn’t earn a living. If the Armenians couldn’t earn a living, how would they be able to… in large part… control the economy? (See The 1915 Armenian Revolt in Van: Eyewitness Testimony, for a different perspective on how Armenians lived; many seem to have been better off than most Turks. One of them, for example, served as the mayor of Van… before getting shot by his own. Better yet, an Armenian explained in an 1857 book all the way from America that the Armenians were so prosperous, they "constitute the very life of Turkey.") William Ramsay is said to have been “fond” of the Turks, but one wouldn’t know it if he actually used the word “slavery” to describe the lot of the Armenians, whom he elaborates were “mats on which (the Turk wiped the mud from his feet).”
Turkish Pasha Receiving a Petition, William Craig
From Wheatcroft's "The Ottomans"
No doubt some were subjected to injustices; once again, so was the average Turk. If corrupt local tax officials demanded second payments, would they have exempted Turks? Similarly, if the Kurdish bands Balakian describes were of the mind to steal, they would not have limited themselves to the Armenians. (Lawless people are not known for their honor.) These were the harsh and unfair conditions all Ottomans were subjected to… exemplified by the fact Ottoman control was weak. Such is the reason why Armenians living in the West didn’t have to deal with paying extortion money to prevent their women from getting attacked… such outrages no doubt took place, but lawless bands were the bane of the government’s existence.
Arthur Moss and Florence Gilliam wrote of the Kurds in 1923’s “The Turkish Myth”: “…roving bands about as lawless as the mobs in parts of the American South, and about as out-of-hand politically as the banditti who infest parts of Italy and Spain.” Sounds like there would have been equal-opportunity attacks, and not exclusive Armenian victimization.
For some perspective, Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester … whom pro-Armenians naturally have tried to discredit (the same applies for the above authors, as well) … wrote in 1922’s “Turkey Reinterpreted”: “There is more honesty to the square inch in Turkey than there is to the square yard in most other countries of the world,” and that “There are no prejudices against Christians in Turkey.”
Few Westerners saw through the smokescreen of propaganda during those days; another was Chester’s son, Arthur Tremaine Chester. In 1923’s “Angora and the Turks,” he reminded us:
“It is unfair to judge and condemn a nation on account of the acts of one or a few unscrupulous individuals of that nation, just as it would be unfair to claim that all Americans are lawless because a few unprincipled people lynch Negroes in the South.” Chester also related an example of how, when Greeks and Bulgarians of the Empire were at each other’s throats, “these so-called Christian-hating people (the Turks) appropriated, from their depleted Government funds, money with which to build Christian churches in order to keep the Christians in their country from fighting among themselves.”
Almost all Western accounts were the opposite of those who were “unbiased by politics, religion or pecuniary benefits derived from condemning the Turks.” Prejudiced and/or ignorant thoughts from Western sources as the two Britons Balakian has quoted must be questioned for their motives, and must be taken as part of the big picture.
I got a kick out of Balakian’s line in pg. 43 (“Armenians Respond”): “Abdul Hamid felt emboldened to send masses of Muslim Refugees… whom the Russo-Turkish wars had driven from the Balkans and the Caucasus, into eastern Anatolia.” Since mighty Russia was instigating these wars (it was Russian Tsar Nicholas I who is credited for what became known as “The Sick Man of Europe,” in 1853… as he spoke of “arrangements” between the European powers to dismember the Ottoman empire), is the author telling us these refugees were being… DEPORTED? Since the cover of his book describes the work as “A History of International Human Rights…”, how interesting the compassionate Mr. Balakian makes no mention of the human rights of these victims.
One of the many factors that led to the downfall of the Ottoman empire was the taking care of the Muslim victims who were ethnically being cleansed by Russians and other Orthodox conquerors… as the empire was shrinking and diminishing in resources. Those who escaped with their lives had no place to go. (Justin McCarthy’s “Death and Exile”: “Between 1821 and 1922, more than five million Muslims were driven from their lands. Five and one-half million Muslims died.”)
Is Peter Balakian actually suggesting Abdul Hamid sent these unfortunates into eastern Anatolia as part of a wicked policy to make life Hell for the Armenians? (I guess that’s what he wants his reader to believe… since “murdering, looting, and pillaging were sanctioned.” Brother!) I’m sure the last thing on anyone’s mind was committing this mild form of “genocide” on the Armenians… the more pressing problems were, where are these people going to go? How are we going to take care of them?
Balakian then asserts the sultan created the Hamidiye, a force of Kurds, who were left to have their way with the Armenians. As a result, the “Armenians began to take matters into their own hands.” Thus, the formation of the Armenian terrorist organizations, one of which (the Armenakan Party) “espoused self-defense in the face of violence.” This “secret society” operated like the Ku Klux Klan, and I don't believe an objective historian would consider their usage of violence as being limited only to cases of self-defense. Balakian then goes on to describe the Hunchaks and Dashnaks, which were even more extreme. Perhaps the author neglected to consult the typical "constitution" of these groups, where "self defense" is way down on the list of concerns.
However, the sequence of events as presented is misleading. Since these terrorist groups were formed in between 1885-1890 (Armenian revolutionary societies actually began springing up earlier, like 1878's "Black Cross"), and the Hamidiye was formed in 1890… could part of the reason why the Hamidiye came into being was in response to the terror committed by the Armenian groups?
Undoubtedly, forming a Kurdish force caused great anxiety among the Armenians (not without good reason), but was the Muslim populace anxiety-free? We can read as much very between the lines, as the author reports, “As (Hamid) sent his special army into the trouble spots of the empire, the Armenian provinces became the top priority.” Once again… the idea of exclusive victimhood.
(British Captain Norman) points out that the assertion concerning the Hamidieh Cavalry being employed in Sassoun "is equally false and the number of troops employed was greatly exaggerated." He adds: "Three weak battalions and one mountain battery are all that were sent into the valley... and the total Armenian losses did not exceed 200 men in the fighting with the regular troops." — "The Armenians Unmasked," 1895
"Abdul Hamlet"; a critical Turkish cartoon of the period
(Wheatcroft's "The Ottomans")
Balakian lays the groundwork to establish what a “mentally unstable” tyrant the sultan was. At times, he certainly was no angel. However, let us listen to what an even-handed historian says of the matter, as Andrew Wheatcroft, in “The Ottomans”:
“It is not uncommon for political adversaries to describe an opponent as ‘evil’ or ‘mad’. The enemies of Abdul Hamid, both inside and outside the empire, considered him both mad and bad. His ‘madness’ lay in not following the approved path of Westernization… if his rhetoric was of the past, the sultan was also the most effective modernizer of Ottoman society. Many of the promises embodied in the constitution were fulfilled. He provided the empire with a basic structure of secondary education, with a network of railways and… roads… telegraph…”
“Although there was considerable brutality – particularly in the capital, with the sultan’s secret police – fear rather than brutality was the controlling ethic of the system… Abdul Hamid failed not because he was brutal or cruel but because he lacked the will to control his own creation.”
“As the secret Hamidian state became more powerful and more secretive, its need for enemies – real or imaginary – grew ever greater. The most notable focus for these obsessive fears was the Armenians… As a group they were not popular, given their traditional role as moneylenders and bankers. Many of the Western reports by journalists and missionaries supported the Armenians’ cause; others condemned them. The bloody events under both Abdul Hamid and his successors are read differently by each side, but for the Ottomans the Armenians represented a threat to their control of the state. Abdul Hamid was himself a target for assassination, and the occupation of the Ottoman Bank in Constantinople by Armenian nationalists in 1895 was a mortal affront. “
“The degree of the sultan’s responsibility for the killings that followed is uncertain: he assuredly could not have been unaware of what was going on… (As with past inter-communal conflicts in Bulgaria and Bosnia), the Ottoman authorities simply encouraged long-standing hatreds to spill over into massacre. The role of the state was one of ‘restoring order’.”
“No Ottoman sultan has ever been more universally execrated than Abdul Hamid. On the one side he was condemned as ‘Abdul the Damned’, or ‘the Red Sultan’.”… in Western eyes, by 1907 he had come to embody all the worst features attributed to the Ottomans – cruelty, cowardice and, less plausibly, lust.”
Balakian details the awful crimes perpetrated against the Armenians, among whom no doubt many innocents suffered. However, as with the “genocide” years, the picture being presented is that of a poor, helpless people being set upon because they complained of the injustices with double taxation and the Kurds… and whatever violence that took place from their end was nothing more than self-defense.
Captain Charles Boswell Norman wrote in "The Armenians Unmasked" (1895) that these stories should not be accepted at face value: "The Osmanli (Ottoman) has yet to be heard." (The English have) "heard stories ad nauseam of massacres, of pillages, of the ravishing of women, but none of these stories have been corroborated by a single European eyewitness."
The author ignores Western reports that do not suit his agenda. As early as 1877, for example, the British Ambassador (Sir Henry Layard) was told by the Armenian Patriarch that he would be behind rebellions to gain the attention of Europe.
The Armenians were aware, especially since England became rabidly anti-Turkish during these years (under the leadership of Gladstone; the Russian, Mayewski, wrote an excellent paper describing exactly what was going on), that the European powers were looking forward to taking the “Sick Man” apart. (Establishing secret treaties to do so... particularly in the later WWI years.) Aside from conditioned anti-Turkish prejudice, another reason not to accept at face value many of these Western reports (decrying what happened to the Armenians) is because they easily could have had ulterior motives. The Armenian plan was to provoke; they purposely instigated massacres to get the Europeans to step in, knowing the Europeans were hovering like vultures to do so.
I did not concentrate on the 1890s end of the genocide tale too much at this site, although you can find many 19th Century Western accounts with a different view than Peter Balakian’s sprinkled throughout. When I rebutted Dr. Dennis Papazian’s “Misplaced Credulity,” I inadvertently got into this area in more detail. See, for example, how there were 22 Armenian provocations throughout different provinces of the empire in the last three months of 1895, alone... where the Armenians did not just heroically fight back (as Balakian details with 600-700 holding off four Turkish battalions in 1896), but went about their own violent sprees targeting innocent Muslims. It’s the same M.O. as with “1915”… they fired the first shot and rebelled; and when the response came (the same response any other nation would claim the right for), the Turks would become perceived as the bloody barbarians.
The collective energy of the Armenian diaspora is what made Peter Balakian's book The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, an unlikely bestseller for a few weeks last fall. The Burning Tigris describes how Americans in the first half of the twentieth century were deeply engaged in efforts to help "the starving Armenians" in the wake of their catastrophe. But the distinctive merits of Balakian's book had little to do with its commercial success. The reason was that Armenian-Americans spent much of last year running an intensive e-mail campaign to garner pre-orders for the book on Amazon.com. A sufficiently high number of pre-orders would push the book into multiple printings early on and guarantee a high ranking. The campaign worked, as Armenians worldwide placed orders for one, two, three or twenty copies. Favorable reviews abounded. (A similar publicity crusade boosted Atom Egoyan's 2002 film, Ararat, the first-ever feature film about the Armenian genocide.)
Meline Toumani, "The Burden of Memory," Sept. 3 2004, The Nation. (More excerpts.)
Kamuran Gurun wrote during a two year period of this rebellion, perhaps 5,000 Turks died at the hands of the Armenians, without provocation (and less than 20,000 Armenians died, including Armenians killed by Armenians… one-tenth of Balakian’s ballooned figure, from 1890-1896; 20,000 sounds a lot closer to the Turk-hating Lepsius’ figure of less than 89,000… no doubt exaggerated in itself; Bliss concluded 41,000-42,000)… what about the “human rights” of those victims Peter Balakian contemptuously doesn’t waste a breath on? As Gurun logically wrote: “It would be fair... to remember how many people lost their lives in rebellions or disorders in their own or other countries, and think how much right they have to use the term massacre."
Consequently, the American press and people became outraged, as Chapter 6, “Humanity on Trial,” outlines. Little surprise, with only one side of this story blasting away.
The massacres played a part in the Republican party platform in 1896, Balakian writes… the two other international issues being Cuban independence from Spain (where Cubans suffered probably worse than the 1915-1916 Armenians, with twice the number “deported,” and probably no less deaths), and the annexation of Hawaii. I wonder why the injustices from the latter two episodes are practically never spoken of today? Why… would you... $uppo$e?
Balakian outlines all the many Western books and accounts to validate his version of events. One in particular caught my attention: Frederick Davis Greene’s “The Armenian Crisis in Turkey: The Massacre of 1894, Its Antecedents and Significance.” The “evidence”? “Missionary and relief worker reports,” published “anonymously.” That’s right… as if these people who gave up their lives at home to live in an alien land, fueled by a single-minded purpose… would be objective and bias-free, and would not take the word of Armenians' “survivor testimony” at face value, or wouldn’t even be motivated enough to “embellish” such stories. Greene, a missionary himself, was BORN of missionary parents, in Turkey… a potential zealot’s zealot.
Greene even had the audacity to write, “it seems to be the systematic policy of the government to crush the Armenians, and it looks as though they will be exterminated.” Ahhhh… just the kind of man after Peter Balakian’s heart.
History gives the answer to how valid Greene’s prediction turned out to be. Regardless, his is the perfect example as to why this propaganda has unilaterally poisoned the minds of Americans, and other Westerners. “Greene’s book… was reviewed widely around the nation and had a large impact on the national consciousness.” Who would have doubted Greene’s word? After all, he was a man of honor and conscience… since he was a man of God. The precedent to his counterpart today, the “genocide scholar.” They, too, must be people of honor and conscience, because they appear humanitarian… by speaking out against the worst crime toward humanity. Everything that they are saying must be the truth.
During the Civil War, Clara Barton was a famous nurse. She was remembered by many soliders as the "Angel of the Battlefield." Clara Barton also established the first American Red Cross.
Clara Barton
Balakian outlines all the many lazy-thinking “intellectuals” in America who jump at accepting one side of a story without bothering to do any objective homework… giving credibility to the “Turks are monsters” version of these massacres all the more. (“What the Friends of Armenia had started… had become a national movement by the summer of 1895.”) Soon, Clara Barton would head the relief organization, staying at the famous Pera Palace hotel in Istanbul, “with the stench of death hanging in the air.”(Must be quite a time machine in the possession of the poet-turned-historian.)
Now, what government (unless very poor and desperate; the Ottomans were poor, but not desperate) would give permission for a foreign entity to set up shop on their soil, for the purpose of providing relief, particularly from a nation not that friendly? Imagine if, say, Iran wanted to bring a whole kit and caboodle of their people into the United States, with the purpose of looking after the many innocent Muslim-Americans who were imprisoned in the wake of the hysteria produced after 9-11?
How funny that the nation interested in having the Armenians “exterminated” would be kind enough to allow an army of potentially unfriendly visitors, who could do the Turks’ reputation even greater harm than they already had. However, with the promise that her goal would purely be “humanitarian” (avoiding the word “Armenian,” which could also imply helping the Turks victimized by the Armenians… which, of course, was the farthest thing from her mind; not to diminish Clara Barton, she appeared to be otherwise a great woman), and also by promising “we… shall not go home to write a book about Turkey,” and doing anything “sly or underhanded.” Permission was granted, thus showing the great heart of the Turks.
The next chapter provides all the grisly details… enough to “write a book about.”
Beginning in Chapter 8, Balakian cites statistics: 10,000 Armenians in the United States by the mid-1890s, 66,000 before the WWI “genocide” period, and 145,000 right after. (Growing to a million, to date.) Nearly 80,000 out of the million (that Armenians tell us have survived) came to America, then… a number which surely must have grown, in the years immediately after. We also learn since Boston was the center of the Armenian human rights movement, its newspapers like the Boston Globe covered the massacres more extensively. (So THAT'S why the Boston Globe is such a shameless Armenian mouthpiece today.)
A postlude to the spectacular raid on the Ottoman Bank: The "Leipziger Illustrierte" reported not only on the exposition of weapons and explosives confiscated from Armenian terrorists, but also on the prompt closing of the exposition following the intervention of the foreign embassies. This also set a terrorist example that is still valid today.
Armenian weapons and explosives confiscated
Detailing “The Ottoman Bank Incident” in Chapter 9, the 25 Dashnaks who instigated the violence and threatened to blow the bank up had “a rather belated realization that the destruction of the bank would provoke the sultan to another round of gigantic vengeance against innocent Armenians.” Whether that conjecture would have come to pass or not, couldn’t these knuckleheads have figured out violent actions always carry consequences? I suppose that wouldn’t be the Armenian way… to accept responsibility for one’s destructive actions. When things go awry… blame others.
Apparently, these boys' acts were historic in more ways than one; they were the first to set an example of such, for future terrorists to follow. Professor Erich Feigl wrote in "A Myth of Terror":
On August 26, 1896, Armenian terrorists raided the Ottoman Bank, taking hostages in the process. This was the sad culmination of a year which had already seen more than its share of violence. This time, the operation was masterminded by the Armenian Dashnak Party. They saw this spectacular raid as a chance to catch up with their competition, the Armenian Hunchak Party, which was responsible for almost all the other acts of terrorism in 1896... the terrorists forced their way into the bank, threw bombs, barricaded themselves In with sacks full of silver coins, and fired wildly in all directions. They took hostages and insisted that their list of demands be published and met. This operation served as a model for all terrorists to come, and the style of this type of terrorist raid has remained largely unchanged.
The seventeen insurgents probably expected the entire British and French fleets to turn up at Istanbul and give them a festive welcome. While this did not happen, it was nonetheless aboard the sumptuous private yacht of Sir Edgar Vincent himself that the gang made its get-away. They later boarded the French warship La Gironde, which brought them safely to Marseilles. From there, they were free to continue planning and carrying out terrorist attacks.
The raid had only partially fulfilled its purpose. The expected riots had not materialized. These riots were needed by the terrorists, because along with the dead and wounded they would bring a flood of contributions for the "Armenian Cause". Other terrorist units therefore helped out by arranging a number of bomb explosions in Galata on August 30.
This time things worked out better, since it was now possible to dream up tales of "4000-6000 Armenians killed in the rioting". Not the least bit of evidence could be found to support these figures in the secret report of the British Embassy (F. 0. 424/188, Nos. 149 and 169). But what difference did that make? '
A model had been created for all future terrorist raids, complete with hostage-taking, forced publication of a list of demands, and permission for the terrorists to leave the country — plus all the P. R. that accompanies an action of this type.
Karekin Pastermadjian, a.k.a. Armen Garo
When the leader of the terrorists was killed, Armen Garo (Mr. Balakian avoids referring to this fellow by his real name, Karekin Pastermadjian, for some reason) took over. The sultan agreed to allow the fifteen remaining safe passage out of the country (Abdul Hamid also pardoned the Armenians who would try to assassinate him years later), especially after a Russian official threatened to have the European powers destroy the palace with cannon fire from their battleships. As the terrorists were escorted away, sounds of the angry mob and “screams of people who had been taken from their homes to be killed; Garo had little doubt that the screams were those of innocent Armenians.” Can you believe that? Garo, one of the terrorists responsible for all that violence… now, presented as a credible witness describing sounds he did not see (perhaps did not hear)… by author Peter Balakian. Mr. Balakian then goes on to write “a number of European newspapers… praised the Armenian activists for their honesty… and their courage.” That part would be readily believable.
By the way, this criminal actually was allowed to return and serve in the Ottoman parliament! What forgiving people the Turks are… I’d say that’s anything but oppression. Balakian goes on to recount that Garo repaid his tolerant nation by joining the Russians in WWI! (Pg. 199), his hands soon to be awash in Muslim blood.
(Rafael de Nogales, whom Balakian quotes in his “Van” chapter, wrote in 1926’s "Four Years Beneath the Crescent": “…After hostilities had actually commenced, the Deputy to the Assembly for Erzerum, Garo Pasdermadjian, passed over with almost all the Armenian troops and officers of the Third Army to the Russians; to return with them soon after, burning hamlets and mercilessly putting to the knife all of the peaceful Mussulman villagers that fell into their hands.")
Sir Mark Sykes, in his The Caliph’s Last Heritage (London, Macmillan, 1915):
"...They will undertake the most desperate political crimes without the least forethought or preparation; they will bring ruin and disaster on themselves and others without any hesitation; they will sacrifice their own brothers and most valuable citizens to a wayward caprice; they will enter largely into conspiracies with men in whom they repose not the slightest confidence; they will overthrow their own national cause to vent some petty spite on a private individual; they will at the very moment of danger grossly insult and provoke one who might be their protector... they will betray the very person who might serve their cause... The Armenian revolutionaries prefer to plunder their co-religionists to their enemies; the anarchists of Constantinople threw bombs with the intention of provoking a massacre of their fellow-countrymen.”
Doesn’t that sound like it would serve the interests of Garo and other pro-Armenians to make it sound like “innocent Armenians” were being killed by the beastly Turks?
Ever the diligent “historian,” Balakian makes sure to blacken the eye of Turkish reputation more deeply in his following pages, reporting on the aftermath. The British charge, for example, reported “the Turkish mob” bludgeoning “thousands of Armenians to death.” Balakian even brings up Greek-Armenian director Elia Kazan’s AMERICA, AMERICA to help us picture such crimes. The European powers (you know the ones; looking for any opportunity to split the remains of the empire between themselves) complained in a "collective note" that it was a "positively established fact" the Ottoman government allowed “savage gangs” to massacre the Armenians, led by "…soldiers, and even police officers.”"
British author C. F. Dixon-Johnson presented a different view in his 1916 work, “The Armenians.” He maintained the suggestions of the pro-Armenians that these were "unprovoked massacres inspired by the Turkish Government" were false. Here is how he described the events of the Ottoman Bank takeover:
The Ottoman Bank under attack by Armenians
Having failed to stir up a general rise in Asia, the Armenians were "determined to adopt desperate measures in Constantinople in the hope of forcing the hands of the Ambassadors. They attacked the Ottoman Bank with bombs and revolvers, killing twelve guards. They seized the European staff as hostages and threatened to blow up the building with all who were in it. The ambassadors appealed to the Porte, which allowed them to guarantee a safe conduct to the conspirators. Bombs were also thrown in the Grand Rue de Pera, and "some of the conspirators who had taken a position upon the roofs of the houses in that, the principal thoroughfare of Constantinople, fired upon the populace in the street below". Dixon-Johnson continues as follows:
"There seems little doubt that the revolutionists had contemplated a series of attacks at different important points, to be followed by a more or less general rising of the Armenian population....
"A cry went through the city that the Armenians had risen in revolt and were massacring the other citizens. Many persons armed themselves with cudgels and, joined by a cosmopolitan mob from Pera and Galata, many of whom were Greek anxious to pay off old scores on their hated commercial rivals, wreaked vengeance on the Armenian population. The soldiers and police took no part in the killing. It is estimated that about 1,000 persons perished, including those killed by the bombs and revolvers of the conspirators. What happened in London and Liverpool after the sinking of the Lusitania affords an idea of how the East End people of London, who claim to be far more highly educated... would have behaved if German desperadoes, after murdering twelve of the sentinels on guard at the Bank of England, had been allowed to escape free in deference to the representations of the American and Spanish Ambassadors, especially after the fears and passions of the mob had been aroused by German aliens shooting and bombing from the roofs of the houses..."
President Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Chapter 10 begins with a look at British propagandist Viscount Bryce, and the depth of his commitment to the Armenians. Bryce began defending the sympathy-seeking people as early as 1881. “Like Gladstone, he was a liberal with a passion for human beings,” Balakian writes... not the only common trait shared with Gladstone… the willingness to present false information as fact was another. He served under Gladstone, and Woodrow Wilson, while a professor, praised an 1889 Bryce book examining the United States. Two decades later, President Wilson would regard Bryce’s now infamous “Blue Book” as a bible.
Balakian bemoans that an American minister (who turns out to be a rare exception to the Turk-hating rule! ADDENDUM 3-07: Minister Alexander W. Terrell was not a religious minister or missionary, but a minister of government; he served as what passed for the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, at the time.), A. W. Terrell ("criticized by the Protestant missionaries") produced what Balakian considered a puff piece in Century Magazine’s November 1897 issue, in response to an article that appeared in Harper’s Weekly written by James Bryce (Bryce found the sultan to be a “fiercely anti-Christian autocrat”).
Here’s what Balakian transcribes about the way in which Terrell explained the massacres, in Balakian’s words: "…because the Armenians had established 'revolutionary committees,' they had to be massacred." "They had to be massacred"? I have a funny feeling that must not have been the way Terrell put it.
(Chapter 12: "Adana, 1909: Counterrevolution and Massacre"... a preliminary examination of this chapter may be found here.)
Chapter 13 covers the Balkan Wars. CUP leader Abdullah Jevdet is quoted as warning the Armenians that the Armenians should not feel emboldened because of the losses in European Turkey. "Anatolia is the well spring of every fire of our life." In other words…. there is no way the Turks can afford to lose their heartland, as that would spell the end of the Turkish nation. Makes sense to me! However, Balakian editorializes: "Jevdet’s nationalist fervor was indicative of the new tone of pan-Turkism that was defining the Young Turk regime."
The proof is, however — and this is essential — that the struggle begun decades ago against the Turkish government brought about the deportation or extermination of the Armenian people in Turkey and the desolation of Turkish Armenia. This was the terrible fact!
Hovhannes Katchaznouni, First Prime Minister of the Independent Armenian Republic
The Armenians have concocted several reasons as possible genocide causes, in a desperate search for motives. One of them concerns the country needing to be cleansed of all non-Turks, to justify why a non-Turkish people like the Armenians were targeted for extermination… instead of looking at the only reason why they were subjected to the resettlement program: the Armenians betrayed their country. This other reason of "pan-Turkism" makes no sense, even though there were extremists who had such mad dreams: cleansing the nation of non-Turks would be unworkable, since the heterogeneous nation represented too broad a range of ethnic groups. In addition, it doesn’t explain why other "alien" groups among the non-Muslims were left alone, such as the Jews. It’s Balakian’s duty to perpetuate and validate this particular concoction.
He justifies this "Turkification" motive by explaining:
"Not unlike Hitler’s later nazification programs for German youth, exemplified in the Hitlerjugend, the Young Turks now launched a program of nationalist indoctrination and paramilitary training for Turkish youth."
I’m not sure if this author can get much lower, but don’t count on it; we’re not even halfway into the book, yet.
Oops… a little later in this very page (pg. 163), Balakian has a ball with the "chief propagandist" of the CUP, Ziya Gokalp… who possessed the “pan-Turkist voice that rose the highest in the political arena.” Only… Gokalp is identified as a Kurd.
“Eerily foreshadowing the leading Nazi propagandists Alfred Rosenberg and Joseph Goebbels, who propounded the central notion that Germany needed to be Judenrein if it was to revitalize itself, Gokalp advocated that Turkey could only be revitalized if it rid itself of its non-Muslim elements.” OHHHHH. So it’s not really Turkification, it’s Muslimification. In other words, these racist Turks regarded all Muslims as Turks, such as the Arabs. I get it, now.
ADDENDUM: The real low-down on Ziya Gokalp.
Hopefully Balakian had enough Vaseline by his bedside as he went out of control while quoting a Turkish physician (Mehmed Reshid) as having supposedly said, "Isn’t it the duty of a doctor to destroy microbes?"... after likening the Armenians to microbes. Balakian claims Reshid nailed horseshoes to Armenians’ feet and marched them through city streets. Is that possible? I don’t mean being able to walk with nailed horseshoes… I know I wouldn’t be able to do it. I mean, how does one nail horseshoes to human feet? (The source is Vahakn Dadrian. Figures.)
ADDENDUM: Once again, Balakian displays his perfected art of weasely deception, by leaving out the context; what prefaced the "microbes" quote referred to the Armenian bandits, and not the people as a whole. The Hunchaks and Dashnaks were poisoning relations, and the word "microbe" was a most appropriate analogy.
Another evil doctor is Behaeddin Shakir, who believed Armenians were "tubercular microbes." Dr. Shakir helped raise two Armenian orphans (one who went on to perform in the Istanbul Philharmonic)… before he was assassinated by Armenians in 1922.
Is it possible there were such horrid racists among the Turks, historically among the most tolerant and compassionate of peoples? Obviously, many Armenians and Western Christians, regarding their outlook toward the Turks of this period, did not have a monopoly on racism; there are bad eggs everywhere. Some Turks certainly had excellent reason to not regard the Armenians in such loving terms… after all, they did betray their country, where they had prospered for centuries, during their country’s darkest hour. If a minority were to rise up and stab your nation in the back while your nation was on its last legs and fighting mighty world powers on multiple fronts, how do you think members of this minority would be regarded, by your countrymen?
However, Balakian’s irresponsibility is unconscionable; if he is so desperate to paint such monstrous images, he cannot base his claims on Armenian sources known to say anything and everything as long as their identity-providing genocide can be affirmed, regardless of the facts.
Then Balakian’s inevitable piece de resistance: Hitler’s omnipresent and alleged quote.
Chapter 14: "Government Planned Genocide." Balakian’s chance to run through the familiar Armenian monologue. The same old distortions easily found everywhere.
Another motive for killing the Armenians is the humiliation of defeat. The Turks got into a hissy fit over the loss of so much territory, and had to take out their frustrations on someone. Forget the fact that the Armenians had been the favored ones throughout the centuries… they had to be the scapegoats for no good reason.
Balakian naturally travels down this road as well, and on pg. 178 declares: "…After Enver Pasha’s humiliating defeat by the Russians at Sarikamish in December 1914-Jamuary 1915, the minister of war and his ruling elite, needing a scapegoat, blaming the Armenians, claiming that they were in sympathy with the Russians."
"Claiming..." Balakian would have his reader believe there was no truth to Armenians’ not just having "sympathy," but engaging in outright rebellion, on the side of the enemy. He certainly has started on the right foot in his new career as "historian," by respecting the facts.
ADDENDUM: One source attesting to the Armenians' treacherous role at Sarikamish is one of Balakian's favorites, Armen Garo. (Bank Ottoman: Memoirs of Armen Garo, p. 21.)
Balakian has reproduced examples of the anti-Turkish New York Times' many false genocide accounts, but has failed to resort to one that can be confirmed in countless other references: The Nov. 7, 1914 report, entitled “Armenians Fighting Turks,” which outlines how the Armenians rose up in rebellion, as planned… as soon as the Ottoman Empire was at her weakest, that is, at war. Russia had declared war only five days previously.
In reality, Enver Pasha got a promise of loyalty from the Armenians, represented by the Dashnak Congress, in 1914. Enver counted on 50,000 Armenian troops who could have made the difference at Sarikamish. These Armenians never showed up, breaking their loyalty oath... one of the reasons why the untrustworthy soldiers who hadn't yet deserted from the army were disarmed. Armenian historians will further elaborate here.
Prof. Nursen Mazici found documents in the U.S. archives linking the role of Armenians at Sarikamish; one sent by Armenian commanders stated that "the communications of the Turkish army with the rear-front was cut off as earlier planned, therefore it could be possible to annihilate at least sixty thousand Turkish soldiers," and they were extremely happy and proud of the advantages taken by that effort.
Balakian then writes, familiarly, that the Armenian men in "the army were disarmed, thrown into labor battalions and then the army began an organized plan of massacring most of the Armenian (troops)." Let’s check out the logic, here.
For centuries, only the Turks safeguarded the lives of the residents of the Ottoman empire… one of the benefits of a tax certain minorities had to pay. As the footnote here states (Erik Jan Zucher, “Ottoman Labor Battalions in World War I,” 2002), Christians had first been conscripted into the Ottoman army in 1909. They’re not historically used to the idea of risking their lives for the preservation of their welfare, putting in doubt whether some had their hearts in this new military role; and they know there is an Armenian movement afoot to hook up with the enemy and betray their nation.
A Dashnak committee order spelled out the Armenians’ duty: "As soon as the Russians have crossed the borders and the Ottoman armies have started to retreat, you should revolt everywhere. The Ottoman armies thus will be placed between two fires. On the other hand, the Armenians in the Ottoman army should desert their units with their weapons and unite with the Russians." I’d think any nation would think very carefully when signs of a rebellion appear, before allowing weapons to remain in the hands of potential traitors.
Arthur Tremaine Chester explains: “The facts are that the Turks sent an army to the Russian border to defend their country against the threatened Russian invasion. The army consisted of Turkish subjects of all nationalities, being drafted just as ours are drafted. At the front the Armenians used blank cartridges and deserted in droves. This was bad enough, but the Armenians were not satisfied with this form of treachery. The provinces in the rear of the army had a large Armenian population, and these people, feeling that there was an excellent chance of the Russians defeating the Turks, decided to make it a certainty by rising up in the rear of the army and cutting it off from its base of supplies.”
