214) Biased, Armenian Butt-Kissing PBS Shows: Armenian Journey- The Great War- The Armenians, A Story of Survival

THE GREAT WAR, presented by PBS in 1996 was a sneaky program, regarding the "Genocide." There were several "stories" in each chapter, and the "Genocide" one began with coverage of the Gallipoli episode. The Turks were presented fairly, and it was refreshing. That was the first chapter, and since the Turks were the Low Men on the Totem Pole during World War I, I figured that would be it regarding mention of the Turks in this series covering World War I. The series concentrated almost wholly on what was going on between the Germans on one side and the British/French and later Americans on the other... with some Russia added, here and there.

Armin Theophil Wegner's shot of crying Armenian girl and friends

Armin Theophil Wegner's shot was used to identify the
"Genocide" chapter in The Great War.

So while watching this first episode, feeling good that FOR ONCE America's Public Broadcasting System did not jump down the Turks' throats, the title card for the last episode came up.... with Armin Theophil Wegner's ubiquitous shot of the little girl crying identifying the segment, called "Genocide." I was so lulled, I actually thought, genocide? There was a genocide in World War I? In the next few seconds, I realized which genocide they were referring to... of COURSE. THAT "genocide"!

I could picture what was going through the minds of the producers, mainly Blaine Baggett: if we put in the one segment involving the Turks not showing them in a bad light... the Gallipoli one... in the same episode with the GENOCIDE one... we won't be accused of being unfair, and coming down hard on the Turks.

I was really incensed about this low down tactic, and this terribly unfair and one-sided depiction of events, so customary of PBS' Armenian programming. The show was produced in the Los Angeles/Californian arm of the network, the land of milk and honey for Armenian-Americans.

An Armenian's Reaction

From an Armenian web site, here is how Harut Sassounian, of the California Courier Publisher, rejoiced:

If you watched the PBS documentary on World War I, you will probably agree with me that it was a masterpiece. The inclusion of the Armenian Genocide in such a major documentary brought the Armenian tragedy out of its obscurity and showcased it on the center stage of one of the defining moments of world history. In eight minutes, the producers were able to present the Turkish attempt of race extermination with powerful still and film footage, maps, eyewitness accounts of survivors and foreign diplomats, scholarly narration, and haunting background music. The producers did not