Now why would it make sense to go through all the expense of arming, maintaining and training Armenian troops, if the “secret” goal was to exterminate them? Wouldn’t there be more expedient ways? They could have just rounded up the men, and killed them. (That is, whatever Armenian men were left among the non-soldiers of the citizenry, after so many had traitorously joined the Russians.)
If the manpower-deprived Ottoman army truly had the evil intention of using "slave labor" (the way Armenians love to classify these labor battalions, forgetting that all soldiers, in effect, are slaves), why would these healthy men be killed, if they were providing such a necessary function?
Lastly, were Turkish troops treated so beautifully? Regarding the “humiliating defeat” Balakian mentioned, Enver threatened to shoot the Turkish troops if they did not advance. Result: up to 90,000 "snow statues," many of whom never had a chance to fire a shot. (Balakian writes 75,000 casualties out of 95,000, and he could be right on this point.)
Zucher mentions in his footnote “Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians and others were subjected to brutal treatment. Arab soldiers, for example, were often sent to the front lines at gunpoint, shackled in chains and escorted by Turks.”
It’s getting very tiresome to run into accounts by such biased "historians" anxious to make out the Turks to be inhuman, every chance they get. What of the Europeans’ treatment of their men? Did the English, French, Germans, Russians treat their soldiers with the utmost dignity and love? Perhaps Mr. Zucher should bone up on WWI history.
Also in fairness… what would any army do to their soldiers who refuse to go to the front? After all…. who wants to go to the front? However, the front is where some soldiers need to be, because… well, that’s where the enemy is advancing, and somebody has got to be there to stop them. If the Arab soldiers refused to go to the front, what should their commanders have done? Say, okay, war’s over for you… you can go home? (I’m not saying getting sent at gunpoint is a civilized thing to do, but… they’re soldiers. And soldiers are supposed to obey orders, in the uncivilized business of warfare.)
In this chapter Balakian engages in a bloodlust frenzy in providing the typical Armenian assertions, and it would take forever to address them all. I am sorry, Peter, but no real historian is going to take at face value your propagandistic sources such as Arnold Toynbee’s "Armenian Atrocities: The Murder of a Nation," and Vahakn Dadrian’s "The Role of the Special Organization in the Armenian Genocide during the First World War." (Dadrian, as usual, earning his keep at the partisan Zoryan Institute by working for years to prosecute Turks in any and every way, here comes up with a Nazi parallel of Ottoman SS troops. Dadrian decided the "CIA" of the Ottoman Empire, mostly involved in trying to persuade Moslems in enemy armies to give up their allegiance, would fill the role of the Gestapo. In this section, according to Footnote 17, it looks like Prosecutor Dadrian used a "Turkish confession" after war’s end, when hapless ex-officials were trying to save their skins in an atmosphere of recriminations, within kangaroo courts that even the British ignored use of for their own Malta Tribunal. See last link for an analysis of the Dadrian's Special Organization claims.) Jay Winter was the "historical" voice behind PBS’ lamentable “genocide” segment of their “The Great War” series…. whom I have a special beef with.
One bit of business I never heard of is called “The Ten Commandments.” Now, this is the kind of thing that looks like the rare document that truly affirms the genocide. Discovered and translated in early 1919 by British occupiers, no doubt making preparations for the Malta Tribunal, the Nuremberg of WWI. (Which Balakian makes very brief note of and, falsely, as an extension of the 1919 Ottoman kangaroo courts. These were two separate trials.) “It is a blueprint of the Armenian extermination operation and appears to have been the centerpiece of a secret party meeting, which took place sometime in late December 1914 or in January 1915." Balakian asserts this document came from the office of an intelligence minister, Ahmed Essad. Article 5 orders all males under 50 to be exterminated, and all Armenians in the military to be similarly snuffed out.
Genocidal proof? I’ll look forward to learning more about this. Unfortunately, Dadrian is again behind this "evidence," although the British archival number is supplied. What raises my eyebrow is that the time period sounds way too premature to consider the relocation policy… this was a decision made slowly, as Armenian treachery became more and more apparent. (April 24 of 1915 is when the policy was signed — as all Armenians know, since they have decided to “celebrate” the depressing "date of doom" in their parades as the Number One highlight of their people’s long and rich history — and not implemented until the following month. In reality, it is this May 2 telegram when the relocation policy first began to be considered.) Even if we suspend disbelief and allow for the ridiculous idea of desperately-needed Armenian soldiers getting systematically murdered, it does not make sense such a decision would have been made only two months into the war. I don’t know how the British came by this document… was it found casually left behind in Ahmed Essad’s desk drawer, even though Article 10 stipulates these instructions need to be "strictly confidential," and "may not go beyond two or three persons"? Or was it produced through other helping hands, as Aram Andonian came by his forged “Naim Bey” work?
In any event, if this document was available in early 1919, at the very outset of the Malta Tribunal, it would have been exactly the sort of evidence the British were desperately looking for to convict the up to 144 Ottoman officials being held for war crimes. After all, there it is, in black and white… orders for extermination. Yet, the Malta Tribunal dragged on until mid-1921, as the British continued to look for legitimate evidence... of which they found absolutely none. There must have been some reason why "The Ten Commandments" was ultimately determined to be phony.
How come Vahakn Dadrian does not raise these very important issues? Could it be because… he is a prosecutor, and not a professor?
ADDENDUM (3-06)
It's been a while since the writing of this page, and I certainly have come across more on "The Ten Commandments." Highlights:
1) Dadrian has written (in "The Secret Young Turk Ittihadist Conference," p. 178) that "Essad's document [i.e., "The Ten Commandments"] on the transmission of an official order by the Ottoman War Minister is verified by the testimony of a military commander..." in Dadrian's bread and butter, the 1919-20 kangaroo courts, allowing Dadrian to conclude a "demonstrated authenticity." But the original text of the testimony is unavailable, and Dadrian relied on a newspaper account. Prof. Guenter Lewy has concluded: "This, I submit, is hardly the kind of evidence that can be used to demonstrate the authenticity of a document." (And I submit, what does one expect of a master of propaganda, to find "evidence" wherever Dadrian sees fit?)
2) At first (in early 1919), the British suggested Essad be arrested "to prove to the hilt the authenticity of the draft 'Ten Commandments' document." [FO 371/4172/31307, p. 386.] It turns out that Essad, described as a "low class intermediary" by the British, was employed as an agent by the British High Commissioner in Istanbul at least until Sept. 1919. Yet, Essad was never arrested, nor questioned, because the British "soon had come to doubt the authenticity of this document," as Lewy has written. [Gwynne Dyer, "Letter to the Editor," Middle Eastern Studies 9 (1973): 378.] Prof. Lewy informs that the document was "never noted or used by the law officers collecting evidence against the Young Turks" interned in Malta.
3) Dr. Gwynne Dyer, in his careful analysis of "The Ten Commandments" all the way back in 1973 (noted above), pointed to its forgery by stating that they "resemble the result of an attempt after the fact to reconstruct what might have been said, had the actual events of April 1915-mid 1916 all been fore-ordained in a single comprehensive official document months before their initiation."
In keeping with the "Armenian AND? Anthem," unscrupulous propaganidists like Vahakn Dadrian and Peter Balakian turn a blind eye to such realities, in the hopes that the old dirt can still prove useful in the minds of the unwary. Thoroughly disgraceful.
(The above references are from Guenter Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey, A Disputed Genocide, 2005, p. 48.)
Armenians being relocated
The section entitled "The Railway" in this chapter is pretty heartbreaking, even if Peter Balakian is the author, putting in every damning bit of hearsay he could come up with. Obviously, many Armenians suffered terribly, and nobody can argue the process was awful. However, let’s keep in mind: it was 1915, and the country we are talking about was the tottering, technologically backward Ottoman Empire. Thank the lord the rails existed in some places, as traveling on foot obviously would have taken a much greater toll… as we know from those who were forced to travel on foot.
Let’s not forget to keep things in perspective; who can argue with the logic Commander Arthur Tremaine Chester presented:
Let me draw a parallel imaginary case. Suppose that Mexico was a powerful and rival country with which we were at war, and suppose that we sent an army to the Mexican border to hold back the invading enemy; suppose further that not only the Negroes in our army deserted to the enemy but those left at home organized and cut off our line of communication. What do you think we as a people, especially the Southerners, would do to the Negroes? Our Negroes have ten times the excuse for hating the whites that the Armenians have for their attitude toward the Turks. They have no representation, although they have an overwhelming majority in large sections of the South, and have nothing to say in the making or administration of the laws under which they are governed. South of the Mason and Dixon line they are practically a subject race, while the Armenians in Turkey have not only full representation but special privileges not accorded by any other country.
The Turkish Government ordered the Armenians deported from the districts they menaced That they did not have railways and other means of transportation was not their fault, and the deportation had to be carried out on foot. That this was not done in the most humane manner possible is undoubtedly a fact, and the Turkish Government has condemned the unnecessary cruelties that occurred; but I feel confident that if America had been put in the hypothetical situation above referred to, it would have stopped that insurrection if it had had to kill every Negro in the South, and would not have gone to the tedious and laborious defensive act of deportation, in spite of our extensive means of transportation.
It cost money to implement such a colossal program… millions of dollars in today's money that the bankrupt Ottomans could have easily spent elsewhere. Peter Balakian attempts to paint the picture all these people were heading toward their doom. How absolutely ridiculous. How could a million Armenians (remember, Balakian himself signed his name to a 1998 proclamation attesting to this fact) have survived out of a pre-war population of 1 million to 1.6 million, based on a dozen “neutral” (i.e., pro-Armenian Western) sources (and keep in mind… the subtracted 300,000-600,0000 died from all causes, including weather, famine, disease and combat, as well as massacres)?
Arnold Toynbee himself wrote in his propaganda piece "The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire" that 500,000 Armenians had survived the "deportations" in a report that came out in April 1916. (Curiously, Consul J. B. Jackson had concluded that around 500,000 was the total number of the "deported," in February, 1916.) If there truly was an extermination policy, how could there have been so many survivors? After all, most of these unfortunates, the Armenians tell us, were mostly women, children and the elderly (probably true, since many of the men joined to fight against their country)… how hard would it have been to kill women, children and the elderly, and why go through the trouble and expense of a "deportation," when they could have been massacred on or near the spot? When the Armenians systematically murdered over half a million Turks/Muslims, they didn’t bother with any "deportation."
At the end of this chapter, Balakian informs us the U.S. Holocaust Museum places the Holocaust Jewish dead at 5.1 to 5.4 million, which I felt was interesting; everywhere, the figure is presented as six million. Even with genuine genocides, as the Holocaust most certainly was, one must be wary of "genocide politics" distorting the facts.
Chapter 15 (Van, Spring 1915) already starts off with an inaccuracy: “By the nineteenth century Van’s Armenian population was greater than its Turkish and Kurdish populations combined.” No source is provided, but Prof. Justin McCarthy, famous for his careful studies of population demographics, wrote: "Was there an Ottoman Armenia, that is, an area in which the majority of the population were Armenians? For the period before the nineteenth century there is no way to know for certain. No one took a census... We do know that in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Armenians were a distinct minority in every province of the Ottoman Empire.”
The author also mentions a Turkish delegation asked the Ottoman-Armenians if they would kindly be on the side of the nation where they prospered for centuries, by coaxing the Russian-Armenians to the Turkish side… just as the Russian-Armenians and Armenians from Europe were busily trying to get the Ottoman-Armenians on the Russian side. The leadership declined, remembering the massacres and "betrayed promises from the Turks over the past decades"… forgetting about the betrayed promises from the Russians, since the time of Peter the Great.
Dennis Papazian wrote in "What every Armenian Should Know," in an effort to play down the fact that the Armenians sided with the Russians: "Russia under the Tsars never offered the Armenians or any other subject peoples their freedom. The last tsar, Nicholas II, would not even share power with his own Russian people, which helped prompt the Russian revolution during World War I. {Russia even forbade Armenian refugees, who had managed to flee the Genocide, from returning to their lands, which the Russian armies had overran during the war.} Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, foreign minister of Russia in 1895, summed it all up by saying, ‘Yes, Russia wants Armenia, but without the Armenians.’" So let’s see… centuries of prospering under the Ottoman Empire… vs. centuries of getting used by the Russians as pawns. Once again: loyalty and Armenians; like oil and water.
Balakian fails to mention at the end of this meeting, the Ottoman-Armenians pledged their loyalty to their own country (as Kerope Papazian wrote in "Patriotism Perverted", also informing us the Armenians broke a 1907 promise to start an Armenian uprising in the Caucasus, the very promise the Turks were expecting to be upheld)… a promise they had absolutely no intention of keeping, having hoarded stockpiles of Russian-provided arms and uniforms throughout the empire, to be used to backstab their nation the moment war broke out. “In the beginning of fall 1914, when Turkey had not yet entered the war, but was preparing to, Armenian volunteer groups began to be organized with great zeal and pomp in Trans-Caucasia. In spite of the decision taken a few weeks before at the General Committee in Erzurum, the Dashnagtzoutune actively helped the organization of the aforementioned groups, and especially arming them, against Turkey.” The writer was Hovhannes Katchaznouni, Armenia's First Prime Minister.
"...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…." The writer is Henry Morgenthau, from pg. 301 of his ghostwritten book. (This is the Doubleday version, and not the new one edited by Peter Balakian himself. Why would a reprint require an editor, anyway? I hope Mr. Balakian did not edit out passages like the above not completely in line with Armenian-speak.)
Stating that these (Armenian revolutionary) newspapers are "supported by forced contributions," Captain Norman cites several threatening letters which say: "You are ordered to give... to the person who presents this to you... and if you refuse to pay this or if you give notice to the police, your life will be forfeited." The author says that hundreds of such letters have been issued within a short period of time and that Armenians like Dikran Karagueusian or Simon Efendi have been stabbed by Hintchakists for having refused to bow.-- "The Armenians Unmasked," 1895
Balakian does mention there were Armenians who were loyal… which, of course, is true. However, this does not take into account the vicious Armenian vs. Armenian terror campaign. The Armenians who were not sufficiently stirred up by their fanatical revolutionary leaders quickly learned it would be safer to comply with their leaders’ decision to betray their country. In fact, we keep hearing about how the Armenians’ money was looted by the Turks; however, we never hear about how the Armenians’ money was looted by the Armenians. (And we certainly never hear about how the Armenians looted the Turks, whose houses and other assets they took over.)
Pantikyan, an Armenian who played a great role in the armistice, reportedly told M. Sifir: “I would like to stress especially that, in the raids made by the Kurds and the Turks, as a reaction to the rebellion movements in the several regions of Anatolia at those times, the amount of material losses were extremely small compared to the wealth pillaged by the Hinchaks in the robberies in Istanbul. The percentage would not total even to one percent. The committeemen robbed the Istanbul Armenians... pitilessly. They put several wealthy persons into a penniless situation."
The other side of this coin is, do Armenians have a right to complain about the Turks disarming them when they had proven their betrayal in the past… by giving assistance to invading Russian armies in 1828, 1854, and 1877? [Justin McCarthy, "Armenian Terrorism: History as Poison and Antidote."] Trust is a two-way street.
Balakian dismisses the rebelling Armenians as a "small minority," attempting to paint the picture that the bulk of the Armenians in the empire were loyal. One that Balakian assures us was loyal (although the author presents no proof), a priest named Krikoris Balakian (and a relative of Peter Balakian, who was not on the up and up, as we'll get into below), was arrested along with "250" (really 235) Armenian leaders on the fateful date of April 24. Later, in his memoirs, he wrote…
Say. Hold on, just a second. Isn’t this the group of Armenian leaders and intellectuals who I’ve always read in Armenian sources to have been arrested and brutally murdered? I guess not all of them must have been killed after all… how do you like that.
Peter Balakian gets into the story of one of the worst villains of the "genocide," Enver’s brother-in-law, Jevdet Bey… the governor of Van (and "the horse-shoe master of Bashkale." I still can’t picture how a horseshoe can be nailed onto a human foot, and actually stay there… enough to be forced to walk upon. What inconceivable tortures the Armenians have come up with. And, oh. By the way. This is a different "horse-shoe master" than the Turkish physician, Mehmed Reshid, Balakian filled us in on earlier. How dare the Armenians insist the Turks have offered the world no culture! What other people can claim the expertise, en masse, of knowing how to nail horseshoes onto human feet?) I guess Jevdet Bey got his evil reputation because “he was known for making constant searches and seizures of so-called militant Armenians in the region." Oh, that’s right…. Peter Balakian would like us to believe there were no militant Armenians in the region.
Here is a little counter-perspective on what must have been pressuring Jevdet Bey... as reported by Prof. Justin McCarthy's Congressional testimony: "Conditions are best illustrated in the Van province, where Muslim mortality was greatest. The central government ordered the Van governor to send gendarmes, rural policemen, to guard columns of Armenian deportees. He responded that he had 40 gendarmes at his disposal—all the others were fighting at the Russian Front. The 40 gendarmes were protecting Muslim villages against Armenian attacks. He refused to let the Muslims be killed by Armenians so that Armenians could be protected from Muslims."
On April 19, 1915, Balakian claims thousands of Armenians were massacred (making sure to add the line, with “the utmost brutality.”) Jevdet Bey had sent out instructions reading, “The Armenians must be exterminated. If any Moslem protects a Christian, first, his house shall be burned, then the Christian killed before his eyes, and then his (the Moslem’s) family and himself.” Source: American missionary Dr. Clarence Ussher.
Dr. Ussher wrote his book, "An American Physician in Turkey" in 1917 (reportedly in Armenian-friendly Boston, Massachusetts) and published it before the U.S. entered the war… part of the ongoing campaign of missionary propaganda, with the intent of raising the funds that turned out to be the most successful charity campaign in American history. This is the book Atom Egoyan relied on to depict the events in Van in ARARAT.
It simply boggles my mind that the work of a religious fanatic with such an obvious conflict-of-interest could still be looked upon as credible, in this day and age. To get a picture of what truly happened in Van, tune in to "The 1915 Armenian Revolt in Van: Eyewitness Testimony." Next, determine if Jevdet Bey could have indulged himself with his favorite horseshoe-nailing hobby when he had his hands full with murderous Armenians. The following were actual, internal communications sent by the governor, never meant to be publicized, and therefore cannot be construed as propaganda:
On 20 March, the Governor of Van stated: "In all parts of the province armed confrontations continued until the evening and have now increased. It is thought that the rebels number more than 2,000. We are trying to crush the rebellion."
The situation became so critical in the weeks ahead that Jevdet Bey, ironically on the Armenians' own cherished "Date of Doom," contemplated a "deportation":
On 24 April, the Van governor sent the following telegram to the Ministry of the Interior: "Until now approximately 4,000 insurgent Armenians have been brought to the region from the vicinity. The rebels are engaged in highway robbery, attack the neighbouring villages and burn them. It is impossible to prevent this. Now many women and children are left homeless. It is not possible nor suitable to relocate them in tribal villages in the vicinity. Would it be convenient to begin sending them to the western provinces?"
(Indeed, the above was written only five days after Jevdet Bey had killed thousands of Armenians with "the utmost brutality" on April 19, as Balakian the historian told us. Killing thousands of people would require a great expenditure of time and resources, especially if the killings were committed in a leisurely fashion, given that attention was paid to "utmost brutality." Does the desperate situation related in this real message above, never intended to be a public relations exercise , indicate a leisurely massacre could have been possible?)
Gurun, "The Armenian File": "On 8 May, the Armenians began their offensive and started burning down the Muslim quarters. Upon this, the Governor, Jevdet Bey, ordered the evacuation of Van. On 17 May, the Turkish soldiers left Van, then the Armenians began to set fire to the Turkish quarters which had been evacuated. The Russians then entered Van. (The booklet entitled Zeve about the Van rebellion is worth reading.)"
The devastation caused by the Armenians in the nation's eastern region was so intense, two totally pro-Armenian Americans, Niles and Sutherland, reported years later (1919):
"In the entire region from Bitlis through Van to Bayezit we were informed that the damage and destruction had been done by the Armenians, who, after the Russians retired, remained in occupation of the country and who, when the Turkish army advanced, destroyed everything belonging to the Musulmans. Moreover, the Armenians are accused of having committed murder, rape arson and horrible atrocities of every description upon the Musulman population. At first we were most incredulous of these stories, but we finally came to believe them, since the testimony was absolutely unanimous and was corroborated by material evidence. For instance, the only quarters left at all intact in the cities of Bitlis and Van are the Armenian quarters, as was evidenced by churches and inscriptions on the houses, while the Musulman quarters were completely destroyed. Villages said to have been Armenian were still standing whereas Musulman villages were completely destroyed" [U.S. 867.00/1005].
I have made a note to try and track down Rafael de Nogales’ Four Years Beneath the Crescent. The Venezuelan mercenary and American cattle thief fought on the side of the Turks, and there are passages from his book I have used on the TAT site. (“When you see a good war, go to it,” the adventurer wrote.) Balakian has presented other excerpts from this book where De Nogales mentions the extermination order of Armenian males, as told him by the mayor of Van. However, he has also written, “the Armenians of the vilayet of Van rose en masse against our expeditionary army in Persia.” That makes it sound like the Armenians were the aggressors, but Balakian quotes him as saying “the aggressors had not been the Armenians, after all, but the authorities themselves!” Other than what the mayor told him, I don’t see how he could have reached such a conclusion, and I suppose the reading of his book will clarify where the se�or stood.
Robert Melson
"Genocide scholar" (Integrity Alert!) Robert Melson explains: "the Armenians were neither attempting to destroy the Turks… nor attempting to secede or join Russia." The President of the Armenian National Bureau in Tiflis, in response to Czar Nicholas II's visit to the Caucasus, led one to believe otherwise: “Let the Armenian people of Turkey who have suffered for the faith of Christ receive resurrection for a new free life under the protection of Russia."
Here is Balakian’s closing paragraph to demonstrate the Armenians were the poor, innocent victims of the Van episode:
“In assessing Turkish claims that Armenians provoked their fate because they were a threat to national security, Robert Melson has put it well: “If the Armenians had behaved differently, if they had acted less threateningly, the CUP would not have decided on genocide in 1915. If there had been fewer Jewish communists, or bankers or department store owners, or journalist, or beggars, there would have been no Holocaust.”
That’s Peter Balakian’s opinion of “putting it well?” To me, these stupid words perfectly illustrate what one gets when one listens to the convoluted logic of a “genocide scholar” so hopelessly linked with the Armenians that he serves on the board of the seven-member Academic Council of the Armenian National Institute (ANI), which outright declares: “Its overarching goal is affirmation of the worldwide recognition of the Armenian Genocide." (Some of the other partisans include Richard Hovannisian, Christopher Simpson, Roger Smith …. and Peter Balakian himself.)
Action Priest
Chapter 16, “April 24” details the horrible fate that awaited the "250" (this number was 235; even Lepsius confirmed it at the Tehlirian trial, referred to below) Armenian intellectuals and cultural leaders who were arrested. The list was compiled with the help of "Armenian spies, most notably one Artin Mugerditchian." (Is the implication that the "spies" pulled these names out of a hat? They knew for a fact that the ringleaders arrested were conspiring against their country, where full-scale rebellions were taking place. By the way, Tehlirian, the assassin of Talat Pasha, first used Mugerditchian as target practice.) The priest, Krikoris Balakian, claims to have escaped from a prison. (Must have been like "action priest" Robert Blake, from his short-lived "Hell Town" TV role. Of all the men who managed to escape, who would have thought it would be a priest...) So these prisoners weren’t immediately shot, as I was led to believe from the many pro-Armenian accounts I've read... they were imprisoned. I wonder if anyone has tracked down what the fate of these men really were. If we listen to the Armenians, of course they all died, and died in the most atrocious manner as described with a group of five who met a grisly death at the hands of four Kurdish chetes, whom Krikoris Balakian wrote had been pre-arranged.
"Action Priest" Robert Blake, from the short-lived TV show, "Hell Town"
Another action priest
I wonder how there could have been survivors if the execution of these men had already been decided upon… another survivor, Balakian reports, was a physician. The usual version of this story would make more sense… the Armenians being immediately murdered. After all, why bother with prison? I can’t say what happened to these people, and neither can you… we weren’t there, and all we have are the word of Armenians. (Mad missionary Lepsius claimed at the Tehlirian trial that the initial 235 number nearly tripled in days to follow, and the total number of survivors was 15.) I just don’t care for the unnecessary mile these stories go through, just to prove what wicked monsters the Turks were, like nailing horseshoes on feet, and allowing prisoners to be killed in the worst ways imaginable (the killers "tore out his entrails…dug out the eyes…." Brother!).
Peter Balakian revealed in his Black Dog of Fate that the cousin of the author's grandfather was Bishop Krikoris Balakian ... the holy relative being a hero of Peter Balakian's. The action priest (1873-1934) served as a witness in the trial of Soghoman Tehlirian, and when Tehlirian's Armenian-financed attorneys asked the priest whether he had seen Talat Pasha's signature on Aram Andonian's forged telegrams, the priest broke one of God's commandments by lying. (His reply: “Yes, I saw it with my own eyes." Although, curiously, he added that he couldn't verify whether it was "authentic," even though he had no reason to doubt the Ottoman official who showed it to him.) Of course, such a telegram ordering the annihilation of the Armenians never existed. However, the deed was done; the stamp of religious authority was enforced on what was seen by the German jury as a Muslim-Christian conflict... one of the influences that surely must have helped sway the Christians on the jury. Like grandfather's cousin, like cousin's grandson... where honesty and the truth is concerned.
ADDENDUM, 9-2006: Balakian was the author of "The Armenian Golgotha," one of the three books that fried Vahakn Dadrian's brain, inciting the Prosecutor to embark on his hateful, genocide-affirming quest. Bishop Krikoris Balakian unconscientiously cited lie after lie in this horrible work. For example, he implicated over 10,000 Turkish peasants and villagers who went on a mad Muslim bloodlust, crying God's name ("Allah, Allah"), as they murdered 6,400 "Armenian children, young girls, and women from Yozgad" with “hatchets, meat cleavers, saddler’s knives, cudgels, axes, pickaxes, shovels." How did the priestly Balakian know this? The "gendarmerie commander confided to the priest-author, whom he did not expect to survive the mass murder," as Dadrian was reported to have said at a 2005 conference. Little did the commander know he was confiding in the Action Priest, who like a superhero, managed to "witness" the most grisly events, only to escape and tell about them!
In addition, to better understand the "holiness" of a priest who condones the acts of a murderer, let's refer to an article on the terrorist and former ANCA chairman Mourad Topalian: "Sixty people, including some priests, provided 'good-character' letter for Topalian. How could anybody consider a man having 'good-character' who acted as a terrorist? This was no different than the Tehlirian case where Balakian, an Armenian priest, blessed him for his terrorist acts." (Assassination of Talat Pasha and Harootiun Mugerditchian, Review of Armenian Studies, Volume 1 Number 3 2003, Etruks T�rker.)
Here's How We Would Expect a REAL Priest to Behave in a Tough Spot... (from one of the many examples of Armenian vs. Armenian violence):
The French Ambassador Monsieur Cambon gave the following information to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 27, 1894 about Armenian assassinations (When the Hunchaks arranged for the murders of Armenians presumed to be loyal Ottoman citizens, such as Advocate Hachik [killed by a 15-year-old Armenian named Armenak], Dacad Varabet [a preacher of Gedikpasa Church, chopped up], Mampre Karabet [elected to the Spiritual Assembly, wounded], and Simon Maksut [cut down by two committeemen on March 10, 1894, in front of the Havyar Han in Galata]; this one regards a failed attempt against the Patriarch's life by "Agop From Diyarbakir"):
“From Cambon to Casimir Perier, Beyoglu: March 27, 1894
Last Sunday, while Patriarch Ashikyan was leaving the Kumkapi Church after the ritual service in order to go back to the patriarchate, an eighteen-year-old Armenian youngster aimed on him by his pistol and fired a few shots. Since the weapon was defective, no bullet hit the patriarch. The patriarch fainted and was treated in his home. The young Armenian was taken to the police station, and when he was interrogated on the reason of the murdering, he said that Ashikyan is the enemy of Armenians, and that he frequently informed the government; therefore, the Armenians had sworn to get rid of this man, to save the nation. He also emphasized that he and his colleagues from the same sect were faithful to the Sultan. — Cambon."
The priest fainted. That makes sense. Now, Krikoris Balakian... by contrast... was one tough, action priest.
But Balakian the Holy explains his rescue from death — in his own words, from the trial testimony — not in terms of phony-baloney prison escapes, but in terms of "baksheesh." Yes, he and others had a large supply of money with them, serving as their salvation. And this only begs the question: when he was a prisoner for a good long time, how could he and his cohorts have held on to the money without their persecutors conducting a search and making off with the loot?
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I didn't study the 1909 period, and I'm putting up this information mostly for reference until I learn more. Peter Balakian tells us the reason why this conflict took place is because the Armenians of Adana were regarded as "pushy" and "considered provocative because they were asserting cultural pride and nationalism." True to form, the author makes no mention... in his usual attempt to portray the Armenians as innocent victims.... that the Armenians in Adana rose in revolt on April 14, 1909.
ADDENDUM, 9-06: By now I have learned a lot more about the Adana episode, and the latter part of this page will deviate from the Balakian book, with other Adana references.
Analysis of Adana
The chapter outlines the revolting of soldiers in April 12, aided by religious zealots in Istanbul, and the counterrevolution getting put down in April 23 by the army of the Young Turks. Growing stronger, the author tells us the CUP would embrace a plan of Turkification known as pan-Turkism. The counterrevolution was felt throughout the rest of the country as well, and in Adana, the events led to the massacres of Armenians.
On April 12 or 13, the British dragoman in Adana, Athanasios Trypanis, reported to British vice-consul Doughty Wylie in Mersin that some Armenians had been murdered. What started the chaos was an Armenian named Ohannes who killed two Turks, as Wylie reported to Sir G. Lowther that the author failed to write about; it must have been an oversight.
Another telegram Balakian fails to mention is one from Sir G. Lowther to Sir Edward Grey on April 15, 1909:
I have received a telgram from His Majesty's Vice-Consul at Mersina reporting that disorder have been broken out at Adana in which a number of persons have been killed. British subjects are in no danger. So far Armenian quarter, which is armed, has not been attacked. Major Doughly Wylie thinks that the trouble is spreading and the situation at Mersina and Tarsus appears to him anxious. I am assured by the Porte that thay are doing all that is possible.
Wylie noted Armenians terrorized and killed by bashebozuks, who claimed the Armenians were rising up against the government (as reported in H. Charles Woods' "The Danger Zone of Europe," 1911), with the authorities doing little. Two American missionaries were killed by five Turks. Wylie was then shot and wounded by an Armenian, who thought he was a Turk.
Balakian notes some 2,000 Armenians were dead in the city of Adana in the first 48 hours. Young Turk regiments who arrived in Adana to restore order in April 25 contributed to the massacres with greater zeal. "The newly arrived soldiers claimed that they were fired on by Armenians," which the author notes was "a strategy the Turks and the Ottoman government had used before... to justify massacre."
(What an absurd justification. If the idea was to polish off the Armenians, why did the Turks stop? Just like in "!915." If the idea was to exterminate, how could one million Armenians have survived, as Peter Balakian himself conceded... Does that make sense? When soldiers are fired upon by rebels, the rebels can expect return fire. That's a "law" any country abides by. Yet when the Turks do it, it's murder.)
As the soldiers were going berserk, Balakian continues, and fires raged (as Doughty recorded in an April 26 consular report), 13,000 Armenians packed themselves in a Greek-owned factory, 5,000 in a German factory, and the girls at the American school were hidden in the British consulate. "As the weeks of April went by" (weeks? there were only four days left in April from this point in the story), surrounding villages were "razed and pillaged." In the northern part of the province, the Armenians in Hadjin and Dortyol "fought tenaciously in resistance, beat back the Turks, and saved themselves from total annihilation." "Some 200 villages were ... ravaged." Wylie noted the death toll may be estimated at between 15,000 and 25,000, where "very few, if any, can be Moslems."
The Muslim Dead and Notes on Doughty-Wylie
The Western perspective, as always, is to solely consider the Armenian casualties. In Adana, 1,850 Muslims died, according to Jemal Pasha, along with 17,000 Armenians. As you can read in THE ARMENIAN FILE excerpt below, if the population ratio had been reversed (Armenians comprised one-tenth of the population), so too could have been the mortality figures. The Armenian representatives settled on around 21,000.
Soldier-Diplomat Charles Hotham Doughty-Wylie, nicknamed "Dick," (1868-1915) was the nephew of the Arabian explorer Charles Doughty. The Turks decorated Doughty-Wylie for his courage in saving lives during the Adana turmoil of 1909. Six years later, Doughty-Wylie led an invasion against the country which had celebrated him. As a staff officer during the Gallipoli landings, he reportedly saved the landing from disaster by leading a charge, clearing the Turks from Cape Helles. At the moment of victory. the report tells us, Doughty-Wylie ("who had led the attack armed only with a small cane") was killed.
Balakian informs us that punishments in the aftermath were "hollow and only for show." An Ottoman parliamentary representative, Hagop Babikian "died mysteriously." "Some Turks and even some Armenians were sentenced to death." (Only one Armenian was executed, along with forty-seven Turks; is that what Balakian considers "hollow" punishment?) The Governor was debarred, and the military commander was sentenced to three months in jail.
It was these events that inspired Siamento to write poems like "The Dance," where the poet "creates images" that would lead Ambassador Morgenthau to call the "sadistic orgies" of Turkish massacres. (Shades of The Forty Days of Musa Dagh... so it was this poetic fiction that influenced Henry's perception of Turkish barbarism, instead of verifiable history.)
As with the rest of the book, the author paints the picture of evil Turks and innocent Armenians, and the only reason for the attack is that the Armenians were "pushy," and "considered provocative because they were asserting cultural pride and nationalism." I would think the provocation extended to more... like the Armenian who fired the first shot by killing the two Turks. We know from the other telegram that the Armenians were armed, and I'd bet what the soldiers claimed was at the root of the problem... that the Armenians attacked first. (They must have been heavily armed, to have fought the Turkish army in Hadjin and Dortyol.... "in resistance.") These armed Armenians were roaming about shooting at anything that moved... like the one who shot Wylie himself. Furthermore, at least there was an attempt to punish the authorities who didn't do enough to protect the innocent among the Armenians, and Turks were even executed.
Using Christopher Walker and a 1999 work by Aram Arkun as sources, we are told Armenians comprised less than 20,000 in the city of Adana (pg. 148). As the crisis was winding down by the time of Wylie's April 26 report, over 18,000 Armenians were tucked away uncomfortably, but safely. Since not every single Armenian in the city was stashed away in these factories and the British consulate, that equals pretty much the entire Armenian population of the city of Adana, doesn't it? How could there have been 2,000 Armenian dead in the first 48 hours? And that was before the arrival of the Young Turk regiment, where Balakian writes, "the killing was even more brutal and well organized," conducted as it was by the army. Which Armenians were being killed, if over 18,000... nearly the entire Armenian population of Adana.... were in these safe havens?
Were the Armenians at Adana attacked only because they were Armenians... or, as in the events of 1915, did the Armenians fire the first shot? Kamuran G�r�n offers much needed historical perspective from THE ARMENIAN FILE (pp. 166-70):
7. The Adana incident and the end of attempts at reform
(a) The Adana incident
The years 1897-1914 constitute the most disastrous period of the Ottoman Empire. Within and outside the country, incidents were occurring every day, and the Empire was clearly disintegrating.
The regime within the country was now unbearable. The administration could no longer control the insurrections and rebellions, and followed such a policy that it seemed to vent its anger, arising out of its inability to control, on a silent community. As a result of this, secret organizations were founded inside and outside the country, working to put an end to this absolutist regime.
Although the Turco-Greek War ended in victory, the Ottoman Empire came out of the war empty-handed, owing to the intervention of the great powers, and had to recognize the autonomy of Crete. Moreover, France landed soldiers on Lesbos in 1901, the Macedonian rebellion occurred in 1902, and the Arabian peninsula was in turmoil.
The struggle which was begun by the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihad ve Terakki Cerryiyeti), in the hope of putting an end to this process, ended on 24 July 1908 with the declaration of the Second Constitutional Government. However, this Government was unable to find any way of improving the condition of the Empire. On 5 October 1908, Austria occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina, on the same day Bulgaria declared its independence, and on 6 October Greece annexed Crete.
The first Assembly of the Second Constitutional Government was opened on 17 December 1908 in this situation.
On 13 April 1909, the reactionary coup known as `the event of 31 March, aimed at abolishing the Constitutional Government, took place in Istanbul.
The next day a confrontation between Muslims and Armenians occurred in Adana, and the last bloody stage of the Armenian question began.
At this time, Adana was like a barrel of gunpowder ready to explode at any moment. The British documents clearly attest to this. We read as follows in the report of the British Embassy:
[After the proclamation of the constitution) nearly no one in Adana was really satisfied. The Turks hated the idea that they were no longer masters. The Armenian wanted to rush into Home Rule. The Greek mistrusted the constitution because he had not made it himself and because under it he seemed likely to lose certain facilities he had enjoyed under the old venal system. . . .
Under the constitution all men might bear arms. From the delightful novelty of the thing, many thousands of revolvers were purchased. Even schoolboys had them and, boy-like, flourished them about. But worse followed. The swagger of the arm-bearing Armenian and his ready tongue irritated the ignorant Turks. Threats and insults passed on both sides. Certain Armenian leaders, delegates from Constantinople, and priests (an Armenian priest is in his way an autocrat) urged their congregations to buy arms. It was done openly, indiscreetly, and, in some cases, it might be said wickedly. What can be thought of a preacher, a Russian Armenian, who in a church in this city where there had never been a massacre, preached revenge for the martyrs of 1895? Constitution or none, it was all the same to him. `Revenge,' he said, `murder for murder. Buy arms. A Turk for every Armenian of 1895.' An American missionary who was present got up and left the church. Bishop Mushech, of Adana, toured his province preaching that he who had a coat should sell it and buy a gun. (131)
It appears that the Governor and the Commander in Adana at the time were not capable of resisting an incident of any kind. In his memoirs, Jemal Pasha wrote:
A young priest who passionately sought authority, named Mushech, was at the time a member of the Adana Armenian Delegation, and was also one of the leaders of the Hinchaks.
Monsignor Mushech had begun to have rifles and revolvers brought from Europe to arm his men. He was publicly announcing that [Armenians were now armed, that they would no longer fear incidents such as the 1894 massacres and that should so much as a single hair on an Armenian's head be disturbed, ten Turks would be destroyed.]
It is here that the biggest responsibility of the Adana government begins. . . . To arrest and imprison His Excellency Mushech and his accomplices, to undertake legal investigation with regard to them, and even to declare a state of siege in the province was the best short cut.
Unfortunately in Turkey. . . such a government did not exist in 1908.
At that time, the province of Adana was administered by Governor Jevat Bey, who was a perfect example of a cultured gentleman. However, his lack of administrative talent could not be replaced by his culture. In short, he was not the man to serve as Governor of Adana at such a time.
As for the Division Commander, he was an old soldier named Ferit Mustafa Remzi Pasha.
The Governor of the Jebelibereket sanjak was Asaf Bey. I cannot understand how this faint-hearted man who was afraid of his own shadow could become a governor.
In the beginning of 1909 there were rumours circulating in Adana, that soon the Armenians would rebel and annihilate the Turks, that the European fteet would invade the province on this pretext, and that they would ensure the establishment of Armenia.
The Turks paid so much attention to these rumours that some of the notables attempted to send their families to safer areas.
In the month of April 1909, there was so much tension between the two sides, that nobody had any doubt that a confrontation would occur at any moment.
Finally, on April l4th, the [Adana incident] occurred, first of all with the Armenians' attacks on the orders of Monsignor Mushech.
Such horrible massacres had begun in Adana, Hamidiye, Tarsus, Misis, Erzin, Dortyol, Azizli, in short in every area where the Armenians were in a majority, that reading their details would afflict one with great hatred.
The Government, which was quite helpless in the provincial centre, demonstrated its stupidity to the extent of ordering a general insurrection to prevent attacks against the Muslim folk under its jurisdiction. When he was informed that the Armenians of Dortyol were advancing with an armed convoy to the town of Erzin, the centre of the sanjak of Jebelibereket, the sanjak governor Asaf Bey, without even leaving his office, sent telegrams to all the places under his jurisdiction, as well as to the neighbouring sanjak of Kozan, stating that it would be necessary (for every patriotic Turk to take his arms and rush to the aid of the sanjak of Jebelibereket, as the Muslims here were in danger of being massacred].
These are the reasons and causes of the first Adana incident. The second Adana incident occurred eleven days after the first, and was restricted to the city of Adana. It began when some Armenian youths opened fire on the soldiers' camp at night, and this in turn triggered worse massacres in the city of Adana.
In my opinion the sole responsibility for the Adana massacres lies in the person of the renowned author of Les Vepres Ciliciennes, Monsignor Mushech. The Adana government of the time, which realized the harm this individual was capable of, and did not take any preventive measures, is also responsible. (132)
We should bear in mind that the above statements are taken from the memoirs of Jemal Pasha, and therefore refiect his own version of these events. Recently the memoirs of Asaf Bey, who was the Governor of the sanjak of Jebelibereket at that time, have been published, and the picture he presents is somewhat different. As Asaf Bey was exonerated in the investigation which followed the Adana incident, at the very time when the government was looking for a scapegoat for these events, it may well be that the accusations of Jemal Pasha were somewhat subjective and exaggerated.
The British also shared Jemal Pasha's view of Bishop Mushech. The above-mentioned document also includes the following footnote:
Since writing the above on Bishop Mushech I got another view of him and his conduct, which may be of some interest. I was urging on one of the Delegates of the Patriarch the necessity of finding some modus vivendi between the two races. In the forefront of his conditions for peace he placed the pardon of this Bishop.
`He has done nothing,' he said, `nothing at all. It is true that he took bribes from Bahri Pasha. It is true that he was in the arms trade, and sold the people bad arms for good money. It is true that he preached to them to buy arms, and thereby made much money. It is true that he made foolish speeches. It is true that he used to go to the vineyards with a rifle and bandolier on his shoulder. It is true that he had himself photographed in the costume of the old chiefs of Armenia, But what of all that? It is nothing.'
At the time of the incidents, Mushech was in Egypt. Without doubt he would have taken an active part in the incidents, if he had been in Adana. The British Ambassador, in another report dated 4 May 1909, states that the Armenian Patriarch was responsible to a great extent for the incidents. (133)
The incidents spread when Armenians killed two young Muslims and refused to hand over the assailant, and Muslims and Armenians fought in the streets for three days.
The government immediately dispatched soldiers from Dedeaghach to Adana. Their arrival rekindled the incidents, but this time they were easily crushed. Jemal Pasha writes that in the Adana incident 17,000 Armenians and 1,850 Muslims were killed, and that, had the population ratios been in favour of the Armenians, the statistics would have been reversed. The inclinations shown by both sides during the fighting did not differ from one another.
The Patriarchate gives the number of dead as 21,300 based on the investigation it carried out. The Edirne representative, Babikian Efendi [See Box below] , had prepared a report to be submitted to the Assembly. He gave the number of dead as 21,001 in his report which was not discussed in the Assembly, as he died shortly after. (134) Because the figure given by Jemal Pasha pertains to the time after the trials, it can be accepted that the number of Armenians who died is closer to 17,000 rather than 20,000, as it is possible that some had returned after having fled during the incidents.
A FOOTNOTE
From Richard G. Hovannisian's 'Armenia on the Road to Independence,' 1967:
Hakob Papikian, member of Parliament of Inquiry, 21,000 victims, 19,479 of whom were Armenian [Adanay, eghere (The Atrocity of Adana), Const. 1919]
(The difference: 1,521)
ADDENDUM, 5-07:
Hovannisian revised his figure of dead Armenians to 18,660 in an essay from a decade later. His source appears to be the same, spelled here as "Hagop Babiguian."
============================
Armenian historian Kevork Aslan:
"20,000 butchered"
Armenia and the Armenians From the Earliest Times Until the Great War (1914), 1920, MacMillan Co., NY, p. 130
The Adana incident appears as a case in which Armenians were responsible in so far as they engaged in provocation until it erupted, and the local government was responsible in that it was unable to control it once it happened. However, this was not in any way a case of one side massacring the other, as the Armenians and the Muslims both fought fiercely. As Jemal Pasha pointed out, if the Armenian population had been in the majority, instead of being one-tenth of the Muslim population, the numbers of dead might well have been reversed.
The British Ambassador, in the reports mentioned above, stated that it was not possible to make the two sides declare a cease-fire, and that the cease-fire which was obtained with the soldiers' intervention was disregarded as soon as the soldiers left the area.
After the incident, martial law was declared in Adana. The Armenian and Muslim culprits were sent to the military court martial. Jemal Pasha, who was appointed to Adana after the incident, wrote as follows:
Four months after I arrived at Adana, I had 30 Muslims, among the martial court convicts, hanged, only in the city of Adana, and 2 months later I had 17 Muslims hanged in the town of Erzin. Only one Armenian was hanged. Among the Muslims who were hanged, there were young members of the most established and wealthy families of Adana, as well as the mufti of the kaza of Bahche. This mufti had great influence on the local Turks. I regret deeply that I was unable to capture Monsignor Mushech as he escaped in a foreign ship to Alexandria, on the second day of the Adana incident. If I had captured this person, who was rightly sentenced to death in default, I would have hanged him opposite the mufti of Bahche.
The last incident of Adana was thus concluded.
131: F.O. 424/220, No. 48, enclosure
132: Jemal Pasha, Hatiralar (Istanbul, 1959), pp. 345-6.
133: F.O. 424/219, No. 83.
134: USNA, 353/43, No. 87, 4016/13
In 1909, During the Adana Massacres...
The Armenians were making mischief throughout the empire, despite the fact that it was only one year after the Young Turks had implemented reforms, giving the Armenians more freedoms than before. (It can be more accurate to say "because of" instead of "despite.") The revolutionary committees were not only targeting innocent Turks, as in Adana (hoping to set off a reprisal, thus allowing the European imperialists to intervene). They were also targeting loyal Ottoman-Armenians. In 1909, here is the fate of one such Armenian (Bedros Kapamaciyan), when he was elected mayor of Van.
A Typical Western Book Regarding Adana
Book Review
22 September 2006
THE RED RUGS OF TARSUS
A Woman’s Record of the Armenian Massacres of 1909
By Helen Davenport Gibbons
The New York Century Co. 1917
Published, April 1917
The Letters that a young teacher at St. Paul’s College in Tarsus (the predecessor of Tarsus American College) sent to her mother in the United States beginning with her arrival in Tarsus on her 26th birthday on Dec 2, 1908, and published as a book in 1917, is available on the ArmenianHouse.org website. (St. Paul’s Colege was established in 1888 by Col. Elliott Shepard on the persuasion of missionary Dr. Thomas Christie following his stop over in Tarsus on his way to Jerusalem.) For those interested in the early life at Tarsus American College and what happened in Adana and Tarsus in 1909, and how the incidents were made public in the US, this is a very valuable, nostalgic and easy to read book. It is interesting that the 194 page book (short pages) has been dedicated to the ‘’Memory of C.H.M. Doughty-Whlie, V.C., the Major of this book who was killed in action leading a charge on Gallipoli Peninsula, April 29, 1915.’’
The ‘’Book of Letters’’ opens with the young teacher wishing that her mother was with her on her first married birthday in front of the fireplace in her bedroom at St. Paul’s College, twenty years after its founding. Than, the author goes on describing her house and its contents, including a First Aid outfit given to her as a wedding gift. In the next chapter, she writes about her and her husband Herbert’s teaching their classes how to plan and construct an essay and describes the Christmas celebrations at night, referring to her cooking that she learned at Simmons College and Bryn Mawr as having prepared her for the adventure in a country which she refers to as ‘’god forsaken lands.’’
The teacher refers to Dr. Thomas Christie and also Daddy Christie several times, and writes about their Greek helper, Socrates, whose education they sponsor, and their Armenian friends, seldom mentioning Turks in the book, only referring to them as being indifferent to human suffering. There are also references to the activities of Mormon and British missionaries in the area. In pages 27-30, Helen writes about their trip to the Cave of Seven Sleepers, something that a Tarsus graduate also mentioned in his latest ‘’Ashab-i Keyf’’’ story, except Helen states that the seven men that fled from Tarsus slept in the cave for one hundred years rather than three hundred and nine years, and when they wake up, they learn that that the whole world was Christian.
On page 40, Helen writes about her weekend trip to Adana where they visit the family of Chambers who live in the heart of the Armenian quarter and run the Girl’s School of the Mission in Adana, a city of sixty thousand. The family also makes weekend trips to Mersina (present day Mersin) and Helen writes about the Christie family and how one day Dr. Christie purchases one hundred chickens with his Civil War pension when they run out of food.
Helen Davenport Gibbons.
She was a missionary.
In her letter dated April 14, 1909, Helen writes about massacres starting in Adana where four Armenian women were killed followed by the hundreds, both Armenians and Turks, and how Armenians in Tarsus start coming to the school, looking for protection, food and shelter. Than, the teacher states: ‘’How would you like to live in a country where you knew your Government not only would not protect you, but would periodically incite your neighbors to rob and kill you with the help of the army.’’ On page 138, she writes about the death of Daniel Miner Rogers, one of the missionaries, in Adana, who was actually killed by a stray bullet, as noted in a recent message form one of our former teachers and Principals, which is not mentioned in the book. Daniel Miner Rogers was the husband of Mrs. Mary Christie Rogers Nute, whose grandchildren live in Pennsylvania, I believe.
Helen gives birth to a baby girl and the book ends with the departure of the teacher with her husband and new born baby to Egypt in April, 1909.
The author refers to the Adana incidents as if one day the Ottoman Turks decided to kill all the Armenians, without giving any background information on the causes and making no reference to the findings of the ‘’Commission’’ that was established by the Ottoman Government following the incidents which included an Armenian Deputy, Hagop Babikian, to determine the causes of the incident. (The Commission Report was prepared but not not presented to the Parliament due to the death of Babikian the night before the scheduled debate, some even claiming that Babikian was murdered by some Armenians since he knew the facts, according to Salahi Sonyel’s book (1).) According to the memoirs of Talat Pasa, the purpose of the incidents was to provoke the people to riot, to attract European attention, and to establish an autonomous Armenian state in Cilicia. As presented in Salahi Sonyel’s book , bishop Mousheg was a ‘firebrand’ who was seeking to force the foreign Powers to intervene, with the ultimate aim of declaring himself ‘king of Cilicia’ as confirmed by secret British documents (p.71).
Much has been written about the incidents that took place in Adana and vicinity following the proclamation of Second Mesrutiyet in 1908 which provided equality among the different nationalities and allowed anyone in the Ottoman Empire to obtain guns freely. A 240 page book by Yusuf Ziya Bildirici (2) tells in detail the causes and the consequences of the incidents with full of references, documents and photographs. The proclamation gave the Armenian rebels the opportunity to accumulate huge arsenals of weapons and the Armenian bishop Mousheg, whose only aim in life was to be king, organized them in regular fighting forces who started the massacres of the Ottoman Turks, according to Salahi Sonyel. These facts, however, are not mentioned in ‘’The Red Carpets of Tarsus’’, described in many other books, including Guenter Lewy’s ‘’The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey – A Disputed Genocide" (3).
There are hundreds and thousands of books and articles written by the Armenians and their supporters about the Armenian issue, always referring to it as the ‘’Armenian massacres’’ and ‘’Armenian genocide,’’ when in fact, the issue was started by the Armenians and hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Turks were massacred by the Armenians who rebelled against their own government. In defense, the Ottoman Turks took to arms and killed Armenian rebels. Also, it was not only the Armenians and the Ottomans who were involved, but also the Russians, the British, the French, the Italians, the Armenian Patriarch and many organizations which are mentioned very little, although they bear the responsibility for this tragedy which resulted in the death of both the Armenians and the Ottomans.
For those interested, a photograph of Christie House in Camliyayla (Namrun) is given in the Attachment where photographs of Dr. Christie and his wife adorn the walls. Following a visit there two years ago, additional photographs were distributed to Tarsus American College alumni group (TAC) together with a suggestion that the House could be turned into a TAC Museum.
It is recommended that who ever reads the ‘’Red carpets of Tarsus’’ should also look at the books given below and others in order to get a balanced view of the Adana incidents.
Yuksel Oktay, PE
Istanbul
Notes:
(1) The Great War and the Tragedy of Anatolia, (Turks and Armenians in the Maelstorm of Major Powers), by Salahi Sonyel. Turk Tarih Kurumu, 2001 (In English)
(2) Adana’da Ermenilerin yaptigi Katliamlar ve Fransiz-Ermeni Iliskileri, by Yusuf Ziya Bildirici, KOK Sosyal ve Stratejik Arastirmalar Serici No. 15, Ankara, 1999. (In Turkish)
(3) The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey – A Disputed Genocide, by Guenter Lewy, The University of Utah Press. 2005
Marmaduke Pickthall on Adana
"The massacres at Adana in 1909 are ascribed to the Young Turks by Mr. Toynbee, as if there were no doubt about the matter. I was in Syria at the time, and fanatical emissaries landed at Tripoli, Beyrout, and Jaffa with the same purpose with which they landed at Mersin, of preaching massacre of Christians. But they were arrested by the local Committees of Union and Progress and deported, which does not look as if the Young Turks were the instigators. It is true that members of the local committee at Adana took part in the massacres, but that committee had been captured by disguised reactionaries. There are several other cool assumptions in this book."
Marmaduke Pickthall, in a letter exchange with Arnold Toynbee, The New Age, December 16, 1915, Vol. XVIII. No. 7. He thoroughly refutes Toynbee's propagandistic Blue Book, adding: "If the Turkish Government had really wished to exterminate the Armenians there was nothing to prevent its doing so that I can see." What sane person can argue?
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Part III: Ch. 17, "The Ambassador at the Crossroads"
Chapter 7 provides the background of Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, the American most "profoundly associated with the Armenian Genocide." The author details Morgenthau's friendship with Rabbi Stephen Wise, a "committed Zionist," which led to Morgenthau's "network of personal relationships in the American Jewish community that would become important for him." The importance of a Jew heading the Turkish mission became significant for this network (a Republican businessman, Solomon Hirsch, had already become a minister to Turkey), as "the Ottoman Empire included a large Jewish population, including those in Palestine."
Peter Balakian also informs us that as a child Morgenthau "developed a strong sense of discipline that was anchored by faith. His father had espoused radical Reform Judaism" since his days in Germany.
Ambassador Morgenthau
After bonding with Governor Woodrow Wilson in 1911, once the latter had been invited to a celebration in a synagogue, Morgenthau pledged his "unreserved moral and financial support"; the lawyer and businessman sensed Wilson would be Morgenthau's ticket into the world of politics. Few gave more to Wilson's financial campaign than Morgenthau.
Morgenthau felt slighted with Wilson's offer of ambassadorship to the Ottoman Empire, as that seemed to be the only diplomatic post assigned to Jews. He reconsidered the offer after meeting with Wise, the latter having recently visited the Holy Land.
Wise concluded Palestine was "completely a suzerainty of the Turkish empire," and explained that he had suffered "anti-Semitic indignities at the hands of the Turkish authorities." (“Mostly Morgenthau,“ Henry Morgenthau III)
"The rabbi made it clear to Morgenthau that a Jew in the Turkish post would be crucial in helping to oversee the well-being of the Jews of Palestine and could help foster a Zionist future."
Woodrow Wilson
President Wilson
Balakian explains that Morgenthau reconsiders the position because he was "deeply concerned about Turkish anti-Semitism." Once again, the immoral author never loses an opportunity to deliver a low blow, and to express what poor excuses for humanity the Turks are. What were the Jews doing there in Palestine, if the Turks were anti-Semitic? The Jewish community grew in the empire after every Christian nation had turned away the Jews expelled from Spain... only the Ottoman Empire (aside from the city of Amsterdam, to my knowledge) accepted the Jews in what was, until the time of the Inquisitions, "Judaism's darkest hour." That is the way historian Cecil Roth put it: “Jewish people must always recall the Ottoman Empire with gratitude who, at one of Judaism’s darkest hours, flung open its door widely and kept them open."
We have learned, then, that another of Morgenthau’s reasons for orchestrating his campaign of racist defamation against the Turks was to pave the way for the creation of Israel. How ironic; it was the Ottomans who allowed the Jews to come into Palestine in such large numbers, and the Ottomans dealt with the Semitic communities even-handedly. Palestinians were very frustrated when the Turkish authorities would defend the rights of the Jews. When the Jews found ways around restrictive rules to accumulate land, it would be the Turks who would evict Arabs, stubbornly refusing to leave lands that, by right of tradition, belonged to them.
“(The Turks) offered the Jews the first Zionist colonization in Palestine” — Ernest Jackh, The Rising Crescent, (N.Y., 1944) p. 37
Was there anti-Semitism in the Ottoman Empire? Where in the world wasn’t there anti-Semitism? However, how did this nation, historically recognized even by enemies to be amazingly tolerant, stack up against its counterparts? The last Grand Rabbi of the Ottoman Empire, Haim Nahum, said in 1924:
“It is actually an understatement that there was no anti-Semitism in Turkey. In fact, there was a pro-Semitism. Ottoman governments treated their Jewish subjects with a special consideration and compassion as one of their own, as one of the most loyal and devoted subjects of the empire:”
The author insincerely hastens to add "Morgenthau wasn't a Zionist." Under the influences of his religious father and the Zionists Morgenthau deeply hobnobbed with, how could Morgenthau not have been affected by the principles of Zionism?
Early in his ambassadorship, Balakian reports Morgenthau was concerned about the American missionary activities (does that mean the safety of the missionaries and/or their activities, since the Turks were so evil? I guess it couldn't mean the trouble stirred up by the bigotry of the missionaries), but mostly he was concerned about the Armenians... since they "appeared to have many parallels with the Jewish presence, among the opposing nations of Eastern Europe." (i.e., both were powerless alien minorities, and both were accused of traitorous collaboration by the governments that ruled them.)
(I think the Jews had more in common with the Turks, both being misunderstood and often hated by the rest of the world.)
While Balakian pays lip service to Morgenthau's concern about "Ottoman policies of anti-Semitism in Palestine" as well, why would Morgenthau have allowed himself to care more for the Armenians than for the Jews? Since the Jews had a sizeable presence in the empire, and since Morgenthau concluded there was such anti-Semitism.... wouldn't the Zionist have had reason to be much more concerned over his own, rather than another, alien minority?
In 1915, The New York Times printed this story:
CRITICISES MR. MORGENTHAU
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
London Times Correspondent Says He Wasted Energy on Zionists
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Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
LONDON, Friday, Oct. 8,--The Times published a long account from a correspondent, of the American massacres in which he says:
"Attempts of the American Ambassador to procure some alleviation of the lot of the Armenians have thus far proved unsuccessful. Mr. Morgenthau, in the opinion of good observers, has wasted too much diplomatic energy on behalf of the Zionists of Palestine, who were in no danger of massacre, to have any force to spare.
Ambassador Henry Morgenthau
From the Momjian Collection: Henry
"Morgenthau witnessed the Ottoman declaration of war (in November 1914) that was issued simultaneously with a declaration of jihad..." On November 2, Russia declared war on the Ottomans, and Britain and France followed up with their own declarations of war on November 5; does Balakian have his facts straight? (Perhaps there was a “counter” declaration of war, which would be redundant when a nation is already at war… regardless, by failing to mention who declared war first, Balakian presents the picture that the “barbaric” Turks were the aggressors.) Secondly, didn't Morgenthau report in his ghostwritten "Story" that the "jihad" was the Germans' idea? The "jihad" was largely ineffectual, because Muslims recognized the illegitimacy of exempting the Germans; also, the Muslim Arabs surely were not driven by their religious zeal when they revolted against the Turks. Yet Balakian repeats Morgenthau's phony testimony regarding the ambassador's fear that the jihad had "started passions" that would "fuel the extermination program against the Armenians."
By the spring of 1915, Morgenthau would receive reports about what was happening to "the Armenians from his consular staff in the interior of Turkey. Those reports would soon be heard around the world..." And how. Never mind that almost all of these reports were based on the hearsay of missionaries and the Armenians, and that the press hungered for printing such sensationalistic stories corroborating the terribleness of the Turks... hardly ever checking and verifying whether such accounts were true.
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Part III: Chapters 18-22
Chapter 18: We learn Leslie Davis became the U.S. consul in Harput at the end of May 1914. He was a thirty-eight year old former attorney, the same profession of his boss, Henry Morgenthau. Many politicians and President Wilson backed his application to the foreign service, indicating the man was well-connected.
The author has a field day in relating all the horror tales of hearsay reported by Armenians. Alice Muggerditchian Shipley gives us the familiar tale of “nails and toenails" being pulled out. (From the Armenian Film Foundation's J. Michael Hagopian: "Voices from the Lake: A Film About the Secret Genocide." "Secret"??) A passage from perhaps Amb. Morgenthau's most infamous chapter 22 is repeated here, with a ghastly description of how the "Turk Reverts to Ancestral Type."
J. Michael Hagppian
The amazing thing about this attempt "to destroy the Armenian race," as Leslie Davis wrote to Morgenthau on June 30, 1915, is that there were so many survivors to these horror stories.
A Henry Riggs reported (in a work, "Days of Tragedies in Armenia") how the Armenians were taken advantage of as the Armenians were forced to sell their goods at giveaway prices... and that some women were raped by Turks and Kurds. Some Turks, however, “refused to enrich themselves on the misfortune of others." It is easy to imagine many Armenians were taken advantage of, under such circumstances... given the human tendency to peck at a fellow hen, when the pecked hen shows vulnerability. Americans did no less with the Japanese, when the latter were relocated during WWII; many of these families' fortunes were lost. Other people who are driven away don’t even have the chance to sell their assets… as with the 500,000-600,000 Turks massacred by Armenians. (That last example does not condone the injustice suffered by the Armenians; it is simply a reminder there is no perspective in Balakian’s biased book.)
The 101-year-old Antranig Vartanian vividly testified in a 2001 video interview how he was ordered by gendarmes to go into a barn "where hundreds of Armenians were burned alive" to take their jewelry, and the gendarmes were so delighted with the jewelry the fifteen-year-old had taken from a corpse that had already "been strangled to death outside of the barn," they let him live.
Uh-huh.
Kerop Bedoukian reports among other outrages (in "Some of Us Survived") witnessing a woman relieving herself in public, after which Turks arrived "with short sticks... tearing apart every pile of shit," in the hope of finding possibly swallowed gold coins. At least these Turks had more brains than the Turks Balakian himself reported doing the same in his "Black Dog of Fate," where Balakian claimed the Turks used their bare hands. Was Balakian there, to know for certain? No. Does he have a relentless drive to dehumanize Turks every chance he gets? Yes.
Balakian made a claim earlier in his book that consuls were risking their lives.... I guess what he meant was Davis' efforts to shield Armenians by housing many in the three-story consulate and spacious garden. I take it Balakian would have us believe the fanatical Turks would have had the American diplomat's head on a platter, had they discovered Armenians were being protected." That must have been the danger, since Davis reported, "We could all hear them piously calling upon Allah to bless them in their efforts to kill the hated Christians." Davis' Turkish must have been pretty good by this phase of his service. Otherwise, the translation from the Armenians around him must have sufficed.
Ending the chapter is a story reminiscent of "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" where Davis holds firm against an attempt by visiting Turkish authorities demanding a statement that taught the consul "something profound about the Turkish determination to exterminate the Armenians while simultaneously trying to cover up the crime." The source was Henry Riggs; did he happen to be in the room?
Leslie B. Davis
Leslie Davis
In the next chapter, Balakian goes to town in providing Davis' eyewitness account of corpses that I examined from other sources in the Leslie Davis page.
What can be said here? All these horrendous stories of hearsay are by witnesses who would far from be called neutral. Of course, the Armenians suffered... but it's truly disgusting that Peter Balakian provides these anecdotes with the singular purpose of attempting to prove how monstrous the Turks were. No one can doubt the effect such one-sided anecdotes can have on the unwary reader.
Chapter 20 gives us insight as to who Jesse Jackson was: a veteran of the Spanish-American War, becoming a consul in Syria in 1905... and a seasoned diplomat by 1915. "Hundreds of thousands of Armenians passed through Aleppo (where Jackson served during 1915) on their way to the Deir el-Zor desert about a hundred miles southeast, where they died of starvation, torture and massacre." In September 1915, Ambassador Morgenthau painted a different picture in his private diary:
"Zenop Bezjian, Vekil (representative) of Armenian Protestants, called. Schmavonian (one of Morgenthau’s two Armenian assistants) introduced him; he was his schoolmate. He told me a great deal about conditions [in the interior]. I was surprised to hear him report that Armenians at Zor were fairly well satisfied; that they have already settled down to business and are earning their livings; those were the first ones that were sent away and seem to have gotten there without being massacred. He gave me a list where the various camps are and he thinks that over one half million have been displaced.”
Jackson reported 5,000 emaciated and sick women and children were the only survivors from the Armenian population of Sivas, where "over 300,000 souls" had once lived. Given the description of what happened to the survivors, it would seem medically impossible for any of them to have lived much longer... so if 300,000-600,000 Armenians realistically perished from all causes (some 150,000 having died of starvation while accompanying the Russian retreats, according to a 1967 work by Richard Hovannisian), then we would need to conclude every single one of the "annihilated" Armenians must have come from Sivas.
Let us be reminded of where consuls like J. B. Jackson were coming from:
Constantinople had once been the centre of eastern Christianity, and there were those who had never got over the loss. Of more immediate concern in the religious life of the Ottoman Empire were the missionaries chasing the souls of the eastern Christians and the European governments which interested themselves in the same communities for reasons of state. The aptly named 'capitulations' were the means by which the powers were able to secure special privileges... Out of this unhealthy state of affairs (as it certainly was from the sultan's viewpoint) developed a situation in which Ottoman Christians as communities or individuals could turn to an outside power to protect them against 'unjust' treatment. European consuls were everywhere and were usually quick to take up these complaints with the (Sublime Porte). [“Imperialism, Evangelism and the Ottoman Armenians 1878-1896,” by Jeremy Salt]
While the above passage specifies only European consuls, there was no difference between them and the American consuls. America’s imperialistic goals were obviously at play and, in addition, the Christian American consuls were extremely biased (George Horton serving as an extreme example); the Armenians were perceived as the perpetually persecuted, and the good Christian consuls regarded themselves as their protectors… against this hateful “blight” upon humanity, the Terrible Turks.
Arthur Tremaine Chester called it on the nose, when he wrote in 1923: “It has been the custom of those who wish to condemn the Turk to give religious intolerance as the cause of all disturbances in Turkey. I have never heard one of these people admit that politics, treachery, or any other similar cause had any connection with them. If an Armenian or Greek is killed, it is always referred to as the massacre of a Christian.”
We then have a letter describing "the most terrible cruelties inflicted upon the thousands of Christian exiles," by the impartial Reverend F. H. Leslie, who had been made the American consular agent for "the entire district of Urfa." Balakian writes the "American pastor was imprisoned for aiding the Armenians. Already mentally broken down from what he had witnessed, he was now tortured in prison, and he committed suicide." At least we don't get the assertion the minister was murdered directly by the savage Turks, although how Balakian knows whether the missionary was tortured or how he exactly died is anyone's guess. (After all... he was in a Turkish prison. We all know what that means.)
Jackson wrote to Morgenthau that the "Armenians in Aleppo, and nearby Meskene, Rakka, and Deir-el-Zor were dying by the thousands daily"... which were the exact same words Morgenthau himself used in his ghostwritten work to describe the fate of the Turks (by starvation).
It is clear by now the author's agenda is to give forth the impression that the Turks were inhuman barbarians at every turn. When we get to the account by Armin Theophil Wegner (whose photographs "comprise the core of the witness images of the genocide"... I have never seen any photograph that made me stop and think there was a government sponsored plan for extermination, like Nazi officials bulldozing hundreds of corpses into pits. Mainly, Wegner's work demonstrated the suffering of people. There were also photos of suffering and emaciated people of Turks and Muslims taken elsewhere in what happened to be the Sick Man on his last legs), the author reports that the German medic was found out through a letter to his mother, describing the condition of the Armenians.
Balakian then writes Wegner was kicked out of the camp and forced to work in the cholera wards, where he fell seriously ill, and was returned to Germany. In other words, his superiors (were they Turkish?) were so evil, they purposely punished Wegner by sending him to the Siberia of the cholera wards, with the implication that this would work out to be his possible execution??? If he worked as a nurse, would not his responsibility have been to tend to the sick? Do nurses get a choice about treating only less contagious sick people? Doesn't the Hippocrates Oath say something against that?
Armin Theophil Wegner
And why would there be "cholera wards," anyway? Why would there be any medical care available, whatsoever? Wasn't it the intention of the Turks to "annihilate" the Armenians?
Let's pursue this line of thought further. On p. 258, Wegner is quoted as saying he had no supplies with which to help the Armenians, since it was "forbidden to help." The implication is clear; it's a genocide, and the Armenians were packed together to be left on their own, to cruelly suffer a slow death. Yet, Jackson begs Morgenthau for $150,000 a month from the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief. Why would any goods be allowed to keep the Armenians alive? Wouldn't that fly in the face of the purposeful extermination attempt? (The relief began by fall of 1915, a full year before the relocation process ended; i.e., at a point not even halfway into the "genocide.")
Unless the people are being used for slave labor (which Wegner’s photographs do not show the slightest evidence of), there is no reason to keep people alive if the intention is to "annihilate" them. This is only common sense.
Peter Balakian at work, Colgate University classroom
The Balakian Dog of Flake
Around p. 260, I'm beginning to wonder if Peter Balakian has even one shred of conscience. He actually has the gall to repeat perhaps the most infamous passage from Ambassador Morgenthau's phony book, the "insurance" tale. Sinking even lower by putting quotation marks around the created statements said to come from Talat Pasha's mouth (courtesy of the ghostwriter of "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story"; because this unconscionable book engaged in such a deceptive practice, should not "Balakian the Historian" know better?), the story goes that Talat asked for a list of Armenians in line for insurance payments because the Armenians are "practically all dead now" anyway. No other story would have made the Minister of the Interior appear to be as bestial, as this one... which was exactly Morgenthau's purpose.
However, the real idea — based on Morgenthau's very own privately written letters and diary, as Heath Lowry exposed — was that the American insurance company wished to send the assets to France, a country the Ottoman Empire was at war with. Talat Pasha had a duty to wish for the money to remain in his country, so that potential claims could be taken care of. Besides, the records indicate a representative of the insurance company was present in the Ottoman Empire, and Talat Pasha did not need to ask Morgenthau for a list of the Armenian policy holders.
Balakian appeared to be the main force in charge of attempting to discredit Professor Heath Lowry a few years ago, based on press articles of the period... where Balakian put his heart into the disgusting smear campaign conducted against the Princeton professor. Regardless of how much Balakian hates Dr. Lowry, now that Balakian is passing himself off as a "historian," there can be no excuse for him to repeat this false story in 2003, when Lowry's "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" uncovered what was really going on... based on the unethical one-time lawyer's private writings.
Prof. Erich Feigl related a story in "A Myth of Terror" where Prof. Gerard Libaridian attempts to make use of false information (Andonian's forged telegrams) despite knowing the truth. When Feigl finally confronted Libaridian with the fact that these telegrams were fake, the latter spookily replied, "And?" (In other words... what difference does the truth make? The only thing that matters is to obscure the truth as long as the Armenians' identity-affirming "genocide" can be shown to be valid. Peter Balakian could not have chosen a better example with which to demonstrate what a shameless singer of the "Armenian AND? Anthem" he is. Beyond a doubt, he must have read Dr. Lowry's work, and he chose to ignore it. With such a disrespect for the facts, how could anything he has highlighted in his hoax of a book be trusted?
It has been difficult to go through the lies within this propaganda work, but I am so numbed by Peter Balakian's lack of ethics, it's become hard to take any story seriously. He writes of a pro-Armenian German businessman, who compares the people in the refugee camps to the "Hell of Dante." Balakian helpfully suggests even the German (Bernau) "had not seen what Aurora Mardiganian experienced," regarding "the game of swords," played with Armenian girls. You see, the swords were planted in the ground, blade up, and the Turks would ride their horses beside the row of swords carrying a girl "with the intent of... impaling her on a sword." If the girl was only injured, she would be scooped up again until death. "It was a game, a contest," "the traumatized survivor wrote in her memoir." If each girl was thrown until dead, how did Ms. Mardiganian become a "survivor"? Did the Turks give her popcorn and invite her to be a spectator to this “game”?
RAVISHED ARMENIA
Click for detail
(The heroine of this particular tall tale starred in the Near East Relief's propagandistic production, RAVISHED ARMENIA, co-starring Henry "Holier-than-Thou" Morgenthau. The 1919 film’s poster claimed "four millions" Armenian victims. More on this tale, later.)
"The Turks forced the Jews of the city (Diyarbakir) to gather up the bodies in oxcarts and throw them in the Tigris River." That implies these Jews would have served as genuine eyewitnesses to "the game of swords." Since these Jews were such victims of the "anti-Semitism" of the Turks, and thus owing no loyalty to the savages, has there been a single account from one of these Jewish citizens, supporting this incredible story? After the war and the disintegration of empire that came with it, surely one of these people could have relayed such a memorable tale. After all, just about every single Armenian "survivor" has jumped at the chance to provide a personal account.
Or is it possible this story, like so many others, were figments of a propagandist’s imagination… and they decided to throw in the Jews for good measure, another equally oppressed minority in the land of the monstrous Turks? (I still don’t understand why only the Armenians were singled out for extermination. The “infidel” Jews were non-Muslim, the Jews had money… the Jews were everything the Armenians were, as far as the Armenians’ reasons for their genocide. The only thing the Jews didn’t do was revolt, and commit atrocious crimes against the Muslim populace.)
Regarding whom the Jews were really victimized by, there is nothing in this book such as the following account by Elihu Ben Levi, of Vacaville, California (December 11, 1983, San Francisco Chronicle):
"We have first hand information and evidence of Armenian
atrocities against our people (Jews). Members of our family
witnessed the murder of 148 members of our family near Erzurum, Turkey, by Armenian neighbors, bent on destroying anything and anybody remotely Jewish and/or Muslim."
From Wheatcroft's "The Ottomans": "Kladderadatsch,
30 August 1896, shows that the German attitude
to the Ottoman was not so very different from that
of the other European nations. Once again the Ottomans
impale, stab and kill at will — this time in Crete. The
cartoon mocks the Ottoman claim that this was a civil war."
"In Meskene alone, Bernau reported, there were sixty thousand Armenians buried, and 'as far as the eye can reach mounds are seen containing 200 to 300 corpses.'" This is a perfect example as to why individual Germans, whose people were the ally of the Turks, cannot be relied upon for their biased, pro-Christian testimony... after having been brainwashed through the years with the image of "The Terrible Turk."
How did Herr Bernau wind up with the 60,000 figure of buried corpses? Did he disinter them, for the purpose of his valuable estimate? For that matter, what happened to these 60,000 corpses? That is an incredibly large number, 60,000.... I think we can safely assume many have still been left behind. Why didn't the British, at Malta, send an excavation party to Meskene to corroborate this story? The British were desperate to prove genocide... this evidence certainly would have provided somewhat convincing. Even today, many of these skeletons must have been left behind... why don't the Armenians and their deep pockets pour their energies into an excavation project?
The desperation of the author shows further with the statement, "Bernau begged Jackson to keep some flow of money coming, even though the Ottoman authorities were trying to halt any and all aid." If such was the case, what in the world could have prevented the Ottoman authorities from succeeding? After all... the authorities were fully in charge, and one could not run such an operation of caring for a huge number of people discreetly. Obviously, this is yet another "exaggeration" from Mr. Peter Balakian. (Or one of the many already created “exaggerations” out there, which Balakian chooses to present as fact.)
Chapter 21's "Same Fate" tells us about how all of Morgenthau's consuls were filing similar reports... including Oscar Heizer in Trebizond, W. Peter at Samsoun, Charles E. Allen from "as far west as" Adrianople in Thrace, Edward I. Nathan in Adana and Mersin, and George Horton in Izmir (Smyrna). All received information from missionaries/Armenians, and if George Horton was any indication, all shared Morgenthau's tendency to be bigoted and racist. Horton himself was a religious fanatic who felt comfortable in repeating a cardinal's statement that the Turks were the anti-Christ.
Oscar Heizer (stationed in a "historic Greek" city, where "much of the indigenous Greek population would soon be wiped out as well”; Thea Halo is the Greek reference. In a 2000 book entitled "Not Even My Name," we get the dubious figure of three-quarters of a million Greeks living in their "ancient homeland in Anatolia along the Black Sea" who were "deported or killed." Such is the objective source the out-of-control Balakian is comfortable with) told Morgenthau in July 1915 that the Turks were "very hostile to all outside suggestion and interference in their internal affairs." What country would not be hostile to interference in their internal affairs?
The chapter relates another array of stories the British could not use during the Malta Tribunal as actual evidence, since it's all hearsay. Finally, Balakian quotes from Morgenthau's book again... another made-up interaction between Talat Pasha and Morgenthau. This is the one where we are asked to believe Talat Pasha actually admitted to disposing of three-quarters of the Armenians, and that there are none left at Bitlis, Van and Erzerum. (Not only were there Armenians left in these provinces, they were or soon would be busily killing Turks; McCarthy’s “The Destruction of Ottoman Erzurum by Armenians”: “One thing is sure: Armenian statements that almost all of the Erzurum Armenians were deported and killed are ridiculous. This is demonstrated by the fact that so many Armenians lived in Erzurum during the Russian occupation. When the Russians departed there were enough Armenians remaining in Erzurum or returning from Russian Armenia to create an army and attempt to run a government. If all the Erzurum Armenians were dead, where did those Armenians come from? It is absurd to think, and no one then or now has asserted, that these were Russian Armenians who had first come to Anatolia in 1916.”)
So Talat Pasha actually admitted to the hopelessly unfriendly Morgenthau (if we are to believe Morgenthau's phony book; in his letters and diary, Morgenthau sounded relatively friendly to the Turkish officials, and they were kind to him, in turn) that out of a pre-war Ottoman-Armenian population ranging from 1 to 1.6 million (based on neutral, Western, and therefore pro-Armenian sources), seventy-five percent, or from 750,000 to 1,200,000 Armenians, were killed. That would leave from 250,000 to 400,000 Armenians alive. Then how come the Armenians themselves admit 1,000,000 Armenians were left alive after the war, including Mr. Peter Balakian.... judging by a 1998 commemoration he signed his name to? (Disagreeing with the Armenian Patriarch himself, who vouched for 1,260,000 Armenian survivors in 1918.)
Since Balakian has conceded there were one million Armenian survivors, in order for Talat Pasha’s made-up words of having exterminated “three-quarters of the Armenians,” that means there would have needed to be four million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, before the war started!
Peternocchio
Is Peter Balakian actually expecting us to believe Talat Pasha would have told Morgenthau less than half of the Armenians were left alive? Yes, the lying Morgenthau asked us to believe that, but that was in a different age of anti-Turkish propaganda. How could Peter Balakian, with a straight face, repeat such a ridiculous assertion... in this day and age?
At chapter's end, Balakian also repeats the following made-up exchange: Morgenthau says, "You are making a terrible mistake," to which Talat Pasha replies that he never regrets, even if he does wrong. I think the same question may be posed to Peter Balakian himself, putting himself forever on record this way, tarnishing the truth and whatever little honor the man has. I think the same answer can easily be imagined coming from Peter Balakian's lips. By now, Peternocchio's nose is already the size of a redwood tree.
Chapter 22 relates the tale of America rolling up her sleeves to help the Armenians. (Shedding not one tear for the no-less-equally devastated Turks.) Missionary James Barton is voted director of the Committee on Armenian Atrocities. "Leading Zionist spokesman Rabbi Stephen Wise" was one of the founding board members... as well as Bishop David Greer and "financier and civic leader Isaac N. Seligman. Balakian writes: Armenians were not allowed to join "in order to maintain its sense of nonpartisan neutrality." "Nonpartisan neutrality"? What a hoot.
James Barton's "Story of Near East Relief" reports a dispatch from an American consul (I guess it doesn't matter who this consul was, since they were all basically rubber stamps of each other) declaring: "The 'authorities' make 'no secret of the fact that their main object is the extermination of the whole Armenian race... The vali admitted quite frankly: "We are determined to get rid, once and for all, of this cancer in our country".' " This dubiously translated quote from an unknown vali (representative) must have proven the genocide, all right.
Ultimately, from 1915 to 1929, what would later become known as the Near East Relief (incorporated by Congress in 1919) would raise over $116,000,000 -- "a sum that would be more than a billion dollars in contemporary terms." Balakian proudly asserts his sympathy-devouring people would receive extraordinary attention from the New York Times: 145 articles on the Armenian massacres in 1915 alone (an article about every two and a half days.) The author, his heart breaking the same attention is not being paid to the Armenians' eternal victimhood these days, sums up by declaring of the Times: "...its desire to present balanced views of current events, the articles on the Armenian massacres carry a special kind of authority."
As prestigious as the New York Times is, wishing will not make these biased articles truer. The American press almost solely relied on British propaganda, as a division of Wellington House was operated on U.S. soil by a Canadian, and the British had cut the German cable to America... further closing alternate sources of news. Additionally, if the Times were so "balanced," where were the articles of Armenians massacring Turks?
TWO FUN "PRESS" FACTS:
1) New York Times Publisher Adolph Ochs was close friends with Henry Morgenthau, according to Balakian's friend, Samantha Power ("A Problem from Hell — America and the Age of Genocide"). Both men were members of New York City's wealthy Jewish elite, going to the same social events... they must have gotten pretty chummy. Not that Ochs would have needed his pal to put up all the genocide news unfit to print, since every other media publication was doing the same... but to the extent of one article about every two and a half days?
2) According to a propagandistic book where Balakian contributed a chapter, "America and the Armenian Genocide of 1915," there was one and only one American newspaper correspondent who travelled into the Ottoman interior in 1915 to witness events firsthand. Can you imagine? Only ONE American reporter. Can there be a greater indication that these 145 "genocide" articles from the New York Times, and all the many from America's other newspapers were almost exclusively based on hearsay and propaganda? (That reporter's name, by the way: George Schreiner. He's the one who blistered Henry Morgenthau with a late 1918 letter, appalled over the lies of Henry's "Story" book... and he's the one who concluded there was no "genocide."
Such was the intensity of the propaganda, President Hoover is quoted as having said "Armenia is in the front of the American mind... known... only a little less than England."
(Another Hoover quote Balakian chooses not to report is one from Professor Hovannisian's The Republic of Armenia: "[Armenian corruption], if made public, would become the greatest scandal in American charitable history.")
Balakian points out the irony that whereas the Holocaust was not covered in the nation's press that extensively during WWII, "week after week from 1915 on, the New York Times used terms describing what would later be defined as genocide: 'systematic,' 'deliberate,' 'authorized,' 'organized by government,' 'systematic race extermination.;" I'd say the irony is the irresponsibility with which the newspaper used such terms when there was no proof... and presently uses the G-word, although there is still no proof.
All the sources Balakian wishes us to believe ("American and European diplomats and missionaries"... "massacre survivors" ... "neutral [?] bystanders") that served as sources of evidence would be objective, and non-partisan. As an example, Balakian quotes a British MP from an August 1915 Times article as having said, "it is a plan to exterminate the whole Armenian people." Let us remind Peter Balakian that the British were at WAR with the Ottoman empire, and it served the purposes of the British to make the Turks look like monsters, so that they can more easily justify their long-planned for land-grab scheme... after the war; this is one reason why their infamous propaganda division, Wellington House, focused on the Turks.
Viscount James Bryce
Lord Bryce
Another example Balakian provides slightly less breathlessly than Marilyn Monroe in her rendition of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President": in Oct. 1915, "a Times headline read: 800,000 ARMENIANS COUNTED DESTROYED: VISCOUNT BRYCE TELLS HOUSE OF LORDS." Imagine that; Balakian feels comfortable in actually quoting the man who was in charge of Wellington House, James Bryce himself, in this day and age…when Bryce's "Blue Book" has been discredited, having relied upon hearsay and mostly anonymous reports provided by missionaries and Armenians. We know today how grossly inaccurate Bryce's figure of "800,000" was, especially in 1915…. when there was so much more massacring left to be done. (Why, only three years ago, in the British Blue Book, the pre-war Armenian population was recorded as a little over one million. Mr. Balakian himself agrees one million Armenians survived after the war. How could Bryce the propagandist, in all good conscience, have reported 800,000 dead?)
In a September 1915 Times article reporting on Morgenthau's idea of sending 550,000 Armenian massacre survivors to the United States (without mentioning what an awful job the Turks had done with genocide... imagine such an overwhelmingly large number of people escaping the massacres), Balakian writes that the article closed with a "rare moment of Turkish candor": "Turks admit that the Armenian persecution is the first step to get rid of Christians, and that Greeks will come next, Jews are also marked for slaughter or expulsion, American missionaries must also be driven out, for Turkey henceforth is to be for Turks alone."
Number one: it's amazing the Turks allowed such a hostile people as the missionaries access to the Ottoman Empire in the first place, and if the Turks really wanted them out, who believes that would not have been achieved within a week? (Well, a little more than a week; the missionaries owned a lot of properties in the Empire.) Number two: I don’t remember Hitler saying, “First the Jews, then the Gypsies…” And finally, why should we believe a Turk actually said this? Who was the Turk? And even if a Turk actually said this, which I would highly doubt, why should we become convinced this statement reflected actual Turkish policy?
I'm an American, and I can make up any statement about America that a foreign source could use as a source. Whatever is said would be no more than my own opinion, far from an official policy. And that's only assuming if a real Turkish person made the above statement... that "Balakian the Historian" has chosen to give credence to.
Balakian then turns to the Gemans' role. He brings up some German sources such as Consul Scheubner-Richter (who wrote "by July 15 almost all of the Armenians had been expelled from Erserum." You’ve already read earlier how absurd that assertion is, as many Armenians lived in Erzurum during the Russian occupation), and a Protestant group. It's ironic that the history of the Germans and the Turks are not kept in mind, here; these two nations were at war in previous centuries, Christian Germany getting the full blast of anti-Turkish propaganda as the rest of Western Europe. Are all Germans going to rid themselves of their deeply-instilled biases of the Terrible Turk simply because they were thrown together as reluctant wartime bedfellows?
Baron Von Wangenheim
Balakian then treats us to several German reports, which are presented for ridicule purposes. For example, Baron von Wangenheim's (whose name Balakian misspells as Wagenheim) comment that the Turks were justified in what they were doing to the Armenians (which the baron had meant to be taken as the relocation policy, after the Armenians had turned treacherous, not as massacres) is designated as "shocking" (because what is being said is taken as massacre-justification, after the relentless brainwashing campaign in the U.S.) ... even though American Secretary of State Robert Lansing opined the very same, in November 1916:
"I could see that [the Armenians'] well-known disloyalty to the Ottoman Government and the fact that the territory which they inhabited was within the zone of military operations constituted grounds more or less justifiable for compelling them to depart their homes."
German Ambassador count von Bernstorff is reported as saying the Armenian atrocities are "greatly exaggerated," and (unless the author has truly lost his sense of reality), Peter Balakian ironically follows up with the following New York Times headlines: NINE THOUSAND ARMENAINS MASSACRED AND THROWN INTO TIGRIS (Aug. 4, 1915); 600,000 STARVING ON ROAD (Aug. 27, 1915); 1,500,000 ARMENIANS STARVE (Sept. 5, 1915); 500,000 ARMENIANS SAID TO HAVE PERISHED (Sept. 24, 1915); 800,000 ARMENIANS COUNTED DESTROYED; 10,000 DROWNED AT ONCE (Oct. 7, 1915)... if we added up the tally of the greatly exaggerating New York Times, I believe we would wind up with more Armenian dead than ever existed.
Incidentally, even Ara Sarafian had issues with the “10,000 drowning” story. Another Armenian “scholar” aggressively disagreed.
No wonder The New York Times couldn't bear to face up to their abominably wretched reporting, and decided to call these events a "genocide" in recent times, as Dennis Papazian revealed in his "Misplaced Credulity." A liar who keeps on lying to preserve the appearance of credibility follows the familiar pattern… compromising his credibility even further down the road, when the lie is ultimately exposed.
Balakian lends forth further evidence of Talat Pasha's evilness by pointing to "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," and citing how Talat Pasha would intercept Morgenthau's cablegrams. Why shouldn't these cables have been intercepted? America, while not officially at war with the Ottoman Empire, was clearly on the side of the enemy camp; America did not defend the Ottoman Empire's interests in the slightest.
Even after Balakian refers to Talat Pasha's "pilfering" of Morgenthau's mail (I think the English instructor ought to realize stealing connotes "the taking away of, without the intention of giving back"), the unscrupulous author then reports "Morgenthau still received the cabled money." I would think if Talat Pasha were truly a "pilferer," he would have intercepted the huge amount of monies the ambassador was receiving.
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Part IV: Chapters 23-25
Part IV begins with "Wilson's Quandary," where the preacher's son is described as having moral idealism, rooted in his Christian faith... bringing together Wilson and "many leading missionary figures together as lifetime friends." While most of brainwashed America had been itching to go to war with the Ottoman Empire (which Balakian mostly prefers to refer to as "Turkey," I guess in an attempt to link today's Turkish republic as one and the same with the regime behind the “genocide”), the missionaries realized all of their properties on Ottoman soil would be seized (in whatever parts the torn apart Turkish nation controlled after the war, anyway), undoing a century of their work. Ironically, James Barton then became a "powerful missionary voice against war with Turkey." (According to the Sept. 7, 1919 New York Times.) Also, "without self-interest involved," the missionaries pointed out that if they were ousted, no one would look after the Armenians, which would then lead the Armenians to "be totally annihilated." (I'll say there was self-interest in that statement; once again, the missionaries were not above making completely false statements to serve their own cause. As it turned out, when Armenia miscalculated by declaring war on the young Turkish nation, the Armenians got whipped with nobody to save them. However, as the Bristol Reports made abundantly clear, the Turkish army behaved most professionally, and there were practically no massacres of Armenians in 1920.)
The missionaries had "vast real estate holdings... then worth about $123 million." Well, well, well. (Balakian had calculated the $116 million the missionaries raised — thanks to their campaign of demonization against the Turks — would be worth over a billion today... to give us an idea of how much the missionaries' holdings would currently be worth. So the missionaries managed to gain quite a foothold in the land they gave such a black eye to… also giving a black eye to what it means to be a true Christian, by ignoring the Ninth Commandment, THOU SHALT NOT PRESENT FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR.
Rabbi Stephen Wise
Meanwhile, Morgenthau's pal Rabbi Stephen Wise, also a member of the Near East Relief, couldn't wait for his country to go to war with the Ottoman Empire, "to help the Jews and the Christians of the Ottoman Empire." Yes, I'll bet the Rabbi kept the Christians' interests on an equal footing. (Wise's bio on pbs.org states, "Perhaps Wise's strongest political commitment was to the establishment of a Jewish state.") What an ingrate, for kicking his peoples' greatest historic friend for centuries, in order to help ensure the creation of Israel.... which would never have sprung roots without the Ottomans, in the first place. (It was the Sultans who allowed the Jews to settle in Palestine, in large numbers.) This other phony man of the book, the counterpart of the dishonest missionaries, wrote: "I am greatly concerned about the Armenian problem," fearing for "the entire liberation of Armenia."
Balakian quotes former President Theodore Roosevelt as being afraid of hypocrisy if the United States were not to go to "war with Turkey." It was one time Teddy was speaking loudly, and carrying a little stick. The hypocrisy came in the form of recognizing only the suffering of the Christians of the destroyed Ottoman Empire. (A slippery Armenian lawyer, Cardashian, apparently had Roosevelt’s ear.)
Meanwhile, the missionary Barton, for all his public talk in not wishing to go to war with the Ottomans, privately is said to have expressed the thought that "only under limited conditions should the Turks rule themselves." Barton almost got his wish, had the Sevres Treaty been ratified, allowing for the Turks to be reduced to the status of an Indian reservation.
I love this part of the book where Balakian is now criticizing the missionaries, the Armenians' greatest co-slanderers against the Turks, because the missionaries served as forces holding back America's desire to wipe the floor with what was left of the Turks. Had America bullied her way in, surely there would have been the "Greater Armenia" the Armenians have been salivating over.... in their historic desire to get free land while others do their fighting for them.
Alice Stone Blackwell
In 1918, the American Committee for the Independence of Armenia (ACIA) was formed, led by politicians and government officials, including New York Governor Al Smith.(so that was the inspiration for Armenian butt-kissing NY Gov. George Pataki). Also joining this committee were the hopelessly Armenian-romantic Alice Stone Blackwell, and the hopelessly Zionist Rabbi Stephen Wise.
A "catalyst" for the ACIA was an Armenian-American attorney, Vahan Cardashian, who originated from Kayseri, Turkey... and had emigrated to the New Land in 1902, at age 19. He graduated from Yale (!) only six years later, and married a wealthy New York socialite. Wow, some of these Armenians sure can be wily. The socialite was an activist in the women's movement, just like Alice Stone Blackwell, who had her pretty head turned by another wily Armenian. Cardashian similarly infiltrated the inner world of the elite, and (along with being "an attorney in diplomatic circles") got the ears of several big shots like ex-President Roosevelt.... no doubt filling their heads with one version of the Armenians' fabrications, just like Alice Stone Blackwell's lover. He learned his mother and sister had been "killed by Turkish gendarmes," and stormed into the office of the Turkish ambassador (where he worked as an attorney), cursed him out, and quit. (He also was hired for the Chester group in 1913, an American business alliance.)
I wonder who told Cardashian Turkish gendarmes were responsible for these deaths? If the Turkish gendarmes were as bloodthirsty as to kill two innocent women, it stands to reason they would have had no reason to leave anyone alive. (I’m reminded of the trial of Talat Pasha’s assassin, and the point where the D.A. questioned, “…Armed Kurdish bandits attacked the caravan in a pass and even many Turkish gendarmes were killed trying to protect the caravan. Would the defendant please answer whether or not they were attacked by Kurdish bandits?” The defendant replied: “I was told that it was the Turkish gendarmes who opened fire on us.”)
Cardashian sounds like he was not exactly a fair and level-headed individual, behaving toward the Turkish ambassador the way he did. What if the ambassador’s relatives were among the 500,000-600,000 Turks killed at the hands of Armenian guerillas? Would it have been appropriate for the ambassador to have blamed Cardashian?
Cardashian became a very potent propagandist, as the missionary, Dr. James Barton (residing in Boston, Massachusetts… Alice Stone Blackwell’s “Armenian Country”), complained in his May 6, 1921 reply to Admiral Bristol:
With reference to the false reports that come through reporting massacres of the Armenians by the Turks, there is no one who can deprecate this more than I do. But there is a situation over here which is hard to describe. There is a brilliant young Armenian, a graduate of Yale University, by the name of Cardashian. He is a lawyer, with office down in Wall Street, I believe. He has organized a committee, so-called, which has never met and is never consulted, with Mr. Gerard as Chairman. Cardashian is the whole thing. He has set up what he calls an Armenian publicity bureau or something of that kind, and has a letterhead printed. Gerard signs anything that Cardashian writes. He told me this himself one time, Cardashian is out with his own people and with everybody else, except Gerard and perhaps one other leading Armenian who was in London a month ago, Pasdermadjian (NOTE: that would be the terrorist from the Ottoman Bank episode, “Garo”). Not long since Cardashian came out with a pamphlet in which he charged the Near East Relief and the American missionaries as being the greatest enemies Armenia has ever had, claiming that they, in cooperation with President Wilson, had crucified Armenia, and a lot of other matter of this character. He claims to have the latest and fullest information out from Armenia and keeps in pretty close touch with Senator Lodge, the President, the State Department, and others in Washington. He has Gerard’s backing. We have had many a conference with Armenian leaders as to what can be done to stop this vicious propaganda carried on by Cardashian. He is constantly reporting atrocities which never occurred and giving endless misinformation with regard to the situation in Armenia and in Turkey. We do not like to come out and attack him in public. That would injure the whole cause we are all trying to serve…”
Dr. Barton is heartsick the Armenian ingrates he had devoted years in defending (where Barton had done his share of defaming Turks, now getting a taste of his own medicine) would turn around and attack him, as well: “I probably have suffered as much from the lack of appreciation on the part of Armenians as anyone. For twenty-five years I have worked for them, I doubt if there is anyone in the country that has been more frequently attacked than have I, from Cardashian down.”
Cardashian appears to have lost all sense of reality, with vengeance on his mind… he obviously had no morality, when he attacked the Armenians’ greatest friends the way he did. He would have no problem in going on to similarly distort the truth and make up wild stories, anything as long as the Turks looked evil in the eyes of Westerners. I sense Balakian could identify with the moment Cardashian cursed out the ambassador, as once Balakian learned the “truth” about the genocide (As he reported in his memoir, “Black Dog of Fate”), he too became obsessed… and followed in Cardashian’s footsteps. The only difference is that Balakian did not have to make up as many stories as his role model… there is such an abundance of Armenian tall tales by now, all Peter needed to do was pick and choose among the available horror stories. (The "Acknowledgments" in the back of his book consists of a very long list... the author did not have to do much footwork, it would appear.)
Balakian also relates the story of Aurora Mardiganian, who arrived in the U.S. as a 16-year-old in Nov. 1917. An Armenian family took her in and placed ads in search of her surviving brother; these ads caught the eye of journalists, eventually publishing her story. A 24-year-old screenwriter (Harvey Gates) and wife soon became Aurora's legal guardians and thus RAVISHED ARMENIA was born... first as a book. Aurora's Armenian guardian, Nora Waln, "verified her truth of Aurora's story." (Oh? Was Nora an eyewitness, all the way from America?)
RAVISHED ARMENIA
The movie was produced by Col. William Selig, and directed by Oscar Apfel, and starred Irving Cummings and Anna Q. Nilsson. When Aurora saw actors with red fezzes, "she fell into terror." Breaking down in the middle of the scene, she said, "I thought they were going to give me to the Turks to finish my life." Balakian helpfully adds, "Today we would call Aurora's response post-traumatic shock." Film critic Anthony Slide wrote, much to Balakian's delight, the book and film were "relatively sanitized versions of what (she) actually suffered and witnessed." That would be Anthony Slide, film critic and part-time historian.
Balakian then relates a most horrendous atrocity story which he hopes the reader will accept as fact. Most readers will, of course, which is what Balakian is counting on. And why shouldn't they? It came from the mouth of a teen-aged girl, who endured and witnessed "torture, mass rapes, the crucifixion of women (through their vaginas, if you must know; kind of the way "Vlad the Impaler" killed Turks), the sale of women into slavery and harems (harems?), and the notorious 'game of swords'"... who proved much tougher than the beastly Turks by somehow surviving and appearing in a Hollywood movie just a few years later.
The editor of Variety, Sime Silverman, wrote the movie should not be taken as "a truthful representation" (at last! An independent thinker who refuses to go along with obvious propaganda...); no, Sime then wrote what the Turks did was much worse (uh-oh), and "If RAVISHED ARMENIA in time may be given credit for the removal of Turkey from the map of the world, it will have helped in part to avenge Armenia and to have been of immeasurable benefit to civilization." (Whew! For a moment there, I was worried that old Slime… that is, Sime… might have actually gone overboard.)
When Aurora was paraded around the nation as a kind of "Joan of Arc of Armenia" freak show, she threatened suicide (hey! Even the Turks did not succeed in getting her to do that)... and Gates then sent her to a convent school and hired Aurora look-alikes. Aurora sued Gates for the seven thousand he owed her (did she receive it? If you're going to tell the story, follow through), married an Armenian-American in 1929 after getting over her sexual violence trauma from the "death marches" (is it right to call such as "death marches," when there were so many survivors?), and lived until 1994.
Henry Morgenthau, by then “National Vice-Chairman of Near East Relief” (the Near East folks were behind the making of the movie), appeared in the film as himself. While Mr. Balakian lists half a dozen other actors who appeared in the film within his footnotes, for some reason he left out Morgenthau's participation. Too hokey an activity for Balakian’s megalomaniacal hero?
As President Wilson was preparing to leave for Paris in 1918, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story was released to "wide critical acclaim," probably doing far more propagandistic damage than the foolish film ever would.
Before leaving for the Paris Peace Conference, Wilson gave short "Four Minute" speeches regarding the starving children of the Near East. Does not a true Christian recognize suffering of all humanity, regardless of religious belief or race? What about the starving Muslim children? I suppose Wilson's preacher father didn't read his Bible very carefully.... and neither did Woodrow Wilson.
Armin Theophil Wegner, Armenian-obsessed by this point, wrote Wilson (in a Feb. 23, 1919 open letter published in Tageblatt in Berlin) that the Armenians were a "highly civilized nation" (which they went on to prove by attacking neighbors Azerbaijan and Georgia, as well as provoking Turkey into war, and later in 1992, ethnically cleansing many defenseless Azerbaijani citizens and forcing close to a million people out of their homes); Wegner expressed his desire that the Armenian districts of Russia should be "joined with the Armenian provinces of Anatolia and Cilicia to form one common country entirely liberated from Turkish rule." But, Armin! If the millions of Turks who lived in those regions were to be placed under such Armenian control, today there would have been practically *zero* Muslims living in those regions... just as is the case with Armenia today, which once had a Muslim majority not too long ago. Armin, when you profess to care for humanity, why would you do so selectively?
In Soviet Armenia today there no longer exists a single Turkish soul.
Sahak Melkonian, Preserving the Armenian Purity, 1920
Admiral Bristol expressed this sentiment well, in his letter to James Barton: “I am not disgusted with the Armenians, and I pity them; but I cannot believe in the idea of the establishment of an independent Armenia in a country where not 25% of the people are Armenians. I do not believe the Armenians are able to govern themselves, and especially should not be allowed to govern other people; and certainly, if any of the other races here in this part of the country are under the Armenians, they are going to be submitted to oppression and outrage.”
Putting aside that the misgoverning Armenians were almost relieved when they gave up the country to the Soviet Union in late 1920, given the deplorable state of Armenia today, Bristol was right on the money regarding the Armenians’ ability to govern themselves.
In Chapter 24, Peter Balakian pulls out the stops with his look at “The Rise of a New Turkish Nationalism and the Campaign Against Armenia.” The author charges the Turks invaded Transcaucasian Armenian areas, “massacring Armenian civilians including women and children and laying waste to towns and villages.” Well, we’re used to Peter Balakian making such claims… he has already become like a broken record at this point; I’m surprised there were even any Armenians left to massacre by this period, if we are to believe what he has been shrieking thus far. However, for the first time, he admits something new: the Armenians attacked reciprocally. The reason: revenge for the 1915 genocide. Listen to this:
“Today, the Turkish government, in its efforts to deny the Armenian Genocide, points primarily to these 1918 killings as evidence that Ottoman Armenians did equal damage to the Turks, and thus deserved to be exterminated as an entire race in 1915. It is an equation, of course, that makes no sense – either historically, politically, or morally – and is part of the Turkish attempt to deny historical truth.”
Yes, Peter has certainly proven himself as quite the harbinger of “historical truth” by now. However, when he begins to present himself as a judge of morality, he is giving the word “chutzpah” brand new meaning. Even in the one paragraph in his entire book where he allowed himself to "confess" the crimes of his people against the Turks, he still couldn't resist making the Turks sound like monsters.
“Deserved to be exterminated as an entire race in 1915”? Oh, is that what the Turkish government has said? When has the Turkish government ever said such a thing?
Is Peter Balakian putting words in the mouths of others, like his hero, the man of "high moral conscience," Henry Morgenthau... allowed his ghostwriter to do?
The Armenians were all set to attack by the end of 1914, as soon as the Russians declared war (Nov. 2), as we’ve seen earlier… and attack they did, as even the anti-Turkish New York Times attested in Nov. 7, 1914. An excellent taste of pre-1918 Armenian atrocities may be seen in The 1915 Armenian Revolt in Van: Eyewitness Testimony… and Documentation of Massacres upon Turks by Armenians.
From Justin McCarthy’s
“The Destruction of Ottoman Erzurum by Armenians”:
At least 300,000 Muslims fled Erzurum when the Russians advanced in 1916. However, even the Muslims who remained behind were far less likely to be killed than those of Van or Bitlis... This does not mean that Turks did not suffer massacre during 1916 and 1917. These massacres seem to have been almost entirely at the hands of Armenian bands….
An Austrian journalist (Dr. Stephan Eshnanie) on the scene reported:
All the villages from Trabzon to Erzincan and from Erzincan to Erzurum are destroyed. Corpses of Turks brutally and cruelly slain are everywhere. I am now in Erzurum, and what I see is terrible. Almost the whole city is destroyed. The smell of corpses still fills the air.
The Armenians were retreating before the Ottoman Army. They were in danger. Yet they stopped whenever they could to kill the innocent Muslims of Erzurum, despite the risk to their own safety. This kind of hatred and madness cannot be explained. It is often falsely claimed that the Turks committed a genocide of the Armenians. Yet this was the real genocide, a genocide of the Turks.
At the end of the war, one-third of the Muslims of Erzurum Province were dead.
(Holdwater note: the pre-war [1912] Muslim population in Erzurum was 804,400; of course not all of the “one-third” figure were killed by Armenians. However, if one adds the Muslim casualties of Van and Bitlis, where Muslims took a heavier toll at the hands of the Armenians, along with casualties from the other provinces, one can readily understand the 500,000-600,000 Muslims who were murdered directly by Armenians [with some Russian help] is no exaggeration. More Turks were massacred by Armenians than the 300,000-600,000 Armenians… who lost their lives from all causes combined… were massacred by Turks. The total number of Turks/Muslims who were killed from all causes combined was over 2.5 million.)
George Nathaniel Curzon
Lord Curzon
A quote is presented here by Lord Curzon (from Kinross’ “Ataturk,” 1964): “Turkey had for centuries been “a source of distraction, intrigue and corruption… of unmitigated evil to everybody concerned.” It's a pity Curzon started taking after his Turk-hating boss, Lloyd George; earlier in life (when he had written an 1854 book abut the region, while taking breaks from shooting tigers in India), he appeared to be more even-handed.
Balakian writes Ataturk “lied” to General Harbord when he said that he was committed to “fair and just treatment of all races and religions.” Oh? That’s exactly the way Ataturk conducted his nation’s policies, in the years ahead. Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos himself nominated Ataturk for a Nobel Peace Prize, in 1934.
See, opposition to the Armenians “galvanized the Kemalists,” along with the Greek troops in Smyrna in May 1919. I believe when invaders threaten to take away the land where you have lived for a millennium, that would serve to provide an incentive to do something.
Why am I not surprised to read Balakian claim “the Turks would burn Smyrna to the ground after killing tens of thousands of Greeks and Armenians.” It defies common sense for anyone to burn one’s own major city, particularly after the rest of one’s country lay in ruins.
“There was scarcely a newspaper of importance in the United States that did not editorially lay that outrage at the door of the Turks, without waiting to hear the Turkish version, yet, after it had been attested by American, English, and French eye-witnesses, and by a French commission of inquiry, that the city had been deliberately fired by the Greeks and Armenians in order to prevent it falling into Turkish hands, how many newspapers had the courage to admit that they had done the Turks a grave injustice?” (E. Alexander Powell, "The Struggle for Power in Moslem Asia," 1923)
Balakian claims the Turks were the ones to “invade Armenia.” He writes, “By the fall of 1920, the Kemalist army was acting on its commitment to destroy Armenia.” He proudly presents a map of “Greater Armenia” encompassing much of eastern Turkey, awarded to Armenia by President Wilson via the Treaty of Sevres. (By what right did President Wilson make such an “award,” anyway? Would President Wilson have respected another nation arbitrarily assigning Texas, California and New Mexico as “Greater Mexico”?) Mr. Balakian outright claims “Kemal launched an offensive against the Armenian Republic in September 1920.” (The source: Christopher Walker, Armenophile Extraordinaire.)
However, here’s what someone else wrote: “We were not afraid of war because we thought we could win... When the skirmishes had started the Turks proposed that we meet and confer. We did not do so and defied them. Our army was well fed and well armed and [clothed] but it did not fight. The troops were constantly retreating and deserting their positions; they threw away their arms and dispersed in the villages.” Doesn’t sound like the Turks were the aggressors, to me. The source: none other than Hovhannes Katchaznouni, Armenia's First Prime Minister… from his 1923 Manifesto.
Woodrow Wilson believed he had the right to give away others' lands
Peter Balakian misrepresents facts further by claiming the Armenians “fought valiantly.” According to American eyewitnesses, the cowardly Armenians hid “in the Near East Relief orphanages and hospitals with the children.” (Edward Fox, Commander of the Near East Relief group in Kars, Bristol Papers) Again, Mr. Balakian’s nose grows by claiming the Armenian army was “underequipped.” “The Turks were very badly clothed and.... were far inferior to the Armenians,” is what Edward Fox reported… confirming Katchaznouni’s assertion that his “army was well fed and well armed and [clothed].”
Peternocchio goes on to shamefully write, just as he has been throughout his entire exercise in deceit: “What ensued was another Turkish massacre of innocent Armenian civilians, women, and children, and then the pillaging, looting and raping. In the end, six thousand Armenians were killed.” Edward Fox: “There were no massacres except certain Armenians were killed and this was reported to be for crimes committed."
(The Near East Relief Americans whom Fox led were charged with providing care for several thousand Armenian war orphans in the city…. they were anything but “pro-Turkish.”)
In the words of Admiral Bristol, George T. White, of the near East Relief Committee, had the following to say in regard to claims that the Turkish forces had massacred Armenians in the city:
"… Mr. White stated that he did not know of any massacres and did not believe there had been any, except in the case of two villages where some Turkish officers had been killed by the Armenians and in retaliation the Turks had wiped out these villages... “
Had there been similarly truthful American eyewitnesses in Van and other areas in 1915, you can be sure we would have accurate accounts as to what truly happened to the Turks/Muslims in these areas, at the hands of the bloodthirsty Armenians. There is documentation by non-Turkish eyewitnesses, as with Rafael de Nogales (Four Years Beneath the Crescent, 1926; a book made available by Gomidas, an Armenian organization... since the author reported enough damning events regarding the Turks), describing 1915 events: "Garo Pasdermichan, passed over with almost all the Armenian troops and officers of the Third Army to the Russians; to return with them soon after, burning hamlets and mercilessly putting to the knife all of the peaceful Mussulman villagers that fell into their hands." "When the Armenians of the vilayet of Van rose en masse against our expeditionary army in Persia; thus giving rise to bloody and terrible occurrences..."
Major E. W. C. Noel of the British Army toured through “the area occupied and devastated by the Russian Army and the Christian army of revenge accompanying them, during the spring and summer of 1916,” reporting: “Russians acting on the instigation and advice of Armenians who accompanied them murdered and butchered indiscriminately any Muslim member of the civil population who fell into their hands. A traveler through the Rowanduz and Nell districts would find widespread wholesale evidence of outrageous crimes are committed by Christians on Muslims." (Borian II, pg. 82)
Admiral Bristol wrote in his March 28, 1921 letter to missionary James Barton: “As long ago as last July I reported officially to the Department that there were strong Bolshevik feelings amongst the Armenians and that many of the Army officers were Bolshevik in sentiment. I stated then it was only a question of time when Armenia would go Bolshevik. Armenia did turn Bolshevik and was not compelled to do so by the Russians.” In his 1923 manifesto, Hovhannes Katchaznouni concurred: “The Bolsheviks entered Armenia without meeting any resistance. This was the decision of our Party… It was our desire to let the Bolsheviks rule the country without any obstruction, to remain loyal to the new government, to cooperate with their useful work.”
Balakian, however, tries to give the impression the Armenians fought hard against the Russians until they had no choice for the following reason: “The Armenians… realized that it was better to join the Soviet Union than to be decimated for good by the Turks.” No, the Armenians betrayed the West and reneged on the $50 million loan given in good faith by the United States in 1919, simply because it served their selfish interests. If the Turks had wanted to "decimate" the Armenians, what was to stop them after their soldiers refused to fight, and they were thoroughly defeated? Someone ought to inform Mr. Balakian that a historian does not editorialize; a true historian is only interested in presenting the unbiased facts.
A very small group, the “Leftist Dashnags” did oppose the Bolsheviks, and they staged a counter-revolt against the Soviets on February 18, 1921, according to Hovhannes Katchaznouni. As a result, Simon Vratzian, the last Prime Minister, contacted Bahaeddin Bey, Turkey’s representative in Erevan, on March 18, 1921:
“Please forward the present request promptly to your high authorities... The Armenian Government requests the Government of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, that... it... give the Armenian army some ammunition... [and] communicate with us, if the Government of the Grand National Assembly finds it possible to send military aid to Armenia, and if able to do so, to what extent and when ?... “
How ironic Armenia would turn to the one country for help that the dishonest “historian” wrote would ultimately “decimate” them. (Let us keep in mind the above serves as another major hole in genocidal theory. Imagining Nazi Germany had survived in a weaker state after WWII, and imaginng a created Israel appealing for help against stronger Arab neighbors, can anyone imagine Israel pleading for Nazi Germany to give assistance?) Since Armenia turned independent again, the only decimation that has taken place has been on the part of the Armenians, against the Turkic Azerbaijanis. (An aggression that was actually rewarded by the U.S. Congress, thanks to Armenia’s powerful lobby.)
In Chapter 25, Balakian covers the 1919 Ottoman kangaroo courts that offered no due process, their purpose was recrimination, and the defendants said anything and everything to save their own necks.
The author makes the interesting claim that there were “almost a million” British soldiers stationed throughout the Ottoman Empire after the Armistice (in November 1918). Funny, Dr. Dennis Papazian wrote in his “Misplaced Credulity”: “Some partisans may attempt to dismiss the Turkish war crimes trials as biased because they were held while the British occupied Constantinople. In fact, this allegation of the influence of a British occupation is not entirely true since the trials began before the British sent troops into the city.”
(How fascinating that Dennis Papazian would use the word "partisan" in a way that indicates he is so neutral and fair-minded.)
There is a big contradiction there, and this serves as quite a pickle; which deceitful Armenian “historian” to believe? I believe in this case, Mr. Balakian’s story makes more sense.
Balakian goes to lengths to explain the word “deport” was in fact, code for “to destroy.” Some of the Turks confessed they were involved in massacres, but we already know that was the case. During the war, in fact, at least twenty Turks were executed for crimes against the Armenians, along with others punished in less severe ways. That was DURING the war. (Where the total of those accused of committing crimes against the Armenians and brought to trial was a mind-bogglingly high 1,397. [Gurun, "The Armenian File."] To repeat, this was DURING the war.) With the 1919 kangaroo courts politically aimed at those who brought the Ottoman Empire into such a disastrous war, many individuals were sentenced to varying degrees of punishment for offenses ranging from violations of military order (such as leaving a post without permission) to failing to properly carry out the order under which the Ottoman Armenians of eastern Anatolia were relocated. Sixty-two officials were sentenced to death (According to "An Unjust Trial") and executed (Balakian claims only three were executed; I cannot say for sure that he is wrong, however the fact that he wrongly claimed 6,000 Armenians were massacred in Kars, above, is still very fresh in my mind); six CUP members were tried in absentia and four were sentenced to death. (Sentences carried out in the case of some by Armenians [as members of the A.R.F. assassination squad, Nemesis], one of the rare times they loyally obeyed Ottoman orders.)
Nothing presented here ties in the central government to an extermination policy; it would require a great jump for an officer to construe “to destroy” if an order read “deport.” (And probably the word used was “relocate” or “resettle,” not “deport”… which means banishment outside a country’s borders.)
It sounds like Mr. Balakian is attempting to make no distinction between the 1919 Ottoman kangaroo courts, and the Malta Tribunal. (He slyly blends them both together within two paragraphs on pg. 344, going from the end of 1919 to 1921. What did he think the British were doing for over a year in between?) These were two separate proceedings, and the latter came about mainly because the British suspected the questionable standards of what were, after all, kangaroo courts; Britain not only desired, but some in the administration probably felt an obligation to live up to the mountain of wartime accusations built to the fever pitch level... that Wellington House exposed their public to; the British wanted to make sure to be in charge of their own “Nuremberg.”
(Interestingly, however, based on new discoveries in the British archives, Lloyd George actually considered buying the Ottomans -- via Enver Pasha -- out of the war, for a sum of $25 million. [Keith Hamilton Historian, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Caillard to Zaharoff, 30 Aug 1918] That carries the implication of a pardon for any alleged war crimes. That goes to show how even the hateful British leader was serious in regards to the punishment threats his nation was making.)
Balakian tells us: By the end of 1919, British forces were reduced from a million to “only” 320,000, and thus the British commitment “continued to wane.” Based on British archives, however, the investigation was still going strong. As late as July 13, 1921, the British were so desperate to dig up legitimate evidence, they contacted their own embassy in Washington, where part of the (by now familiar) reply came as follows:
I regret to inform your Lordship that there was nothing therein which could be used as evidence against the Turks who are being detained for trial in Malta. The reports seen made mention of only two names of the Turkish officials in question—those of Sabit bey and Suleyman Faik Pasha — and even in these cases the accounts given were confined to the personal opinions of the writers; no concrete facts being given which could constitute satisfactory incriminating evidence.
British Archives: PRO—F. 0. 371/
6504/E.8515 R.C. Craigie, British
Charge d’Affairs at Washington, to
Lord Curzon, Telegram No 722 of
July 13, 1921
Balakian inflates the importance of “forty two incriminating documents” referred to as “the Key Indictment” (one is a cipher telegram from Dr. Behaeddin Shakir, which Balakian spotlights; it is one I have examined in “Three Professors Attempt to Smear Heath Lowry,” as “Genocidal Proof?” and it miserably fails to hold up under analysis. If any of these were so “powerful,” what would have been the point of Lord Curzon to search as far and wide as to the archives in America… by July 1921? Everything was already at hand to convict the Malta Turks with these documents of “the Key Indictment.” Obviously, the British must have significantly disagreed with Mr Balakian (and Vahakn Dadrian, cited in this chapter), as to the legitimacy of these documents.
The author suggests Winston Churchill freed the Malta prisoners “in exchange for the British prisoners the Turks were holding.” In reality, the British were fast becoming aware that they had naively given into propaganda, basically accepting information from the Armenian Patriarch. On July 19, 1920, Churchill submitted to his Cabinet a secret memorandum which partly stated, ”It seems to me that this list (of Turkish prisoners) should be carefully revised by the Attorney General, and that those men against whom no proceedings are contemplated should be released at the first convenient opportunity." By March 16, 1921, it was the embarrassed British who offered to exchange the deportees of Malta (held by then for an unreasonable twenty months) for the British prisoners of war. Yet, the British still continued to keep searching, until finally the case had to be dropped… not from “wartime fatigue” (imagine releasing the Nazi prisoners at Nuremberg for such a reason: “Herr Goering, you are forgiven, and free to go. We are tired, and prefer to put the war behind us.”), but because there simply was no evidence. By the end of October, 1921, the last of the prisoners were released.
In “About the Author,” we can learn Mr. Balakian was “the first Director of Colgate’s Center for Ethics and World Socities.”
Peter Balakian has as much to do with “Ethics” as Albert Schweitzer can be accepted as a fraternal twin of Idi Amin Dada. Hold on to your seats, now…
Peter Balakian loses all hints of ANY credibility when he brings up the trial of Soghoman Tehlirian by the end of the chapter, and claims the Andonian forgeries of the Talat Pasha telegrams were submitted in the trial. Tehlirian's "Dream Team" of Berlin's best Armenian-financed lawyers tried their best to slip the forgeries in, but the chief defense attorney, von Gordon, himself decided not to ("In view of the position taken by the District Attorney and the effect it has had on the jurors, I would like to cancel my motion to have these telegrams read into the record"). Most of the transcript and related trial materials may be accessed at TAT, but regardless, these forgeries were available when Andonian’s Naim Bey book was released in 1920. The Malta Tribunal was looking for exactly such evidence, and these were passed up for obviously having been fake. It’s astounding that Peternocchio lacks such integrity that he actually attempts to fool his reader into thinking these telegrams were real.
(Prof. Norman Stone also corners Balakian on this very point, in a response to Balakian's defensive letter to a negative review of his book.)
It’s difficult to believe Armenian historians who present twisted facts do so for reasons other than cold calculation. After all, we must conclude they had to research material that don’t support their views, and there is too much of it that cannot be put in the category of “Turkish lies.” Therefore, these so-called historians know the truth, but they either withhold information, or they try to find ways to discredit these other sources… Cardashian-style smear campaigns are one of the Armenians’ age-old weapons. Sure, all these historians like Vahakn Dadrian and Richard Hovannisian have their personal demons regarding hatred of Turks... but they still must be rational enough to distinguish true fact from true fiction. The rank and file of regular Armenians don’t rely on other sources, and the bulk of these brainwashed “Armeni-Lemmings” exclusively believe what their historians tell them.
I suppose it would be possible for Peter Balakian to be an unusual hybrid. He started out as another Armeni-Lemming, closing his eyes to everything but propagandistic Armenian historiography. As he became more obsessed, and given the research skills he has showcased in the writing of this book, we have to conclude he had to force himself to look in avenues that were anathema to him. However, at that point, when he inevitably came across irrefutable sources that his deep beliefs could not possibly have supported, did he say, “Uh-oh. I had better do my best to cover this up,” as Dadrian and Hovannisian undoubtedly do? As the intelligent man Balakian comes across as, that can be the only reasonable conclusion. This is why his still trying to present the forged telegrams as legitimate evidence demonstrates an inexcusable lack of ethics.
However, I suppose it would be possible Mr. Balakian has become such an ingrained Armeni-Lemming, that even when the time came for him to conduct serious research the typical Armeni-Lemming would have no reason to get into, he would actually believe in the authenticity of these telegrams. That is too spooky an option to even contemplate. Therefore, I am going to continue believing he is merely unethical, and not pathologically delusional.
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Part IV: Chapters 26-27
General Harbord
Chapter 26, “The American Mandate for Armenia,” opens with a quote from General Harbord: “We literally dreamed Armenia and massacres.” I’d say those who vehemently became so pro-Armenian definitely dreamed of an Armenia in place of Turkey, and definitely dreamed up the many massacres that did not take place. (The song with the line, “I’m a dreamer… ‘cause dreaming can make you mine,” illustrates the hopes dreaming provides, when we desperately want something to be true.)
“While… in the spring of 1919… the fledgling Armenian Republic was trying to survive assaults from Turkey…” Balakian begins. We’ve already provided American and Armenian sources regarding who was assaulting whom, and the aggressor certainly was not the torn-apart nation of Turkey... and least not with lands the Turks did not own before WWI began. Balakian is referring to the period shortly after December 14, 1918, when Armenia attempted a land grab attempt by launching a surprise and unprovoked attack on its neighbor, Georgia. Days later, the premier of Georgia declared: “Who had ever heard of war over a few incidents in a village or two? The real explanation could be found in the character of Kachaznuni's government, which, like the wolf, eats the calf because such is its nature. That government could not live in peace and was obsessed with battling one or another of its neighbors, for like the wolf, it had to devour everything.” (Richard Hovannisian’s “The Republic of Armenia, Vol. 1”)
The chapter covers two fact-finding commissions to Turkey, the first being the King-Crane Commission. The author fills us in on who these men were: Henry C. King was a “theologian,” which sounds like he could have been a missionary (ADDENDUM: Hovannisian tells us in Republic of Armenia, p. 323, that King was the president of Oberlin College, the school for missionaries. King was not just a missionary, he was a missionary king!), and Charles R. Crane was a former secretary of the original Committee on Armenian Atrocities in 1915. Good, neutral, unbiased gentlemen. They interviewed many missionaries. Turks who were interviewed were unwilling to “accept the cession of any territory for the creation of a non-Turkish state.” (The very idea!)
I’ve read this report, and there were actually some parts that seemed open-minded, like the outlining of the secret treaties between England, France, Russia and Italy, regarding the carving up of the Ottoman Empire. Very briefly, the authors even allowed themselves to pay the following compliment:
One may recognize fully the agreeable and attractive personal qualities of the Turks that commonly make them the best liked, probably, of all the peoples of the Empire, and that almost unconsciously turn most foreigners who stay long in the country into pro-Turks.
However, King and Crane step into high gear afterwards, criticizing “the hideous misgovernment” over the years. It took a lot of doing to juggle the many incongruous elements within the empire, demonstrated by how former territories in the Balkans and the Middle East turned out to be the trouble spots of today. Professor Norman Stone wrote in “Where There's Trouble, There Were Ottomans,”: “A look back reveals that whatever the Ottomans' many shortcomings, they did manage for a time to maintain a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational empire with cosmopolitan cities. It was not democratic, to be sure, but it was less oppressive, for example, than other contemporaneous multi-ethnic empires such as Russia and China, and later the Soviet Union.”
Their main witness for the Armenian massacres is the British propagandist Lord Bryce, who was lovingly quoted as having said: "The record of the rulers of Turkey for the last two of three centuries, from the Sultan on his throne to the district Mutessarif, is, taken as a whole, an almost unbroken record of corruption, of justice, of an oppression which often rises into hideous cruelty.... Can anyone still continue to hope that the evils of such a government are curable? Or does the evidence contained in this volume furnish most terrible and convincing proof that it cannot longer be permitted to rule over subjects of a different faith?"
Here are my other favorite passages the authors wrote, to justify their “fair” dividing up of Turkish land:
The very fact of her age-long misrule, coupled with her occupation of territory of critical significance to the world, constitutes her a "menace to the freedom and security of all nations," and makes unusual restriction in her case necessary, for the greater good of the world and of her own subject peoples
(1) For Turkey is held, as Dominian has said, by "a people whose incompetence to convert nature's gifts into use or profit is historically patent." [ Dominian, "Frontiers of Language and Nationality In Europe," p. 236.] But striking as has been their economic failure, the failure of the Turks has been far more than merely external or material. She has acted rather as a kind of blight upon all the peoples she has conquered. As Ramsey — possibly too strongly — puts it: "The action of the Turks in every department of life has simply been to ruin, never to rebuild.... They destroyed the intellectual and moral institutions of a nation, they broke up and dissolved almost the entire social fabric; they undermined every educating and civilizing influence in the land, and they brought back a great part of the country to the primitive simplicity of nomadic life.... There is hardly a social institution in Asia Minor, showing any degree of social constructiveness, that is not an older Anatolian creation, Moslemized in outward form, and usually desecrated in the process."[ Ramsey, "Impressions of Turkey " pp. 264.]
(2) Now the evil of this blighting influence of Turkish rule is vastly increased because of the critical significance of the territory which she occupies… Turkey is simply not conceivably equal to a great world responsibility — and the larger world interests must prevail. Moreover it is certainly better for Turkey herself to be delivered from this intolerable responsibility, and to have her own government taken out of the midst of what has been through the centuries a center of boundless intrigue. The common people of Turkey would lead a much happier life in a state freed from outreaching imperialism, and at liberty to devote itself to the welfare of its own citizens.
Well, wasn’t that nice! (A… “blight”!)
The aforementioned was no doubt music to the ears of the British and French, likely most responsible for the suppression of the report because they did not like its other recommendations. The first part had to do with the Middle-Eastern territories won from Ottoman Turkey, and both world powers had their separate agendas in the oil-rich region. The British must also not have been happy about the part sticking up for the Palestinians, as Churchill and others were married to the Zionist cause, by then.
The second part of the chapter covers the “Harbord Mission.” President Wilson appointed Gen. James G. Harbord to lead an American military mission to Armenia, in order to avert “disaster… more terrible than massacres of 1915,” according to an American commissioner within Armenia, Maj. Joseph Green. (Reacting to news that the Turks were on the march.)
Upon meeting Ataturk, Harbord reported (in Balakian’s words, citing “Mustafa Kemal Pasha and His Party,” World’s Work, 1920) "Kemal ‘deprecated the Armenian massacres’ and blamed everything on ‘foreign intrigue.’" Such responses run contrary to false Ataturk quotes used by the Armenians, as with the (August 1, 1926) Los Angeles Examiner interview conducted by unknown Swiss journalist, Emile Hilderbrand.
Harbord’s report claimed "a conservative assessment of the number of Armenians killed," in Balakian’s words. The rest:
" ‘The official reports of the Turkish government’ showed 1.1 million Armenians to have been deported, and Harbord stated that ‘this wholesale attempt on the race,’ a premodern term for genocide, had taken about eight hundred thousand lives, although he noted that many other estimates placed the number at over a million."
Notice Mr. Balakian’s helpful reminder, "a premodern term for genocide." Yes, Peter, we get the idea your whole purpose is to remind the reader, "See? See, there was a genocide. Please, please believe me, there was a genocide."
I wonder where these ‘official reports of the Turkish government’ came from? The pre-war Ottoman census had the Armenian population at 1.3 million. Since there were 200,000 Armenians untouched from the Western part of the country, added to the 1.1 million these "official reports" claimed… does that mean the Turkish government concluded every single Armenian in the empire (aside from the 200,000 not subjected to the relocation policy) was "deported"? I don't know… something isn't right, here. The 1.3 million pre-war estimate, by the way, lies smack-dab in the middle of a dozen Western (therefore pro-Armenian) estimates, ranging from 1 to 1.6 million. Peter Balakian signed his name to a 1998 Armenian commemoration attesting to the survival of one million Armenians, also confirmed in a New York Times letter he co-wrote. So how could 800,0000 to one million Armenians have perished? I don’t know… something isn’t right there, either.
(According to the League of Nations Emigrants’ Committee, the number of Armenians who emigrated during the First World War from Turkey to Russia was between 400,000 and 420,000, updated to 500,000 by Richard Hovannisian. Arnold Toynbee wrote in early April 1916’s propagandistic “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire” that 500,000 of the deported Armenians were alive, a figure that perhaps increased as the relocation policy came to a close soon afterwards. Let’s not forget the 200,000 “untouched” Armenians. Once again, how could a pre-war mean population of 1.3 million have lost 800,000 to 1 million? And of those who did perish, did they all die of massacres? Richard Hovannisian wrote some 150,000 Armenians died of starvation, accompanying the Russian retreats, in a 1967 work. Many Armenians died of famine, disease, harsh weather, and combat… just like many Turks.)
Both commissions believed “the Turks would not stop trying to annihilate the Armenians unless a third party interceded.” (P. 357) Since no third party interceded, and Armenia is still standing around wreaking havoc today, it looks like both commissions were proven dead wrong. Gee… I wonder if there was anything else in these reports that the commissions could have been wrong about.
The initially pro-Armenian Niles and Sutherland also issued a 1919 report, finding the Armenians guilty of atrocities The report began by stating, “"In the entire region from Bitlis through Van to Bayezit we were informed that the damage and destruction had been done by the Armenians, who, after the Russians retired, remained in occupation of the country and who, when the Turkish army advanced, destroyed everything belonging to the Musulmans. Moreover, the Armenians are accused of having committed murder, rape arson and horrible atrocities of every description upon the Musulman population. At first we were most incredulous of these stories, but we finally came to believe them, since the testimony was absolutely unanimous…”
Niles and Sutherland’s report was suppressed by General Harbord. Professor McCarthy speculates, "One cannot help but believe that their evidence was not what those in power wished to hear."
(Ditto for those in power today, regarding the genocide industry. Let's make a note that "Peternocchio" completely ignored the Niles and Sutherland report, even though he undoubtedly knew about it.)
Balakian: “In the wake of renewed Turkish military assaults on Armenia, John Sharp Williams, democratic senator from Mississippi, presented a resolution endorsed by Near East Relief asking for immediate relief for the estimated one hundred thousand Christian and Jewish women and girls held captive in Turkish harems.” Well! That’s the first I’ve heard of Jews being held captive in… “harems.” (Brother.) It’s kind of heartwarming that there has been a precedent for gullible or self-serving politicians bringing up Armenian resolutions in Congress, based solely on the hogwash of Armenian propaganda.
Woodrow Wilson, possibly the greatest friend of the Armenians, would keep trying with the mandate idea, even though political interest in securing “Western Armenia” had plummeted. He declared, "We hold it to be the Christian duty and duty of our Government (shouldn’t a U.S. president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, be aware the founding fathers wanted nothing to do with Christianity in government?) to assume responsible guardianship of Armenia which now needs only the advice and assurance of a powerful friend…" No, President Wilson, you were very wrong. Armenia didn’t care for advice, nor assurance. Once they couldn’t get American boys to shed their blood to retain lands that didn’t belong to the Armenians, all they wanted from America was the almighty American dollar. This they succeeded in, with the procurement of a 1919 $50 million loan (at 5% interest; worth perhaps half a billion in today’s dollars) which the Armenians reneged on… along with $1.5 billion in the last decade or so, thanks to their powerful lobbies, freely given to the Armenians, with the United States getting nothing in return.
Chapter 27 is basically about how U.S. foreign policy shifted in favor of the Turks because of oil… although all the oil-rich lands taken from the Ottoman Empire were now in British hands. Turkey is an oil-importing nation today, and does not produce a drop of oil, to my knowledge.
"In 1914, just before the war had erupted, the British had bought out the remaining sectors of the Turkish Petroleum Company, including the Ottoman government’s share. Thus, by 1919, the British were the dominant oil power in the Middle East, controlling both (what is now BP) and the Turkish Petroleum Company." Further evidence the Turks had no pull with oil. "The allies had divided up Turkey’s oil fields among themselves,” “trying their best to keep the United States out of the picture."
Admiral Mark Bristol
Balakian then goes on to explain Adm. Mark Bristol "became in effect a public relations man for American business in Turkey." He “worked hard to bring the missionaries and the business community together." The author predictably made use of isolated quotes to make Bristol out to be a racist, such as "The Armenians are a race like the Jews: they have little or no national spirit and poor moral character."
Adm. Bristol was a great American who worked to preserve American interests, helping to make his nation stronger. The "American" side of Peter Balakian should recognize and appreciate that… unfortunately, his "Armenian" side overrides everything else. Let us remember people spoke from the hip in those politically incorrect days… especially a no-nonsense man of integrity like Bristol. In order to characterize one as a racist, we cannot take today’s morality and judge with hindsight. One has to take the complete works of what we know of Bristol, and see if he would qualify for the Imperial Wizard’s slot in the KKK. The letters of Bristol that I have read show incredibly high character… there is one in this site that readers can examine to judge for themselves. If Bristol were to go on and on in a fever-pitched tones about the sub-humanity of the Armenians, Greeks and Jews, I would then agree he was a racist… exactly like the way Ambassador Morgenthau has done with his writings about the Turks. Bristol was no more a racist than Abraham Lincoln, for having been known to use the word "nigger."
Americans like Bristol were promoting the "open door policy," "geared to promote American business interests, in particular the pursuit of oil."
No doubt American business was encouraged in Turkey… and rightly so, to help expand American influence and wealth. However, the business of pursuing oil had nothing to do with Turkey; Turkey had no oil. Soon, Balakian writes, American oil companies jockeyed into position, "gaining a foothold in the Middle East."
The author goes through the typically unfounded charges about how the Turks massacred Armenians in Cilicia, in 1920-21 as the French pulled their troops out (5,000 Marash Armenians decided to go along with the French, afraid of what the Turks might do to them. This is when the French left Marash in early 1920. 2-3,000 Armenians died from the conditions of the withdrawal, including famine, disease and the weather. Is there any doubt Peter Balakian would prefer to count these Armenians as among those who were "massacred"?)… along with the usual concoctions about Izmir (Smyrna). "In spite of Mark Bristol’s efforts to censor news from Smyrna," word reached the American people. Not only did word reach America, the newspapers were in a feeding frenzy with the disgusting lies and propaganda. People believed the Greeks and the Armenians were not responsible for the atrocities and burning of the city, because it was these very same propagandistic elements that conditioned people into believing the Greeks and Armenians were helpless victims, and the Turks were the savage barbarians.
Not incidentally, even one of the worst Turchophobes who ever existed, the religious fanatic consul at Izmir (Smyrna), wrote in his "Blight of Asia" work that Bristol was a man of honor and integrity. If Bristol tried to “censor” any news (and what is the proof that he did?), he was most likely attempting to prevent the false reports he was becoming all too familiar with, by now.
In his private March 28, 1921 letter to James Barton, Bristol wrote: "I see that reports are being freely circulated in the United States that the Turks massacred thousands of Armenians in the Caucasus. Such reports are repeated so many times it makes my blood boil. The Near East Relief have the reports from Yarrow and our own American people which show absolutely that such Armenian reports are absolutely false. The circulation of such false reports in the United States, without refutation, is an outrage and is certainly doing the Armenians more harm than good." Bristol knew exactly of Armenian shenanigans, and unlike Morgenthau, acted honorably and even-handedly. Bristol was wrong about the false reports doing the Armenians more harm than good, though; he obviously underestimated their power and influence in years to come, and certainly would never have dreamed a book like "The Burning Tigris" would still be taken seriously over eighty years later.
A young Allen Dulles
It was because of this outrage and his respect for the truth that Bristol requested "the State Department (to) exert pressure on the American press to shift their sympathetic tone toward Armenians." At Washington’s Near East desk, Allen Dulles had a problem with that request, as he believed the genocidal evidence to be "alas, irrefutable." Alas, Dulles’ mind must have been dulled with all the relentless Armenian propaganda, and he would have had no incentive to investigate with an open mind. Or perhaps there were other forces at work. Balakian tells us Dulles had to "deal with minority group pressure in the United States," and complained to Bristol: "I’ve been kept busy trying to ward off congressional resolutions of sympathy for (Armenians, Greeks and Palestinian Jews)."
Balakian then outlines "the final blow to Armenia," the Lausanne Treaty. The United States would not be an official presence in this deal with England, France and Italy, but sent three observers, including "the ever-present Admiral Bristol." Vahan Cardashian whined that "the Department of State became a concession-hunting agency for the Standard Oil Company." (Why is Peter Balakian wasting time quoting the lawyer, Cardashian? We know from the letter of Near East Relief’s James Barton what a lying snake he was… nothing he says can be trusted. Oh, wait. I forgot… we have also established Cardashian is kind of a role model for the author.) The Americans managed to get open passage for U.S. ships in the Dardanelles, and "an open-door policy for American business, especially oil business."
There is that "oil" reference again. Sure, Americans held oil in high regard… but what did oil have to do with the Turks?
The Turks were "adamantly against the idea of any settlement for the Armenians." That will happen when a minority turns traitor and joins the enemy upon the darkest hour of war, and when the minority massacres the bulk of over half a million of your people. Balakian states the "Turkish delegation maintained that the Armenian exodus from Turkey had been voluntary." Perhaps they were referring to the Armenians who decided on their own accord to go to Transcaucasia and other regions not under Ottoman control; I do not believe for one moment the Turks would have been so foolish as to expect anyone to believe the relocation policy would have been voluntary. If there is a source (a footnote at the end of another point but part of the same sentence refers to Joseph C. Grew’s diary; Grew was one of the three observers, and a minister to Switzerland), then perhaps something got lost in the translation.
"Barton noted that the Turks were fabricating tales of Armenian massacres of Turks." Perhaps the missionary could not have allowed himself to believe the atrocious crimes committed by Armenians, having heard only one side of the story (or choosing to believe only what he wanted to) but what is Peter Balakian’s excuse? Don’t tell me Peter Balakian, so obsessed with this topic, does not know of the crimes of his forefathers. Has he absolutely no conscience, in presenting a line like this… making it appear as though the thought was true?
Barton was aghast the Turks were unyielding, because the Armenians were around in "that country" a thousand years prior. Yes, but how much of that time were Armenians independent, and not ruled by others? (The Turks had freed the Armenians from their latest oppressive rulers, the Christian Byzantines.) Furthermore, I wonder if the good Christian missionary decided to give his home in Boston, Massachusetts back to the Indians.
The pope sent a message, crying for the Armenians to be saved from "further deportation and death." The Turks responded angrily, calling it "Christian propaganda," which Balakian mockingly reports. However… maybe it WAS "Christian propaganda"? Lausanne was ratified, and the only deportation and death between Armenians and Turkic peoples since has been in the hands of the Armenians, in 1992 Karabakh.
Taner Akcam
I’m sure Peter Balakian could appreciate further what the Armenians did by "buying" Taner Akcam. The ex-terrorist and escaped convict was given a job in Dennis Papazian’s university as a “visiting professor,” after having earned a degree in a German university, with no academic credentials that I could see. (As far as a faculty position in Germany.) I understand the Turkish community in Michigan succeeded in forcing out the putative scholar, who quickly found a new home in the Armenian-friendly University of Minnesota. (An institution which supports one of the most viciously one-sided “genocide studies” departments ever devised, backed by Armenian money.)
Now Peter Balakian can tell his unwary reader, "See. A Turk agrees with us." Taner Akcam may be a "Turkish historian" technically (in ethnic terms, at least with the “Turkish” part; if reports that his father was 100% Kurdish are untrue), but aside from sharing a common ethnicity, Taner is no Turk. Taner Akcam is 100% in agreement with Armenian propaganda. The footnote for his reference within this chapter comes from the Zoryan Institute (“The Genocide of the Armenians and the Silence of the Turks”), where Vahakn Dadrian has earned his bread and butter while vilifying the ethnic group these people love to hate.
Regardless, as invalid as a source may sound, I believe it is what’s being said that’s more important, rather than the source itself. Here, it says Akcam has had a problem with the "foundation myths" of Turkey, by creating a homogeneous national identity. If I’m understanding correctly, "Kemalism… (refused) to acknowledge that the new Turkish state had been built not from a war ‘against imperial powers,’ but by expunging ‘the Greek and Armenian minorities'."
Many of the Armenians who survived the relocation (Toynbee wrote 500,000 of the resettled were alive in April, 1916) were still within the nation; the Armenian Patriarch himself estimated up to 644,900 within the Empire after war's end (in 1921; the Patriarchal figure in 1918 was a whopping 1,260,000), added to the many who were refugees in other regions... such as 50,000 in Iran and 500,000 in Transcaucasia, according to Richard Hovannisian. (Again, the reason why "deportation" is the wrong word to use.) They were not "expunged" permanently, and were allowed to come back. (Whereas an addendum to Dennis Papazian’s “What Every Armenian Should Know” claimed, "Russia even forbade Armenian refugees, who had managed to flee the Genocide, from returning to their lands, which the Russian armies had overran (sic) during the war." Israel did not allow for 750,000 Palestinians forced out to return. Russia did not let their probable 702,900 deported Muslims to return. The Turks allowed for the Armenians to return.
Greece and Turkey allowed for a population exchange. That means if there were Greeks "expunged" from Turkey, there were Turks "expunged" from Greece. If Taner Akcam were a true Turk or a "historian" of integrity, he would not look at this issue from only the Armenian side. Similarly, what of the Turks "expunged" from Armenia? (1828: Muslim majority in Erevan. 1920: "Zero" Muslims left in Erevan.)
As far as "creating a homogeneous national identity"… I’d say Turkey was one land justified in doing so, given that one big reason why the Ottoman Empire withered and died was the nationalism of minorities, which led to revolts and breakaway nations. And is there any nation that frowns upon a "homogeneous national identity"? Does not Taner Akcam’s new Armenian-provided home, the United States of America, encourage such an identity… despite being a highly heterogeneous and multi-ethnic nation, just like Turkey? " ‘How happy is he who can call himself a Turk,’ was aimed not at ‘ethnic Turks’ but at those who shared in this nationality,” wrote Professor Norman Stone (in Where There's Trouble, There Were Ottomans); the Turncoat Turk should ask himself, What is the difference between ‘How happy is he that can call himself a Turk,’ and ‘Proud to be an American’?
One-time pro-Armenian George A. Plimpton wrote in 1926’s “The New Turkey”: "We believe in America for the Americans, why not Turkey for the Turks?" It makes perfect sense to me. I don’t know why it doesn’t make sense for Peter Balakian. Maybe he would prefer, “America for the Armenians first, and some other incidental Americans second.”
"Many Americans came to see how clearly the State Department had sold out the Armenians over political interests and the oil fields of the Mosul" Balakian writes tearfully. Political interests yes, but I still do not understand the “oil” connection. Turkey had nothing to do with "the oil fields of the Mosul."
ADDENDUM:
If this site is to be believed: "An administration staffed largely by British and Indian officials replaced the Ottoman provincial government in occupied Iraq, but Mosul remained in Ottoman hands until after the Armistice of Mudros (Oct. 30, 1918), which brought an end to the war in the Middle East."
This other site also confirms: "The modern state of Iraq was created in 1920, as part of a peace settlement following the war. The victorious Allies divided the Arab provinces of the former Ottoman Empire between them. Britain, which had occupied the provinces of Basrah and Baghdad for most of the war, and Mosul by the end of the war..."
Above is part of a map from TIME Magazine illustrating latter day action in Mosul, with "Operation Iraqi Freedom." Notice how far away it is from Turkey.
Looks like Peternocchio's nose has been growing again. The British were in charge of Mosul after the end of the war in 1918, and oil had nothing to do with the incentives Mr. Balakian would have us believe.
2005 ADDENDUM: Bickering continued for years afterwards; Turkey expressed desire to retain this area that was once a possession. But as far as the outside world was concenred, and as history has demonstrated, no amount of griping or pleading was going to get Mosul back in the hands of the Turks. (Mosul was a key prize, or war booty, the British were fighting for, proven by the Entente's secret treaties.) As TIME put it in an Oct. 27, 1924 article, "Turkey vs. Britain": "Agreement was impossible. Turkey set covetous eyes on Mosul, synonym for oil; Britain set faith on the adage 'possession is nine points of the law.;"
Balakian writes: "The pro (Lausanne) treaty (American) people sounded like the Turkish government, claiming now that the Armenian massacres had been exaggerated and that many Turks had suffered as well because of war, famine, and disease — only their sufferings ‘are less well known in the United States’." (The Turco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce, a report of the E.P.A. Foreign Policy Association 26 (1924), quoted in Aftandilian, Armenia, 61.)
The mystery deepens. Is Peter Balakian just dishonest like other Armenian (so-called) historians, or is he truly deluded?
Does he actually believe Turks did not suffer as well? He edited the re-issue of "Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story," where Balakian's own guru had the ghostwriter write "...About a million families were left without breadwinners, all of them in a condition of extreme destitution… As a result thousands were dying from lack of food and many more were enfeebled by malnutrition; I believe that the empire has lost a quarter of its Turkish population since the war started."
Now why a re-issued book would need an editor, I don’t know…. I hope it’s not for the same reason that the English edition of "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" was re-edited, where all references offering objectivity were deleted. I hope Peter Balakian did not re-write or edit passages like the above. Regardless, as the editor, how could he have ignored what was being said, and by Morgenthau himself… a source Balakian tells us had "high moral conscience"?
Unconscionable. And the Turks not only suffered from "war, famine, and disease"… but 500,000-600,000 innocent Turks were massacred by Balakian’s forefathers, with a little help from the Russians, out of the over 2.5 million who died from all causes. "Mr. Human Rights," Peter Balakian, has only referred to Armenian-massacres of Turks once, in just a quick paragraph, within his whole hoax of a book… and only in the context of how justified the Armenians were, by avenging their losses in the "genocide."
What Peter Balakian has inadvertently done (with the passage referring to what the pro-treaty people were saying) is tell the world that what the Turkish government has been saying about the Armenian "Genocide" has been the truth.
The Democrats voted unanimously against the Lausanne Treaty, in their proud tradition, along with Republicans, to believe everything the Armenians would tell them. The lobbies of the one million Armenians in America today can afford more than ever to keep American politicians in their pockets.
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Part VI: Epilogue
This is the section of the book where Peter Balakian has a field day in bringing events up to the present, utilizing all the many new sources and developments that affirm the Armenian “Genocide,” thanks in large part to the Armenians’ hypocritical allies, the “genocide scholars.”
We begin with a quote by Terrence Des Pres: “If the Holocaust was a hoax, why not the Armenian catastrophe also? If Anne Frank’s diary was faked, who is to say that certain documents signed by Talaat Pasha weren’t forged as well?…”
No Turk says the Armenians did not suffer a catastrophe. It was a catastrophe of their own making, by firing the first shot and rebelling against their own nation, where they had prospered for many centuries. The Turks suffered no less a catastrophe; more Armenians massacred Turks than Turks massacred Armenians. If Terry wishes to find a better parallel to the Holocaust, he may wish to keep in mind the following words from the "The Jewish Times” (June 21, 1990):
"An appropriate analogy with the Jewish Holocaust might be the systematic extermination of the entire Muslim population of the independent republic of Armenia which consisted of at least 30-40 percent of the population of that republic." (2006 ADDENDUM: According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia of 1926, Azeris constituted over 38% of the population of Armenia, in 1918. Today, Armenia is some 98% "pure.")
If the Holocaust was a hoax, why not the Turkish catastrophe also?
If Terrence Des Pres believed the Talat Pasha telegrams were not forged, it's unfortunate for his reputation that he must forever remain on record as an embarrassingly amateurish analyst.
Judith Herman
Balakian offers a description of criminal behavior from Judith Herman (“Trauma and Recovery”), in an attempt to lend weight to what Armenians like to call “The Turkish campaign of denial”: A criminal likes to “promote forgetting.” “Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense.” If that fails “the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim.” Otherwise, there is an attempt to make sure “no one listens,” by, as Balakian writes, “either blatantly denying or rationalizing his crime.”
It sounds like Judith Herman has hit the nail on the head, regarding the methods of the Armenians!
Balakian insists the Turks “planned the genocide.” Peter, you have failed in presenting any legitimate proof in your entire book. Hearsay stories of suffering people aside, testimonies of Morgenthau, missionaries, Bryce and others with conflicts of interest aside… you have failed to prove the Ottoman government planned an extermination policy. What you need are solid documents like the Talat Pasha telegrams… but you must make sure such documents are real. Just like what I’m doing with your pathetic book, exposing all your misrepresentations and falsehoods, if you want to make the world believe these telegrams (for example) are genuine, then you must take the proof against their legitimacy and try to disprove them. Just giving us your by-now-extremely-questionable word cannot cut the mustard.
Going on to present phony quotes from “Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story” on pg. 374 as you have done does not prove anything. If “Talaat and Enver admitted their plans to exterminate the Armenians,” why did the British not quickly close the book on the Malta Tribunal? Morgenthau’s ghostwritten book came out in 1918, before the Malta Tribunal even started. The British could have wrapped their case up by the following year, in line with the phony Ottoman kangaroo courts… well before they had a chance to become war-weary or needed to get back their prisoners-of-war, as you attempted to make your reader believe.
In criticizing Talat Pasha’s memoirs (partly published in the New York Times Current History; I still don’t understand how anyone could get their hands on his private memoirs, but I am assuming they are true), you say “Talaat’s strategy was to scapegoat the Armenians by claiming that the Russians used the Armenians to help them invade eastern Turkey.”
In describing Judith Herman’s points above, you wrote the behavior of a criminal includes “either blatantly denying or rationalizing (the) crime.” Now, it’s bad enough for people to see you as a latter-day Cardashian, saying anything and everything regardless of the facts… but now you’re getting uncomfortably close to Judith Herman territory. There is absolutely no doubt what Talat wrote was the truth.
The proof lies even in Armenian sources, as with the following Dashnak committee order: "As soon as the Russians have crossed the borders and the Ottoman armies have started to retreat, you should revolt everywhere. The Ottoman armies thus will be placed between two fires. On the other hand, the Armenians in the Ottoman army should desert their units with their weapons and unite with the Russians"
Since Mr. Balakian provided the silly opinions of Terrence Des Pres, it is only fitting I should call upon the testimony of another with a similar “middle name”: Philippe de Zara (“Mustapha Kemal, Dictateur,” Paris, 1936).
“…How can anyone deny that, in the opinion of the Turks, according to the law of all the states, the conduct of the Armenians, facilitating during the war the task of the adversary, can be recognized as anything but a crime of high treason?. . . The committees, divided among themselves for internal issues, were often in agreement to facilitate the advance of Russian armies: they were attempting to obstruct the retreat of Turkish troops, to stop the convoys of provisions, to form bands of francs-tireurs. Mass desertions took place in the Eastern provinces: Armenians thus formed many troops officered by Russian officers… The culpability of Armenians leaves no doubt.”
Balakian: A secretary of state under Herbert Hoover helped align his nation’s policy by drawing closer to Turkey on the basis that Turkey is not doing anything to undermine American interests. James Barton suddenly became “pro-Turkish” by trying to “keep the Turks looking west and away from the communist threat.”
These people were thinking of the big picture, and of America’s welfare. Perhaps Armenian-Americans don’t understand this, but if they are living in America, the welfare of their nation must generally supersede the interests of any other nation. Who could argue it was important to have a tough nation like Turkey to keep the Soviets in check? Europe slept more soundly, knowing that “big brother” Turkey was there to powerfully counter the Soviets, in case of an invasion. Would Peter Balakian prefer Turkey to have joined the Soviet Union, just as Armenia willingly did?
Rear Admiral Colby Chester
Would you buy a used car from this man?
Then it’s time to denigrate Rear Admiral Colby Chester, as so many pro-Armenians similarly attempted to defame when he was one of the few voices to write an objective article not based on the typical propaganda. Chester had a business concern in the Ottoman Empire, forming a valuable bridge between America and a nation that would prove herself to be among America’s most stalwart allies in years to come… and the Armenian “attacks the credibility of his victim” (in one of Judith Herman’s points to describe criminal behavior), by trying to find a connection between capitalism and dishonesty. The reader can examine the admiral’s words and determine his credibility. Admiral Chester and his son were one of the very few Westerners who learned the real story behind the Turks, and their business interests have nothing to do with their desire to honestly convey what they perceived as the truth.
The same reason has been used to try and discredit Admiral Bristol, as well. However, think about it. If Chester had already set up shop (the greasy Cardashian worked for this shop before the war, Balakian attested earlier), how desperate would the admiral have needed to be to sell the world on how great the Turks were? Few businesspeople out to make or save a buck will question the origins of the goods. China, for example, is a repressive society, despite the image of modernization we have been fed. How many of us refuse to buy goods from China? All we look at is the dollar tag.
Balakian tells us, “By 1922 Chester, hoping to see his promised oil rights come to fruition (wrote his propagandistic article in the New York Times Current History).”
I don’t know where Chester’s “promised oil rights” were, and I don’t know if Peter Balakian knows either, since no source has been provided. Assuming Chester had promised oil rights, what I do know is that they could no longer be in Turkey, since Turkey had all of her oil fields taken away at the end of the war. Therefore, there would have been no reason for Adm. Chester to have written his article, except to present the truth, and nothing but the truth.
Balakian presents the following excerpt from Chester’s article in order to prove how ridiculous were his claims: “The Armenians were moved from the inhospitable regions where they were not welcome and could not actually prosper, to the most delightful and fertile part of Syria….where the climate is as benign as in Florida and California, whither New York millionaires journey every year for health and recreation. All this was done at great expense of money and effort, and the general outside report was that all, or at least many, had been murdered.”
(Chester continued: “In due course of time the deportees, entirely unmassacred and fat and prosperous, returned [if they wished so to do], and an English prisoner of war who was in one of the vacated towns after it had been repopulated told me that he found it filled with these astonishing living ghosts.”)
Compared to the propagandistic horror stories Balakian has presented, this version certainly sounds unbelievable. However, it’s not enough to say, “this can’t be true.” In order to make his case, Peter Balakian has to prove it’s not true.
However way he tries to do that (and he won’t, because he can’t; that’s why he must do the next best thing… try to destroy Admiral Chester’s character, Armenian-style), I can take individual excerpts and see if I can back them up. The part about “great expense of money and effort” was true. The bankrupt Turks apportioned 265 million kurush for the relocation program. Some corrupt locals taking advantage of these resources aside, why would the Turks have spent so much money and resources while desperately fighting for the nation’s life, against mighty world powers on multiple fronts? If the idea was to exterminate the Armenians. why not do so on the spot or nearby, after collecting the villagers, in the same manner the Armenians did when they massacred 500,000-600,000 Turks/Muslims? (Ara Sarafian had issues with the amount in question, from Kamuran Gurun’s The Myth of Innocence, and I investigated further in “An Armenian Tangles with an Armenian.”)
For example: "Armenians 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 Muslim villages and exterminated their population." (G. Hamelin, Les Armees Francaises au Levant, February 2, 1919, Vol. 1, p. 122) [2006 ADDENDUM: I might have had a good reason to point to that source, but it seems to be in error, as the source appears to be Prof. John Dewey, and his 1928 article.] The Turks needn't have bothered with the expensive relocation. So as not to upset nearby Muslim citizens, the killers could have moved the Armenian villagers only slightly away, and executed them on the spot, with a burial detail not far behind. Similar to what the Armenians did (except they killed on the spot, and didn't bother with digging graves).
As far as whether Armenians could have actually become “fat and prosperous,” allow me to present an excerpt from Balakian’s hero, Ambassador Morgenthau himself! A September 1915 diary entry revealed:
"Zenop Bezjian, Vekil of Armenian Protestants, called. Schmavonian introduced him; he was his schoolmate. He told me a great deal about conditions [in the interior). I was surprised to hear him report that Armenians at Zor were fairly well satisfied; that they have already settled down to business and are earning their livings…”
(The “one half million” displaced was the same figure used by Arnold Toynbee in his propagandistic April 1916 work, “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire,” when Toynbee referred to Armenians still alive. What a funny way to run a genocide, huh? (2006 ADDENDUM: See also Consul J. B. Jackson's Feb. 1916 figure of 486,000, "according to best information." According to Vahakn Dadrian, "in 1916... the genocide had all but run its course.")
One of Judith Herman’s characteristics for criminal behavior: “Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense.” Balakian no doubt came across the above passage written in Morgenthau’s own words, yet he preferred to keep quiet about it. Nowhere in his book is there mention of this other side of the coin.
This is not to say many Armenians did not suffer and some did not die. However, we can ascertain conditions were not horrible for all of the Armenians who were relocated. Nobody is saying Armenians were having a picnic…. but Turks were not having a picnic either, with thousands dying daily of starvation, for those who prefer "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" as a source.
Balakian then finds fault with MGM’s buckling under the pressure exerted by the Turkish ambassador, Munir Ertegun, halting plans to film Franz Werfel’s The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. Balakian labels this as “a foreign government censoring artistic freedom in the United States.” Those who don’t care for “Mein Kampf” (which likened Jews with subhuman vermin; “Forty Days” likened Turks with subhuman savages) may be pleased justice was served. The book has caused considerable damage, by blowing the minds of those like Vahakn Dadrian, who devoted his life to deception and defamation of Turks as a result. Yossi Sarid, 2000’s Minister of Education of Israel, said, “The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.... was translated into Hebrew in 1934, and influenced many young people in Eretz Israel including me." Mr. Sarid then proceeded to corrupt a new generation by actually putting this hateful fiction on reading lists. Rabbi Albert Amateau testified Franz Werfel was duped by the Armenians, and was ashamed — but too afraid of Armenian terror — to refute the work.
Balakian takes occasion to remind us of the Hitler quote, for the second time in his book. I tell you, if it was not for Der Fuehrer, and a statement the Armenians most likely attributed to him (as they did with another “Hitler,” Talat Pasha; only Talat was more Hitleresque, in the Armenian view. The real Hitler was a hero many Armenians fought for, including the 20,000 led by Dro), the Armenians would have practically no proof for their beloved genocide, whatsoever.
“A 1959 statement by the press attach� of the Turkish embassy in Washington pointed out what the Turks did to the Armenians was ‘what might have been the American response, had the German-Americans of Minnesota and Wisconsin revolted on behalf of Hitler during World War II'.” Had such an event transpired, the American people and government would have been so outraged to find their fellow Americans massacring their relatives and betraying their country, I wonder if there would have been many German-Americans left alive for a “deportation.” (This exceptionally thought-provoking statement was brought to us courtesy of Richard Hovannisian, in a 1986 article entitled, “Patterns of Denial.” Thank you, Professor!) (2006 ADDENDUM: The reader is advised to consider what Ambassador Morenthau himself made of the exact same scenario.)
Richard Hovannisian
The latest wave of Armenian Genocide mania began in 1965, as Armenians around the world publicly commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of their identity-affirming date to celebrate. Resolutions were passed in different countries. Spyros Kyprianou of Cyprus ignored the Turkish-Cypriots he was supposed to be representing by speaking of the “mass murder of a million and a half Armenians” in the United Nations. The governor of Armenian-loving Massachusetts, along with others, issued proclamations. Congressman Gerald Ford marked “the 50th Anniversary of the Turkish genocide of the Armenian people,” in Congress. Ford the Historian would lose his presidential re-election years later, mainly by making a historical remark about the Soviet Union that had no basis in reality (to the tune of there being no Soviet domination of eastern Europe), during his 1976 debate with Jimmy Carter.
Balakian revels in his movement’s getting fresh vigor from the world community, producing new waves of what his people thrive on the most: Sympathy. In his blindness, he fails to recognize the collateral damage produced by harping on ill events of the distant past… the new generations being bred to hate, leading to violence ranging from bombs and bullets to unscrupulous reputation-destroying smear campaigns.
Peternocchio
Balakian is outraged that the Turkish government did not take these charges lying down… as with reminding the press not to unfairly use the word when a state-sponsored genocide has yet to be proven, and that “the Turkish side” be accorded equal time. (That latter one has rarely been respected.) “Using diffuse, evasive rhetoric aimed at subverting the truth (Brother! Spoken by a true champion of “truth”… I’m surprised Peternocchio does not spell this word in four letters),” terms such as “the alleged Armenian Genocide,” “civil war,” and “intercommunal warfare” displayed the Turks’ evil ways with which to cover this episode up. (Balakian thinks of “intercommunal warfare” as “Orwellian doublespeak”; however, when internal communities are at war, why would that not be called “intercommunal warfare”? That is fairly straightforward, and there is nothing ambiguous or evasive whatsoever.)
The author objects to the death toll ranging from 300,000-600,000 … maybe this is why he is an English teacher, and not one in mathematics. Once again, figure it out: A dozen pre-war pro-Armenian population estimates ranged from one million (1912 British Blue Book) to 1.6 million (Lepsius); only Armenians claimed population figures exceeding 2 million. One million Armenians survived, even according to Peter Balakian. The ones who died did not all die from massacres, but from all causes. (2006 ADDENDUM: For example, a whopping near-150,000 died with no Turks in sight, as provided by Richard Hovannisian.)
He would rather go with the 800,000 the Turkish minister of the interior declared during 1919, when that puppet and kowtowing minister of the interior was under Allied occupation, and under the gun by British authorities to find damning massacre evidence or be damned at the upcoming peace conference. (The Turks were damned with the Sevres Treaty in any event.) The previous minister of the interior had estimated 300,000. (2006 ADDENDUM: I am no longer certain about that last claim. Kamuran Gurun's rationale for the 300,000 mortality figure may be read here. The 1926 edition of The Great Soviet Encyclopedia also concurred, with 300,000.)
Balakian actually has written, “To make matters worse this virulent campaign of Turkish denial provoked some angry Armenians to violence,” beginning with the 1973 assassination of two Turkish diplomats by a crazed elderly Armenian who had betrayed his nation to join with the invading Russians… which led to a wave of Armenian terror lasting until the 1980s. Whatever wrongs the Armenians commit… true to form… they blame the Turks.
Could that be another one of Judith Herman’s characteristics of criminal behavior… when the criminal blames the victim?
Since the crime of genocide against the Armenians has yet to be proven, of course “genocide” will be denied.
When will the Armenians ever face up to the responsibilities of their actions? Peter Balakian cannot blame anyone for the actions of Armenian murderers than the Armenians themselves. Is Mr. Balakian actually condoning these murders, because of “Turkish denial”? Since the establishment of the “Soghoman Tehlirian Defense Fund” which helped the killer of Talat Pasha get away scot free (thanks to the purchase of brilliant legal talent, German fears of being implicated in "genocide," and German prejudice), the Armenians have believed in defending the murderers among them. Similar defense funds were set up for more contemporary Armenian criminals, such as Hampig Sassounian (his retrial) and Mourad Topalian. The top Armenian holy man actually honored the mass murderer Dro, when his remains were flown to Armenia. Amazing.
Amateur Analyst Terrence Des Pres charges Turkey had asked the U.S. to ignore its own official archives (not everything; there is some valid stuff in there, like the reports of Bristol and Niles and Sutherland. [12.9.1919, 184.021/265] reveals a British colonel reporting that the Armenians “massacred between 300,000 and 400,000 Kurdish Muslims in the Van and Bitlis districts.” Honorable people just don’t like propaganda to be presented as fact, and that is what the Turks were reminding the Americans of. 2006 ADDENDUM: Most powerfully, the State Department had opened these archives to the British in 1921, on condition that the source not be revealed — indicating the embarrassed Americans knew how shoddy the material was — and the British themselves concluded, in a July 13, 1921 message: "I regret to inform your Lordship that there was nothing therein which could be used as evidence against the Turks who are being detained for trial in Malta," revealing that everything boiled down to "personal opinions" and "no concrete facts"), and had coerced the U.S. and the media into hearing the Turkish side.
“This is turning intellectual debate into a gimmick for the use of the powerful.”
Terry, if you can hear me: the powerful in this equation are not the Turks. The ones with the money and the power are the Armenians. Otherwise, how can dishonest books like “The Burning Tigris” be published when there are practically no books given wide distribution representing the other side? Sam Weems’ “Armenia” only came out in 2002, and the book is so unavailable, Amazon.com is selling used copies for almost $200.00, at the time of this writing.
One can only have “intellectual debate” if both sides of a story are explored, not just one. Even a schoolchild can tell us that, in case we forgot to eat fish for dinner.
And that goes equally for Richard Falk quoted in the next passage on p. 380, who at times can be among the most strangely shrill and unreasonable among the hypocritical “genocide scholars.” (Although there are indications he might have cooled off in recent years.)
Richard Falk
Why does Richard Falk and, to a lesser extent, Terrence Des Pres sound so hysterical? What is the reason to become so emotional? If they consider themselves professionals (although how the latter can be classified as such if he actually believes in the validity of Andonian’s crudely forged Talat Pasha telegrams is another matter), they need to cool down, and objectively assess all the facts in a dispassionate manner. That is what true scholars do.
There are so many of these high-faluting genocide scholars around, it’s hard to keep track… but after writing the above, I checked around to see who Terrence Des Pres is. It turns out, the man is no longer with us, having died in 1987. Some described him as a “genocide scholar”; he wrote at least one Holocaust related book.
Terrence asked (in an April 27, 1976 N.Y. Times piece called "Lessons of the Holocaust"): “Why teach such stuff? Why enroll in such a (Genocide) course? Why…allow such darkness to invade one's soul when, ostensibly, no good can come of it?”
That’s a question I’ve often asked myself. I know more than enough about the Holocaust… Public Broadcasting, for example, has covered every conceivable angle, and I have watched many of these programs dutifully… and I’m sure I’m not the only one. What would compel students to take such courses, when there is so much new knowledge to be gained elsewhere?
Terrence went on to explain: “Yet as if by miracle, this spring there are 141 students in ‘Literature of the Holocaust’ at Colgate. The room is filled with an intensity of concern I am tempted to describe as religious. And for all their shock and depression and, yes, also their tears, what emerges finally are things so clearly good and life-enhancing… For Jewish students there comes a renewal of heritage and pride.”
Well! That is a good word to describe why Armenians are obsessed with their “genocide”… it has become their “religion.”
Terrence Des Pres
Terrence also wrote, “A new appreciation of the problems of Israel comes to everyone.” There is the parallel at work. Wallowing in genocides produces “ethnic” pride, while hypocritically, these genocide studies ignore so many other historic example of Man’s Inhumanity to Man, especially those committed by the Armenians and, yes, the Israelis too.
I guess this is why there are so many Jewish genocide scholars who blindly follow in step with the Armenians’ distorted version of history. It’s repulsive.
Over half a million Turks were systematically murdered by the Armenians, with a little help from the Russians, in the events around WWI. For roughly a century prior, five million Muslims were displaced mainly by the actions of Imperial Russia kicking the “Sick Man” around…. and five and a half million were killed. Is there any Turkish person in existence who says, boo-hooo? I don’t mean in the sense the knowledge is not painful; of course it is. That is, most Turks aren’t even aware of these numbers. Those who come across such facts say, “That stinks!” … and then they move on. No Turk is going to relate to the sad fate of their forefathers as a source of pride.
The date the Turkish-American community selected to represent their ethnic pride parade was the birth of the Turkish republic when …. against all odds… the Turks kicked out the imperial powers wishing to slice Turkey apart. The date Armenian-Americans have selected is the signing of the relocation orders… their date of “doom.” Over 2,000 years the Armenians have been around, and they couldn’t think of something more positive?
Armenian historian Robert John (Hovhanes) said it best (The Reporter, "America's Leading Armenian Newspaper," August 2, 1984):
"The Armenian, the Jew or the African should not damage their development with a continual conditioning of hate; neither should spurious guilt be vented upon others. These negative preoccupations and obsessions are obstructing our evolution.”
Terrence Des Pres, like Vahan Cardashian, was another role model for Peter Balakian. Exactly like Balakian, Des Pres was part of the English department at Colgate University. It seems Des Pres then got depressed over the Holocaust, wrote a book about it, and became known as a “genocide scholar.” Balakian too allowed himself to get depressed over the Armenian “Genocide,” and by writing “The Burning Tigris” can now be called a “genocide scholar,” as well.
Robert Jay Lifton
When Des Pres died, "Professional Ethicist" Robert Jay Lifton gave a talk at Colgate. Lifton and Eric Markusen collaborated in the 1980s. When Peter Balakian decided to go on his crusade to defame Dr. Heath Lowry, the other two gentlemen (along with Roger Smith) came up with a paper partially and ironically entitled “Professional Ethics,” which Balakian cites in his book. And the reader thinks, wow, look at all of these distinct, individual voices who are coming down on Lowry. Heath Lowry must be a crook.
Just like the distinct, individual voices who were coming down on the Ottoman Empire. However, a lot of these voices were shared, as Morgenthau, Bryce and Lepsius all borrowed from each other. Afterwards, it appeared like these voices were corroborating each other, when in fact, many of them originated from the same sources.
Peter Balakian found the following passage defending the Turkish view “crude and obscene”:
(Regarding Armenian survivors’ testimony): “Carefully coached by their Armenian nationalist interviewers, these aged Armenians relate tales of horror which supposedly took place 66 years ago in such detail as to astonish the imagination, considering that most of them are already aged eighty or more. Subjected to years of Armenian nationalist propaganda as well as the coaching of their interviewers, there is little doubt that their statements are of no use whatever for historical research.”
I’d have to say that makes for a lot of common sense. What is so “crude and obscene” about the truth? (Oh… I forgot. It’s Peter Balakian.)
Bernard Lewis
Balakian then objects Bernard Lewis went with the familiar Armenian figures in 1962, but then his attitude about the Armenians’ fate became “hostile.” Since Peter Balakian is anything but a true historian, he needs to follow Bernard Lewis' example as to what makes a true historian. In 1962, when only one version of the story was omnipresent in America, Lewis had no reason to believe it wasn’t true. However, as the real facts of the situation became apparent, Lewis did his duty as a historian: he “revised” his facts. (2006 ADDENDUM: Dadrian tells us what turned Lewis around was Gurun's "The Armenian File.") :Bernard Lewis was not married to a cause; his only interest is historical truth. If the truth does not agree with what Peter Balakian desperately prefers for us to believe, that is not being “hostile”; that is being “honest.”
Balakian then similarly attacks Norman Itzkowitz and Stanford & Ezel Kural Shaw, whose house was bombed by Armenian extremists in 1977. A passage is presented from the Shaws’ 1970 book, presented for ridicule. They depict the regulations governing the Armenians’ safety:
Specific instructions were issued for the army to protect the Armenians against nomadic attacks and to provide them with sufficient food and other supplies to meet their needs during the march and after they were settled… The Armenians were to be protected and cared for until they returned to their homes after the war. A supplementary law established a special commission to record the revenues being held in trust until their return. Muslims wishing to occupy abandoned buildings could do so only as renters, with the revenues paid to the trust funds, and with the understanding that they would have to leave when the original owners returned. The deportees and their possessions were to be guarded by the army while in transit as well as in Iraq and Syria, and the government would provide for their return once the crisis was over.
If Balakian were a true historian, he would have studied the many orders detailing these safeguards… and every one of the ones presented in the passage was based on fact. Can Balakian tell us why these orders were issued? Was it for the benefit of future historians, a means to cover criminals’ tracks?
These orders prove the government’s heart was in its right place. The Ottomans were simply not capable of following through. It was a desperate time for the bankrupt nation, and when engaged in the colossal task of transporting hundreds of thousands of people … things were bound to go wrong. The Ottomans were not known for their efficiency; up to 90,000 of their soldiers became “snow statues without firing a shot,” in Enver’s disastrous campaign against Russia. General Liman von Sanders, as witness for the defense in the trial of Tehlirian, testified as follows:
"...The economic situation was so dismal that not only many Armenians, but thousands of Turkish soldiers as well died of the lack of food supplies, disease, and other consequences of poor organization in the Turkish government. In my division alone, after the battle of Gallipoli, thousands died of malnutrition."
Get this: these were Turkish SOLDIERS dying as a result of maladministration; the soldiers, the only hope the nation had to counter decimation by heartless enemies. Add to this chaos the inevitable opportunists and criminals, and corrupt local officials… that was a recipe for disaster.
Did the Ottoman government bear a responsibility for not adequately taking care of the Armenians? Most definitely. However, this was a desperate situation; Russia, who had tormented the Sick Man for the last couple of centuries, was at the gates. Manpower and resources were diverted around many fronts, Gallipoli in the east, and Mesopotamia in the south. The treacherous Armenians chose this time to rebel. What would any nation have done?
Did the Ottoman government also bear a responsibility for not adequately taking care of the Muslims being massacred by the Armenians, a number that obscenely reached over half a million? Most definitely.
Next, we move on to the Heath Lowry affair. It was a certainty for Balakian to bring up this episode, as he was behind one major drive (if not THE drive) to attempt to discredit the Princeton historian, in true Armenian fashion. (“The perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim.” A characteristic of criminal behavior.)
You can read more in this site’s Heath Lowry page. A Princeton newspaper account mentions the following Balakian assertion:
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."
It is ugly. It’s ugly how Balakian’s scruples may better be defined as pooper-scruples. How in the world can he possibly claim “Ottoman historians are simply lifelong recipients of Turkish government funds”? Who, for example? And where is the proof? (2006 ADDENDUM: Here is the "proof," courtesy of smear tactician, Israel Charny.):
And what of those who are not part of the group allegedly getting paid off… they “fear reprisal from Turkey.” Exactly how would that reprisal occur? Would the historians have their finger and toenails pulled out? Would horseshoes be nailed on their feet? Has Peter Balakian lost himself in Armenian fairy tale land? (No. He is just exploiting the well-entrenched image of Turkish barbarism his ilk has been so successful in perpetuating, within the West.)
Thank God Dr. Lowry is not a reliable historian in the sense Peter Balakian is… no, Dr, Lowry believes in maintaining an open mind, when he conducts his research.
How interesting that Ahmet Ertegun, the “Atlantic Records mogul,” provided half the funding of a Princeton University chair. That part wasn’t mentioned in the press articles (I’ve read) covering the Lowry affair. The reader was led to believe the entire donation came from the Turkish government. (It might be possible Mr. Ertegun has considerable sympathy for the Armenians… if so, this would be terribly ironic, that an Armenian “friend” supported the establishment of a Turkish chair. Could it be possible the establishment of Turkish studies has less to do with deceit than with finally shedding some much neglected light in this Western-ignored area of history?)
(That proves further the difference between a Turkish chair and all the many Armenian ones throughout America, like the one that has supported Richard Hovannisian for many years. Turkish history has no agenda, and is only interested in the facts. How much importance does Armenian history give to objective facts? Well, you get the idea from “The Burning Tigris.”)
Funny how Mr. Balakian reports the “Lowry-Princeton-Turkey story had become national news, and was covered in (the Armenian mouthpiece newspapers, among others) the New York Times and the Boston Globe.” He refers to the petition (“Taking a Stand Against the Turkish Government’s Denial of the Armenian Genocide and Scholarly Corruption in the Academy”), but makes no mention that HE was the force behind this petition. Peter Balakian can apparently be very humble.
What is really happening is that the people involved are all of the same singularly-voiced gang, and Peter Balakian wants to make you think there are many distinct voices arriving at their conclusions individually. (Not to say there aren’t those who make conclusions individually… however, as with the case of the Ottoman-era missionaries who appeared so honorable, what other conclusions are people going to reach if these similarly “honorable“ genocide scholars have banded together in a conspiratorial club?) If Mr. Balakian was largely behind the drive to smear Heath Lowry, it is patently dishonest of him to bring up the matter without revealing the depth of his own involvement.
Terrence Des Pres wrote, “What does it mean when a client state like Turkey can persuade a super power like the United States to abandon its earlier stance toward the genocide of 1915?” I’m not exactly sure if the United States has “abandoned” its stance… the powerful Armenian lobby controls too many American politicians… but should the day arrive when that truth becomes respected, let us look at what that would mean: the forsaking of a policy based on propaganda, lies and deceit, in favor of objective historical facts. In other words, it would mean “honesty.” About time, too, given all the defamatory petitions, resolutions, books, movies, newspaper reports, education curricula throughout the years, wrongly blackening the image of the Turks.
Balakian laments the fact that two of the countless genocide resolutions polluting the halls of the United States Congress throughout the years failed to pass. “It was a simple commemorative bill that had no legal ramifications,” he sobs. I have news for Peter Balakian: no resolution passed throughout the world regarding this matter has legal ramifications. They are meaningless, representing the opinions of those who have voted for them, swayed either by bigotry and/or through the plentiful bucks of the wealthy Armenian Diaspora around the world.
The author tells us “the word ‘genocide’ had become the focus of Turkish hysteria.” Let’s understand: “genocide,” the way the word is interpreted by laypeople as what the Nazis did to the Jews, and not by foolish “genocide scholars” such as Samantha Power (where practically any conflict can be called a genocide, rendering the word meaningless), connotes the worst crime against humanity. If a genocide is unproven and yet is mindlessly charged, who wouldn’t be hysterical? If Peter Balakian were accused of a deplorable crime such as being a pedophile or a rapist, when he knew damned well he is not, wouldn’t he be hysterical?
“The Turkish government was, in effect, conducting a campaign against American history.” I find it tiresomely ironic that the Armenians commit one of their many affronts, and then blame others for doing the same. The only ones involved in sneakily changing history are the Armenians. Ignorant school boards throughout the American nation have been persuaded to adopt the unproven Armenian “Genocide” into their curriculums.
The author helpfully provides a list of nations issuing apologies for crimes in their past. Why no atonement from the Turks? The Turks acknowledge the Armenians have suffered. However, they know fully well the Armenians' suffering only came about as a result of their treachery…and the Turks acted as any other nation would have under the same circumstances. Taner Akcam excepted, the Turks are also aware there was no state-sponsored plan for extermination. The Turks also are fully aware the hypocritical Western world doesn’t even pay lip service to the many Turks who were massacred by the Armenians. In order for an apology to be forthcoming, there must be a reason.
If Peter Balakian is so interested in an apology, he ought to realize apologizing is a two-way street. The Armenians systematically wiped out over half a million Muslims. Are these lives no less meaningful than the 300,000-600,000 Armenians killed from all causes combined?
And what will happen after the apology? Will the Armenians then have “closure,” and erase the hatred from their hearts? I’d say an apology would present grounds for an “opener.” The Armenians need the enemy to bind them together, first of all. Secondly, the next step would be demanding reparations, and land. The Germans have given billions in reparations to the Israelis, a lot of Germans are wallowing in guilt, and the main way the American media still portrays Germans is when they say “Heil.” (If a genocide is ever proved, I’m not saying Turkey should not apologize. However, that’s exactly the point. A genocide simply has not been proven. If anyone from the two sides acted in a systematic way to try and exterminate the other, it was the Armenians.)
Peter Balakian brings up a recent resolution that almost made it through Congress, before President Clinton nipped it in the bud. “The only silver lining in the story of H.R. 398 was that there was not any demonstrable denial on the part of the American politicians.” That is true, but the reasons had nothing to do with historical truth; the dirty details may be learned here.
Balakian then outlines the passing of the French Armenian “Genocide” resolution “into law.” (Law? Now that this has become “legal,” will France arrest Turkey?) France is a nation with half a million Armenians, second only to the United States in Armenian influence. (Third might possibly be Armenia.) This resolution was voted upon when only about a tenth of the Assembly members were present. When the time came for the French Senate to ratify the resolution, few of the French politicians dared to vote against it… the Armenians in their country, like the Armenians in America, are simply too wealthy and powerful. Countries where these resolutions have passed that have no huge Armenian presence get through because the Diaspora Armenians in these nations energetically put their resources into these bills… and nobody knows or cares about the Turkish side. These resolutions have nothing to do with the truth. However, truth is a four-letter-word with too many Armenians, when it comes to their beloved, identity-affirming genocide.
The author closes with a poem from one of Turkey’s greatest poets, Nazim Hikmet (“Evening Walk,” 1950):
The Armenian citizen has not forgiven
the slaughter of his father in the Kurdish mountains.
But he loves you,
because you also won’t forgive
those who blackened the name of the Turkish people.
If Peter Balakian wishes to point to a Turkish source who would be influential among Turks and not among Westerners (where Taner Akcam does a good enough job to impress the unwary as a so-called “Turkish historian”), I’d recommend he go with Nazim Hikmet. However, Nazim Hikmet was mistaken on two counts. He was certainly right about the name of the Turkish people having been blackened, but Mr. Hikmet failed to come up with the right culprit.
The second error Nazim Hikmet made was in regards to the Armenian loving the Turks… although Mr. Hikmet was on the right track by asserting if an Armenian were to love Turks, it would be for the vindictive reason stated. That is not the kind of love Jesus Christ would have approved of.
Balakian the poet should be the first to realize (especially with “The Burning Tigris” providing such incredible evidence), poets usually don’t make very good historians.
Poets feel with their hearts. A historian needs to be dispassionate, and scientific.
"We can't have debate without truth."
Peter Balakian
"Aztag Daily" interview, Nov. 13, 2003
Peter Balakian apparently grew up without much hatred in his household, but then grew obsessed about the Armenian "Genocide"... to the point of spearheading a smear campaign against Princeton Professor Heath Lowry, and penning a one-sided book ("The Burning Tigris") designed to show Turks as monsters at every opportunity; the Colgate University English professor and author-poet utilized "evidence" such as the Andonian forgeries, discredited war propaganda and testimony from the lazy-thinking bigots of the period. (And this period.) Surely a man who would have done Henry Morgenthau proud, and one who may be called the latter day Vahan Cardashian. (An Armenian-American lawyer from the WWI days who had no compunction about spreading false information at will.) Indeed, Peter Balakian has done a great job of following in the footsteps of Bishop Krikoris "Action Priest" Balakian, the cousin of Peter Balakian's grandfather... a man who also had little respect for the truth.
As Peter Balakian is one of the "Joint Chiefs of Staff" of Armenian Propaganda today, he has been referred to throughout the TAT site. This page will showcase various odds and ends regarding this fascinating man.
Below:
1) How Some Armenians Think of Peter Balakian
2) Samantha Power joins forces with the Balakian Dog of Flake
3) A Confrontation with Peternocchio
4) Peternocchio Caught in Another Lie
5) To Correct His Lie, Another Lie
How Some Armenians Think of Peter Balakian
From the thread entitled "Peter Balakian - much noise about nothing?"... at the Armenians.com forum.
An "Arrogant Son of a Gun"
About a month ago I met Peter Balakian in a semi-formal setting. I was much disappointed. I had even an unpleasent discussion with him. I found him to be one of the "old guard" and an "arrogant son of a gun." While he certainly has literary and other style and class, his message was much of nothing - "me, me upper-midle class upbringing, my memories, my assimilation, my discomfort,my rediscovery of my identity and my confusion about it" etc. The man has absolutely no vision for this nation and still lacks identity - his Armenian identity is just a result of reverse association with the Turks.
What a mixed bag!
MJ, May 26 2002
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Balakian is a product of Bergen County, New Jersey USA. The Armenian communty there are the most pompous, arrogant and self-serving bunch I have ever encountered, and this includes many of my own flesh and blood. They are ignorant to boot, dealing only with generalities and knowing nothing of nuance. As for Balakian, just read his book and you will see the forces which formed him.
Khodja
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After having a conversation with him I have no desire to waist my time reading him - he has nothing to tell that would be of interest to me. Besides, he was very transparent in demonstrating the "forces that have shaped him."
MJ, May 26 2002
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Reading the works of someone who has upset you is NEVER wasted. I am an unabashed liberal but watch Fox News for many hours every day. I want to see how those I oppose are mind-manipulating the American public. Balakian's book is a revelation for every Armenian-American. Do not blame him for the milieu in which he was raised.
Khodja, May 26 2002
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Khodja,
Contrary to the approach to life of some of those we know here… I don't make decisions on "what to read and what not to read" based on "if the author has upset me or not." I don't have to let things go through my personal "filters" to have attitude towards them.
As to Balakian – I find reading him not being worth my time, though fighting him and his alike would be a well-spent time, perhaps.
MJ
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I read Balakian's "Black Dog of Fate" when i was 18, about a year ago. I actually liked his memoir.
I found the book to be interesting, especially the middle part and the ending.
What are these "forces" that you guys are talking about?
I think that he knows a lot about our nation, since he wrote about our history in his memoir, he has been invited to speak in many ARmenian related events and he's also active in Armenian community.
Anyways, i don't really get why you guys are dissing him so much Give him a break.
Arine
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Peter Balakian
Peter Balakian
I read Balakian's book about 18 months ago, and found it really boring. I especially couldn't see any point about all the American stuff. There must have been some good points to the book - but I can't remember them now: all I remember is at the end being glad that I had been lent a copy rather than buying it.
Bellthecat, May 27, 2002
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I also read Balakian a while ago and the only things I remember is that he was a professor, a poet and that he met many in the intelligentsia of NYC West side in the 60s (?).
Light reading. Upper middle class ethnic autobiography.
But he did help to bring Armenia and a few issues to the forefront. That´s enough for me. We should take what we can. Criticizing always, of course.
Boghos
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Alright, this MJ dumb ass is just an idiot. All he does is criticize people think he's some smart guy or something. Balakian a couple weeks ago was on national TV talking about the Armenian Genocide. What have you done to help people recognize of the Armenian Genocide??? I've made a web-site about it, I've been featured in the nespaper a couple times talking about it, in class my assignments are about it. You are the reverse Armenian or whatever you called Balakian.
Sako_Aper, Sep 4 2003
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grow up and watch your language.
just because you have a website on the genocide that gets 5 visitors a year does not make you better Armenian than anyone else.
Also, go back and reread the Code of Conduct of this forum one more time before posting here again.
Azat (moderator), Sep 4 2003
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Sako: Anyone who puts the people before himself, and uses every opportunity to further the Cause, is a great man. I respect you for what you've accomplished, and what you are doing to help us all.
KnightOfArmenia, Sep 6 2003
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Today I purchased "Black Dog of Fate" in Armenian from Abril bookstore. It is translated and published in Armenia. Even though my Armenian reading/writing so bad that I probably can't read it, I still felt obligated to buy a copy.
Azat, Oct 13 2003
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I just finished his latest book and I have to say that it is a very good read and most Armenians should pick up a copy and read it.
The Burning Tigris
Azat, Oct 24 2003
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Peter Balakian
Peter Balakian
I am in the middle of reading it. Right after midterm exams I will complete it. A very good book, my only criticism being that he ignores my relatives and so many other prominent Armenians to plug his family and the ancestors of the friends of his late physician father's family, as well as, the families of his parents close friends in Tenafly.
America-Hye, Oct 24 2003
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An old friend of mine (non Armenian) just gave me a call today and mentioned that he heard Peter on the radio (in Seatle) today..and whatever he said (concerning the Genocide) made a positve impression. Aparently the book is now #5 on the NY Times bestseller list! (according to my bud) great news IMO....stil need to pick it up and read it...
THOTH, Nov 8 2003
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Hey guys i'm from lebanon and i don't really know how armenians in the US think about the armenian cause and question.I think that peter Balakian did a good job in his book "Black Dog Of Fate" and i was touched and his transformation from a typical american into an ARMENIAN american really impressed me.I think we all have this problem for instance in my case i don't feel like a lebanese and the Arabs i guess hate us for that somehow.lebanon is only a temporary place in my life and i hope that someday i'll go and live in armenia 4ever.I hope u do 2.I can't to read his new book.
Sar, Dec 1 2003
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Holdwater: Sar surely exemplifies the Armenian who historically has felt loyalty for the country nice enough to have them. Richard Hovannisian surely picked an appropriate word when he referred to the Armenian community in America as a "colony." Really, Do Greeks and Armenians Make True Americans?
Silly Samantha Power joins forces with the Balakian Dog of Flake
The New York Times Letters
To the Editor:
Samantha Power
HarperCollins bud, Samantha Power
"Movie on Armenians Rekindles Flame Over Turkish Past" (Arts pages, Jan. 20) says "Turkish and Armenian historians have given widely differing accounts of what happened in 1915." But that is not a matter of ethnic perspective. The extermination of the Armenians is recognized as genocide by the consensus of scholars of genocide and Holocaust worldwide. The failure to acknowledge this trivializes a human rights crime of enormous magnitude.
The Ottoman Turkish government's meticulously planned extermination of its Christian Armenian citizens took the lives of more than a million Armenians in 1915 and 1916. Another million Armenians survived the death marches but were permanently exiled from their homeland of 2,500 years. It is denigrating to refer to these facts as Armenians being "chased from their ancestral homelands."
It is ironic as well, because in 1915 The New York Times published 145 articles about the Armenian genocide and regularly used the words "systematic," "government planned" and "race extermination."
PETER BALAKIAN
SAMANTHA POWER
Hamilton, N.Y., Jan. 20, 2004
The writers are, respectively, a professor of humanities at Colgate University and a lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Holdwater: At least Silly Samantha Power is making no bones about subjectively having allied herself with the Armenian "Cause," as KnightOfArmenia (from the forum, above) fittingly termed the Genocide Juggernaut... by blatantly joining forces with Mr. Balakian.
Estimates of the Ottoman-Armenian population: M. Zarchesi, French Consul at Van: 1,300,000; Francis de Pressence (1895): 1,200,000; Torumnekize (1900): 1,300,000; Lynch (1901): 1,158,484; Ottoman census (1905): 1,294,851; British Blue Book (1912): 1,056,000; L.D.Conterson (1913): 1,400,000; French Yellow Book: 1,475,000; Armenian Patriarch Ormanian: (*)1,579,000; Lepsius: 1,600,000
Estimates of the Ottoman-Armenian population
You've heard it here, folks; one million Armenians have survived, from the mouths of these ace pro-Armenians. Let us do the subtraction, from "impartial" (Western, and therefore pro-Armenian) estimates of the pre-war Ottoman-Armenian population. The results can't possibly exceed 600,000, and that's from all wartime causes combined. (Richard Hovannisian, for example, wrote in 1967 that some 150,000 died of famine while accompanying the Russian retreats.) So what makes these two "scholars" conclude "more than a million" died? Does the caliber of their scholarly worth approximate the value of "the consensus of scholars of genocide"? You bet it does.
The Difference between "Turkish and Armenian historians" is that Armenian historians create their own history. Turkish historians, when it comes to the "genocide" topic, largely rely on Western (i.e., pro-Armenian) sources to back up their claims.
"Permanently exiled"? Did not Article 3 of the Treaty of Gumru (signed between Armenia and Turkey) allow the Armenians to return? Edward Tashji, in his sworn statement of 1989, wrote: "Many Armenians after leaving their homes were allowed to RETURN and take possession of their homes and properties. My uncle was one who returned to his home, and my wife’s aunt, who is still living, was another. Her family had returned to their home in Adlyaman."
What about the failure of these two, along with the rest of their hypocritical "genocide scholar" cronies, to acknowledge the over one half million Turks/Muslims systematically exterminated by the Armenians? (See the "Census" section.) Does this failure not trivialize "a human rights crime of enormous magnitude"?
In their books, Power and Balakian could not come up with any evidence of the "meticulously planned extermination" they've written about... unless they are referring to the Andonian forgeries that at least Balakian pointed to as factual. The New York Times' appalling reliance on Lord Bryce's spoon-fed wartime propaganda reports does not count as evidence.
Every sentence... practically every word... pro-Armenian genocide advocates utter is steeped in deception. It's mind-boggling.
Mr. Balakian had the audacity to characterize those who don't affirm his precious "genocide" as "a tiny group of corrupt people." (In his "Aztag Daily" interview of November 13, 2003.) "Corrupt" is a word that defines one who has a problem with honesty. Alas, audacity comes easily to ones who are glaringly guilty of committing "ethocide."
ADDENDUM, 3-07:
TAT has since examined Power's book, and she, too, has pointed to the Andonian forgeries as her "evidence," not once but three times. (The bulk of her claims was backed up by New York Times articles.) Putting aside these two agenda-ridden scholarly frauds, an actual court in Switzerland referred to the Andonian forgeries as "evidence," in March 2007.
A Confrontation with Peternocchio
When Peter Balakian went off on a late 2004 book tour to promote the paperback version of The Burning Tigris, one stop was at California's The Museum of Tolerance. Inside scoop has it the museum was under great pressure by the AFATH ("Armenian-Falsifiers-And-Turk-Haters") community. So much so, some obsessed AFATH members reportedly went on a hunger strike for days in front of The Museum of Tolerance in the spring of 2004, giving the Museum a bad rap, finally causing the museum to give in and offer AFATH a little time in the sun.
The brave man of the confrontation was Ergun Kirlikovali. The following is his report.
November 14, 2004, was historic, because a prominent member of the AFATH community, Peter Balakian, was squarely confronted by myself at the Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles.
The presentation started at 3:15 PM with a large map of Armenia, historic and current overlapped, and PB presented some of the highlights of his book, "The Burning Tigris, The Armenian Genocide And The American Response," with the help of some slides. It took him about an hour to basically distort the whole history of Turks and Armenians. Cocky, arrogant, and speaking as-a-matter-of-fact, as if everything he says was cast in stone. I listened to this tirade patiently. Then the Museum of Tolerance (MOT) curator came on stage with a wireless microphone to hand over to those who wished to ask questions. I was in the second row and immediately rose to my feet with my hand held up high. There may have been other hands up and I heard some voices, but I got the microphone.
I acknowledged PB with a "Dr. Balakian" and then turned my back on the stage facing the crowd of about 150, which was considered by the MOT curator to be a very good turn out. There were some teachers, some criminal justice professionals, some older Jewish couples — this being MOT — but mostly Armenians, young and old. I introduced myself and said:
"You can go to any city, any town, any village in Turkey right this minute, and ask the first person you meet on the street about his or her experience of the First World War and you'll hear the unspeakable horrors that touched his family. All these slides and photos that you saw here are available on the Turkish side too. No family was left intact, let alone being untouched. So widespread and total was the devastation for Turks... And yet, we have heard nothing about the Turkish suffering from Dr. Balakian..."
By this time, I saw with the tip of my eye that PB was complaining to the MOT curator saying something like "This guy is making a speech, not asking questions." The MOT curator asked me to please state my question. I quickly switched to question mode:
"My simple question to Dr. Balakian, therefore, is this: How scholarly is it to ignore Turkish pain, suffering, and losses? How scholarly is it to leave half the story out?"
You can imagine, the hall erupted into shouts. A couple of older Armenians told me to shut up with some choice words. A younger Armenian got up to his feet and shouted something like: "Look, I am Turkish, too. I know what you are saying; you don't know what's going on. So, shut up and sit down."
These hostile comments and the generally aggressive attitude of the presumably Armenian guests made me more determined than ever to make my point. I said:
"We are Americans. We are fair people. We don't convict someone without hearing the other side of the story. I am the other side. Dr. Balakian and I are at the same age. I am his flip side. I trust you will let me finish."
Then I found myself on the stage hearing the MOT curator saying something like "We have a very interesting case here", while PB was still protesting heavily. The MOT curator said let's have PB respond. I said I was not finished yet. I had one more question and asked:
"Two-and-a-half million Turks were killed during WWI... Half a million of them at the hands of the Armenian nationalists... Your predecessors (pointing to PB at point blank range)... You claim to be a human rights advocate. How human is it to ignore the suffering of those half a million Turks at the hands of your kind?"
By this time, the number of choice words were loud and audible even while I was on the microphone. MOT curator asked me to sit down. I did. Then PB took the podium one more time. He was visibly shaken. He said something like
"Look. You don't know. You can't know. You were raised in Turkey. They don't tell you everything there. There is no democracy there. And besides, I don't want to share this stage with a genocide denier. I ask you to please leave."
I jumped to my feet and shouted "Museum of In-tolerance!" and left. People were applauding PB for making me leave.
(Kirlikovali also confronted Levon Marashlian in 2006.)
The above well illustrates how Armenians like Peter Balakian are excellent in monologue, but fall apart in dialogue. Once again Mr. Balakian falls back on his contention that Turkey is undemocratic, the same story he weaved in the days when he spearheaded a smear campaign against Heath Lowry. He could get away with such tactics, thanks to the tarnished image of Turkey helped by those who are near-exclusively granted the stage to speak their Turk-hating views. However, he is really shooting himself in the foot with this particular claim these days, since the Turks have cleaned up their act more than ever, in their hopes for entry into the European Union. For example, the Turkish Parliament adopted an entirely new, more humane penal code. It reduced hundreds of draconian sentences, outlawed torture (long a staple of Turkish police interrogations), banned the death penalty, wiped out censorship laws and restrictions on free speech, and eliminated barriers to expressions of ethnic identity... well before the time of this event, November 2004.
More importantly, while it's predictable Peter Balakian tried to get away with his easy labeling of "denialist" (while he himself denies Turkish suffering and the fact that there was no genocide), his opponent's message had nothing to do with denying the poet's genocide obsession. No, the question had to do with why this great self-proclaimed champion of human rights ignores the suffering of the massive numbers of Turks/Muslims victimized by savage Armenians. The way Balakian decided to handle this episode, by asking his opponent to leave, speaks volumes.
What does this absence of shame say about Balakian's moral upbringing, if we may borrow his own spoken words?
Balakian's Indirect Response to the Above
(addendum, 10-06)
In a message to the faithful forum members of armeniangenocide.com, moderator Hovik (whose signature partly consists of Ataturk's alleged Armenian statement from the fake 1926 "interview"... or is it "article"?) put up (on Oct. 17, 2005) an offering by Peter Balakian beginning with "Dear Group."
"I was harassed all last year by such Turkish groups — at Princeton, University of Connecticut, Museum of Tolerance in LA, and other places. Turkish Americans were leafleting, verbally aggressive, full of denial and anger."
One must give Peter Balakian credit for being the prototypically sly Dashnak. He commits the crime by going around spreading his vicious and hateful propaganda, and then cries that he is the victim when challenged with rightful "denial and anger." (Even though it was obvious the "denial and anger" emanated from the Armenians in this audience and podium, not from the lone Turkish-American. There was no "verbal aggression," simply facts that Balakian would not or could not respond to.) Such a poor, defenseless, innocent, unarmed, Christian martyr.
(Note that Ergun Kirlikovali, the lone challenger at the Museum of Tolerance, is being referred to as a "Turkish group." In his previous paragraph, Balakian described his detractors as such: "Turkish Americans or Turkish students come out in groups to harass and leaflet academic lectures on the Armenian Genocide." If the Museum of Tolerance episode serves as an example, there were no leaflets, and no organization. Not to say sometimes there can't be, but generally Turkish-Americans are much too indifferent and lazy to do such things.)
In the forum message Balakian responds to the "clichés and stereotypes" his flock is sometimes charged with:
"The Armenian Diaspora is not predominantly made up of extreme nationalists who hate all Turkish people. As soon as Turkish citizens come forward with an ability to accept the realities of 1915, Armenians are for the most part open, responsive, and grateful."
In other words, there must be a condition set before friendship could be considered. If this condition isn't met, it's okay for Armenians to go on doing what they have been conditioned to do... hate Turks. Hating Turkish people is almost a requirement for Armenians to prove their "patriotism," as Rafael Ishkhanian honestly outlined. (On this very forum page, a friendly letter by Kufi Seyfali, hoping to break the "Armenian Diaspora" from its "Turkophobia" by sharing reason, has been reproduced, and member Tongue's response was: "Mr. Kufi your barbaric nature shows in your email. But you didn't have to write that to prove it to us, we already knew.") Can Peter Balakian be any more disingenuous?
Peter Balakian goes on to criticize "Hrank Dink¹s reflection on the Armenian Diaspora" as "completely misinformed":
"Mr. Dink claimed in a talk he gave that the Armenian Diaspora was characterized by ghettoized insularity, as if Armenians in Diaspora clung to their ethnic way of life and were cut off from the wider world; and in their ghettos they can only obsess over the Armenian Genocide."
To prove his thesis, Balakian goes to length to demonstrate that not all Armenians are so single-minded:
"...[T]hey are not all part of ONE THING. They are religious, they are atheists, they are Democrats, they are Republicans; in addition to being successful in business, they produce rock 'n roll, jazz, films, write books, teach in schools and universities; they root for the local team in baseball and football, they may eat more Chinese food and pizza than Armenian food, etc. They do not all speak Armenian, or read and write it. They don't march in ethnic pride parades, etc."
It's difficult to ascertain which of Balakian's many statements should earn first prize for utter inanity. OF COURSE Armenians are people, a greatly diverse and wonderfully talented people, and OF COURSE they are going to have a wide array of interests and abilities. How does that fact detract from the reality that (keeping in mind that there are Armenians who don't fall for this con job, but are too intimidated to speak up publicly.... thanks to the age-old Dashnak "Curtain of Fear") the Armenian Diaspora is one big monolith regarding their life-sustaining, mythological genocide?
If there is disagreement with what I'm saying, the reader is welcome to point to, of the seven million Armenians in the world — and aside from the late Edward Tashji and a handful of Armenians from Turkey — those Armenians who publicly vouch for the fraudulent nature of this "genocide." You won't easily find any. This is why even though there are, naturally, nice and reasonable individuals in the Armenian diaspora, if the ones we exclusively hear from are Peter Balakian and his ilk, for all intents and purposes, the fact is exactly the way Hrant Dink described it, and the way Balakian mostly worded it: "The Armenian Diaspora is predominantly made up of extreme nationalists who hate all Turkish people."
Peternocchio Caught in Another Lie
In 2006, the Public Broadcasting Service of the United States, PBS, once again serviced the Armenians by featuring another Armenian Genocide show (by Andrew Goldberg, who has a record of working for Armenian-sponsored propaganda programs.) As Washington PBS affiliate, WETA, featured a rare debate back in 1983, PBS got the idea to produce a half-hour panel discussion in a half-hearted attempt for a more balanced presentation. Since PBS "acknowledges and accepts that there was a genocide," as PBS spokeswoman Lea Sloan was quoted in The New York Times, PBS did not make it a requirement for the affiliates to air the program, leaving the decision to each local station. Naturally, a good many, particularly those bowing to massive Armenian pressure, decided to forego the panel, exposing the masses to the pure propaganda of the program. WETA, ironically, was one.
WNET, the New York station — which reversed its original decision to air the discussion; only two of the top ten markets were open to the idea — had protests of frenzied Armenians in front of its doors, physically joined by a congressman, Anthony Weiner; the ethnic-pandering politician co-wrote a letter of protest with another U.S. Rep, Carolyn Maloney. Four other congressmen "asked all members of the House of Representatives to sign a joint letter expressing their opposition to the PBS panel discussion," as Harut Sassounian described in "VP of PBS Should Be Dismissed For Insulting Armenians " (Mar. 3, 2006.) The activist journalist added, "It is expected that many of the 150 members of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues would sign this letter. The Caucus makes up more than one-third of the entire House, a significant number when the time comes to allocate funding to PBS." Incidentally, the VP whom Sassounian attacked, Jacoba Atlas, was very much in the Armenians' corner, having described these events as "settled history." Sassounian didn't like it when Atlas stated the Armenian matter was not "entirely analogous" to the Holocaust. The unethical journalist also accused Atlas of "being responsible for this misguided decision," but it was OPB — Oregon Public Broadcasting, with whom Producer Goldberg was working — that decided on producing the panel discussion, as evident from a Mar. 6, 2006 article in CURRENT, "Panel Show Riles Rather Than Soothes Genocide Furor." (ADDENDUM, 4-06: My mistake. Atlas bore co-responsibility, along with another PBS programming executive. According to Ombudsman Getler's March 17 column, PBS stated: "PBS's chief programmers, John Wilson and Jacoba Atlas, are responsible for the ultimate decision in this case." Davis appears to have squarely been in the Armenians' corner, as a co-producer of the Goldberg film, and the last thing he would have wanted was an offsetting panel discussion. Yet Davis wound up producing the panel discussion, which predictably sided with the Armenians, in choice of moderator.)
(But we are here to focus on the unethical Mr. Balakian, not the unethical Mr. Sassounian. So let's move on to Peternocchio.)
Peternocchio
Peternocchio once again telling a lie
Peter Balakian was so upset over OPB's decision, he wrote a long letter of protest to OPB's V.P. of Programming, David Davis. (Whom Sassounian misidentified as in charge of programming at PBS. Are we back to Sassounian again? It's hard to keep track of untruthful extremist Armenians. This is from his nasty Feb. 9, 2006 piece, "Boycott PBS Stations that Air 'Balancing' Panel on Genocide.") In this November 2005 letter, Balakian contended that the "Armenian Genocide documentary is well-balanced" (brother!) and that there are "more than a half-dozen Turkish voices in the film" (only two of which were offered scant screen time from the "denier" category (ADDENDUM, 4-06: actually, one of the two was presented in film footage, and only as a "set up" to be taken down by the genocide crowd. Effectively, there was only one voice from the opposing camp); the rest were Taner Akcam, Fatma Muge Gocek, Halil Berktay and other genocide "sell-outs." Note how the deceptive Mr. Balakian tries to portray these folks as representatives of the Turkish perspective, concluding that "we have an extraordinary number of Turkish voices already incorporated").
Balakian next moves on to a "scholarly perspective" (a scholar, of course, dispassionately studies all sides of an issue; if there is one person who does not qualify as a "scholar," it is this emotional instructor of English), actually claiming "it’s important for PBS to understand that the Armenian Genocide is not a controversial issue." Is he out of his mind? He justifies this conclusion with "this is the mainstream consensus worldwide," not bothering to add that he actively supported efforts to intimidate genuine scholars away from this debate. As if majority opinion is always an indice for truth, and certainly not in cases where everyone has been frightened away by fanatical pro-Armenians. (He gave the same stupid reason as "evidence" for his genocide, in the New York Times letter, above.)
"Third, I believe it is ethically wrong to privilege deniers..." he goes on to state. Do you also shudder when Mr. Balakian uses derivations of the word, "ethics"? He then mentions that PBS should not fear the pressures of the "Turkish government." What is the genocide-impotent "Turkish government" going to do, I wonder, start rumors that drugs are being sold on Sesame Street? As the reader ascertained from Sassounian's previous account above, all the pressure was being exerted by fanatical Armenians.
But these are typical examples of being unmindful to truth, that we have come to expect from Peter Balakian. Let's move on to his outright lie.
In the CURRENT article, Balakian is quoted once again as stating, "This is morally wrong. It is ethically wrong" (one wonders why he uses every opportunity to state how moral he is. Perhaps he feels if a contention is repeated often enough, suckers will come to believe it... as so many have with "genocide"), comparing the esteemed Prof. Justin McCarthy (one of the speakers on the panel; the ones from the other side were Taner Akcam and Balakian himself) with a "Holocaust denier" or "white supremacist." ("[Featuring those like McCarthy] is no different from having Holocaust deniers on, or white supremacists on following a documentary on slavery,”) The magazine for public broadcasting goes on to tell us:
"However, he said he participated as a panelist unwillingly after he was told by David Davis, OPB’s v.p. of national production, that the documentary wouldn’t air without the accompanying panel discussion. 'The post-show had to be done to save the documentary. The documentary was way too important. They put me in a morally difficult position,' said Balakian."
(If Balakian was going to compromise his "morals" by appearing on the panel in order to "save the documentary," we have then learned the "documentary" was anything but "well-balanced." If this were a true documentary fairly exploring the historical issues, Peter Balakian would not want anyone to see it, let alone desire to save it.)
When I read this passage, I immediately realized Balakian's contention was ridiculous. He must have a super-sized ego, to think there aren't dozens more genocide advocates to take his place, from that "mainstream consensus worldwide" he referred to. If he refused to appear, did he really believe the show would have been called off? Is he that delusional? The article provides Davis' reply:
“I don’t want to address that directly.”
Either Davis was being a gentleman, not wishing to embarrass the emotional and truth-challenged Balakian, or maybe he did not want to give the impression Balakian was an untrustworthy character, putting in jeopardy the credibility of PBS's "balanced documentary." I hope it was the former. Once David Davis learned what a liar Balakian was afterwards, I hope he had second thoughts about the validity of this propagandistic program PBS worrisomely was all too willing a party to air.
Balakian’s lie was confirmed in Sassounian's Feb. 9 piece, where we were informed Fatma Muge Gocek "refused to be on the panel." (Because it wasn't going to add anything, the excuse the refusing PBS affiliates parroted, as well as PBS's "giving in to Turkish State pressure... bound to be hailed as a victory by the Turkish State and their nationalist Diaspora." The lady is so out of touch with reality, it is pathetic. The panel discussion can't even qualify as an attempt at equal time; the best that can be said is that at least it is something, but there is no reason for anyone to "hail" it.)
Gocek's words demonstrate she was in the running to appear, clearly confirming the sky was not going to fall, had Peter Balakian similarly declined the offer. There are plenty more genocide-mad Balakians and Goceks waiting in the wings. Balakian's shameful lie was also confirmed by the PBS ombudsman, Michael Getler ("Coming Soon to Viewers Like You: 'The Armenian Genocide'," March 17, 2006), among questions "submitted to top PBS officials":
Q — Several news articles have reported, according to Colgate professor Peter Balakian, who was also an adviser on the documentary, that PBS threatened to pull the documentary if he and another genocide scholar declined to participate in the panel discussion. True?
A — This is absolutely not true. If Balakian declined, we would have sought out other historians to speak as experts in Armenian history.
ADDENDUM April 2006
Getler later added a March 22 addendum to his March 17 piece, which in good conscience must be included here.
Balakian explained, "That is a false description." What he told journalists was that the Oregon PBS producer David Davis mentioned (three times) that "PBS would not run the documentary if a post-show panel with deniers were not made," as directed by Jacoba Atlas, to whom Balakian had written a "letter in November appealing to her to drop the idea of a post-show on ethical and historical grounds." Balakian was adamant that he "never said nor implied that the documentary would not air if I personally were not on the panel. That would be, of course, absurd. Naturally, PBS would find someone else to take my place. After all my efforts to convince PBS to not produce a post-show failed I decided to go forward with the 'debate' because I have experience in discussing this subject on TV and radio and felt I could help shape the conversation in an ethical way and perhaps a way that would expose Turkish denial more fully for what it is."
[Important: Balakian never "said" the documentary would not air without his presence, but he certainly "implied" it, and strongly. How else could his statement have been interpreted: "The post-show had to be done to save the documentary. The documentary was way too important. They put me in a morally difficult position." That clearly implies that if Balakian did not personally participate, all of his dirty work on the documentary would have have gone up in smoke.]
But let's apply some logic here. We can see from the above Balakian entry, "A Confrontation with Peternocchio," that our poet gets very emotional when confronted by "deniers." We can imagine his cocky and arrogant self sitting prettily, in full knowledge that friend Andrew Goldberg will produce a "documentary" that is fully supportive of propagandistic views. Suddenly, he gets the news that a panel discussion is a possibility, potentially throwing doubt upon the Balakian dirt. Is it difficult to imagine him going bonkers?
Particularly with his Dashnak-style "the end justifies the means" penchant to say anything and everything to further Hai Tahd, the Armenian Cause?
I believe he flipped out and said exactly what the CURRENT article reported his having said. he was doing the kind of thing his propagandistic role model Vahan Cardashian would do: lash out and throw mud even at Armenian friends like Woodrow Wilson and James Barton, trying to show the world what skunks these people really were, when they had the audacity not to go "all the way" with Hai Tahd. Balakian likely wanted to present the impression that he was the poor, innocent Armenian who had to sacrifice his moral principles because Armenian-friend and now sudden Armenian-enemy David Davis was putting him through the wringer. All Balakian could think of was to show to the world what a dirty rotten scoundrel Davis was by claiming Davis would have "blackmailed" him. He thought he would get away with it, but then this point was focused on in Getler's March 17 column. (I might have had a hand in that; I had sent Getler a message before this column appeared, pointing out the dubious Balakian claim from the March 6 CURRENT article.) Balakian noticed he was caught in the corner like a rat, and he then had to perform damage control with the following: "That would be, of course, absurd. Naturally, PBS would find someone else to take my place."
I would like to support my contention with two pieces of logic. Let's first reproduce the relevant excerpt from the CURRENT article, in its entirety:
"This is morally wrong. It is ethically wrong. It is no different from having Holocaust deniers on, or white supremacists on following a documentary on slavery,” said Peter Balakian, a Colgate University professor who wrote The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response. Balakian appeared in both Goldberg’s documentary and the panel discussion afterward. However, he said he participated as a panelist unwillingly after he was told by David Davis, OPB’s v.p. of national production, that the documentary wouldn’t air without the accompanying panel discussion. “The post-show had to be done to save the documentary. The documentary was way too important. They put me in a morally difficult position,” said Balakian. “I don’t want to address that directly,” Davis said of Balakian’s assertion. “My position would be that PBS and OPB both felt it [the panel program] was a good thing. We made that clear to Peter.”
Note how hysterical Balakian is sounding. (We know from the quotation marks he must have been directly quoted. That is the rule, correct? Just like with Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, the recent edition of which Peter Balakian mysteriously edited... prompting the question as to why a book reprint would need an editor... we just know the awful things put into Talat and Enver's mouths must have been quoted verbatim, since the statements were within quotation marks.)
Here is the twofold logic:
1) Why in the world would the CURRENT article's author, Geneva Collins. have made up the part about Balakian's having been forced to participate unwillingly? Unlike Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, which I was obviously joking about, Collins appears to be responsible, and put quotation marks around the other parts of Balakian's statements, meaning she very likely tape-recorded Balakian's words. Let's put this together: especially with the friendliness and partisanship biased PBS people display in general toward Balakian, there is no reason on earth why Collins would have deliberately made that up. And particularly if she tape-recorded Balakian, it is very unlikely that she would have misinterpreted what Balakian had told her.
It's not only Collins; New York Times reporter Randal Archibold ["Armenian Furor Over PBS Plan for Debate," Feb. 26] interviewed Balakian and Davis separately [Archibold's quote from Davis was worded differently: "PBS did make it clear they felt the follow show was important, and we felt it was important as well'] and here is how Archibold summed up what Balakian had told him: "Mr. Balakian said he participated only because producers told him that PBS would not show the documentary without it." The "blackmail" element is not as strong here, but Balakian is obviously making it seem as though he were "forced." If his "morals" were as strong as he indicated in CURRENT, then he would have gladly stepped aside and allowed another "genocide scholar" in on the gig. The documentary would have been saved in any event. We did not need Peter Balakian to "save" this documentary, as Peter Balakian clearly implied.
2) David Davis was given the opportunity to respond. Being such a huge Armenophile, unquestioningly allowing the Goldberg propaganda complete freedom to make its claims (it was stated in an article that nearly no changes were made), it's evident Davis was being not as protective of Balakian as he was of the production. Balakian, after all, was a key component of not only the propaganda film, but the panel discussion as well. Davis did not want Balakian to come across as untrustworthy. Otherwise, now think about it: Balakian made Davis out to be a monster, twisting Balakian's arm as well as forcing Balakian to compromise his "morality" (why, this was almost as bad as when those nasty Turks forced the poor Armenians to convert to Islam, as Balakian stressed in his horrid book), and the best Davis came up with in his own defense was, "I don’t want to address that directly,” saying basically, Oh, that rascal Balakian. That's what the rest of Davis' response boils down to. (“My position would be that PBS and OPB both felt it [the panel program] was a good thing. We made that clear to Peter.”)
In other words, it sounds like Davis knows how emotional the poet Balakian can be, and accepts that Balakian would have made up the implied story about being blackmailed. Otherwise, when CURRENT's Collins had posed the question to Davis, and if Davis had suspected Collins as being at fault (that is, of having made a "false description," as Balakian charged), wouldn't PBS representative Davis have challenged PBS representative Collins, and asked (at least off the record, just so Davis would know) for Collins to verify the claim? Davis probably didn't even need to ask, because he had a good idea of what that rascal Balakian was capable of. But if Davis thought Balakian was on the level, Davis would have defended Balakian. Davis would have responded to the similar tune of Balakian's claim, that there must have been a misunderstanding between Collins and Balakian. Davis did not; he tellingly accepted Balakian's accusation, and answered in a manner that everything was made clear to Peter, and Peter should have known better.
CONFIRMATION BY HARUT SASSOUNIAN:
Finally, let's get an idea of what Peter Balakian's fellow activist, Courier Publisher Harut Sassounian wrote in a Yahoo group for Armenians; these propagandists work together, and Harut is at the hub. If anyone knows the dope regarding the inner workings of these dirty dealings, it would be Harut Sassounian. The relevant section, from Sassounian's April 22, 2006 entry (note Sassounian is confirming that Balakian was "forced," or at least was told by Balakian that he was forced, a month after Balakian put in his "damage control" disclaimer; the highlighting of Sassounian's words below is my doing):
You seemed to have missed the whole point of the Armenian campaign against the PBS panel discussion. I wrote from day one when the panel was first taped, that I am sure the scholars on our side would devastate the denialists. But that was not the issue. Even Peter Balakian, who participated in the panel (was forced to do it by PBS), was against the panel both before the taping and afterwards, not because he was not sure about his performance. He knew and we knew that he had done a great job. The point is that we cannot accept PBS or anyone else to put on the air denialists who work with the Turkish government whose sole objective is to raise doubt in the minds of the unsuspecting American public who are clueless about the facts and can't follow the twists and turns of what happened in 1915 (they can't even follow what is happening in 2006) and they will only remember afterwards that two "experts" said the Turks killed Armenians and two other "experts" said the Armenians killed the Turks. The Turkish side does not have to win the debate. All they have to do to win is to sow the seeds of doubt in the mind of the viewer.
An in-depth analysis of the PBS show, "The Armenian Genocide," is now available at TAT.
To Correct His Lie, Another Lie
When Peter Balakian attempted his damage control above, he wrote:
"After all my efforts to convince PBS to not produce a post-show failed I decided to go forward with the 'debate' because I ... felt I could help shape the conversation in an ethical way...."
I have not seen the panel discussion at this point (My PBS affiliate was among the many who had "caved," as an April 17 New York Times article put it. ADDENDUM, 7-06: Here is an in-depth report.), but here is an interesting exchange from the show that the PBS Ombudsman, Michael Getler, quoted from "Documenting and Debating a ‘Genocide’," April 21, 2006:
So it was McCarthy basically on his own facing questions from the moderator that put him on the defensive, and accused a couple of times by Balakian of having “worked for the Turkish government to help that government deny the Armenian genocide,” which McCarthy said was a lie but which ate further into his time and impact. As his source, Balakian cited a Reuters news agency story of a year ago. It was never read on the panel but I looked it up and the lead said that...
(Let's take a more detailed look at this Reuters article, "Turkey to fight genocide claims," March 25, 2005; here is how it begins, and the "incriminating" word is the third from the top; later the article used the word "inviting" to clarify the meaning):
TURKEY has enlisted the help of a United States historian today as part of its campaign to counter damaging, decades-old claims Armenians suffered genocide at Ottoman Turkish hands during and after World War I.
Turkey is worried the 90th anniversary of the alleged genocide on April 24 will trigger a fresh outpouring of sympathy for the Armenians which could harm Turkey's image and even derail the planned start of European Union entry talks in October. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan went on the offensive earlier this month, calling for an impartial study of the genocide claims and declaring Turkey's archives open to all scholars.
Invited to address the Ankara parliament today, Justin McCarthy, an expert on the Ottoman period, argued a complex historical tragedy had been manipulated for ideological reasons, becoming a vehicle for anti-Muslim, anti-Turkish prejudice. "The Armenian question has from the start been a political campaign... Yes, many Armenians were killed by Turks at this time and many Turks were killed by Armenians, but this was war, not genocide," Mr. McCarthy said. [The rest]
"Many politicians use the Armenian genocide not so much because they believe it but because they see it as a means to prevent Turkey joining the European Union," said Mr McCarthy.
Armenia says 1.5 million of its people died between 1915 and 1923 on Ottoman territory in a systematic genocide and says the decision to carry it out was taken by the political party then in power in Istanbul, popularly known as the Young Turks.
Turkey denies genocide, saying the Armenians were victims of a partisan war during World War I which claimed even more Turkish Muslim lives. Turkey accuses Armenians of carrying out massacres while siding with invading Russian troops.
Mr McCarthy urged Turkey to fund translations from Turkish into English and other European languages of historical records and books providing documentary evidence there was no genocide.
Foreign diplomats said Turkey's support for an impartial study of the genocide issue, possibly under the aegis of the United Nations, was a positive development.
But they said inviting an opponent of the genocide claims to address lawmakers who largely shared his views would merely reconfirm, not challenge, people's firmly held views.
It would have been more fruitful to invite people of differing opinions on the subject to the parliament, said one.
"They are still very timid," the diplomat said.
Armenia, a tiny ex-Soviet republic which has no diplomatic relations with Turkey, has rejected Mr Erdogan's proposal for an impartial investigation, saying scholars had already established the genocide as indisputable fact.
The European Parliament and several national assemblies from France to Canada have also backed the claims in recent years, passing resolutions urging Turkey to accept its past misdeeds.
Some EU politicians, notably in France, home to Europe's largest community in the Armenian diaspora, say Turkey must accept the genocide claims before it can start talks to join the wealthy bloc.
[Close]
What does that tell us? Prof. Justin McCarthy, through his own research, and by applying responsible historical scholarship, has come upon a conclusion different than what the crowd says, a lazy-thinking crowd influenced by Armenian wealth and intimidation, on top of a general anti-Turkish prejudice. McCarthy is one of the few contra-genocide academicians left because other scholars have learned it's too dangerous to get involved, and be at the mercy of the pro-Armenians' destructive ad hominem attacks.
So the Turks invited McCarthy to support the historical view the Turks believe in by inviting McCarthy to give a talk. In this respect they "enlisted (his) help."
Would the Turks have needed to influence McCarthy by giving him a potful of cash to give this talk? Why should they? McCarthy already believes in what he is saying; his scholarship is the proof.
If we entertain the notion that McCarthy is being paid off, does this Reuters article prove any such thing? No, it does not.
When Balakian accused McCarthy of having "worked" for the Turkish government, what does that clearly imply? It implies McCarthy is being paid off.
It's fitting that Balakian would point to such an article in order to support his claim, because it presents the same quality of evidence that Balakian uses to prove his genocide. But that does not take away from the fact that Balakian is making a baseless accusation.
In other words, as McCarthy responded, what came out of Balakian's mouth was "a lie."
We get a wonderful example of how Peter Balakian promised to conduct himself during this panel discussion, "in an ethical way."
(Balakian kept lying throughout the "debate," as you can see by visiting the in-depth TAT page analyzing the program. Toward the end, for example, he countered McCarthy's claim that " the Turkish government proposed that a neutral commission be set up to study this issue" with "(that is) absolutely not true," even though his own Reuters article from above corroborated the claim.)
Fairy Tale Origins Inspiring "The Burning Tigris"
Two days earlier, on November 12, 2004, Peter Balakian was at another reception and book signing at The University of Southern California's Doheny Memorial Library. Here's what the second paragraph of their press release stated:
Balakian grew up in an affluent New Jersey suburb. His grandmother, who
played a major role in his upbringing, often told him stories. Mixed
among the familiar Mother Goose and Grimm yarns, however, were strange and often disturbing tales of her youth in Armenia — all cloaked in metaphor and symbolism.
(c) Holdwater
tallarmeniantale.com/
burningtigris.htm
burningtigris-adana.htm
burningtigris2-morgenthau.htm
burningtigris3.htm
burningtigris4.htm
burningtigris5.htm
burningtigris-epilogue.htm
balakian.htm
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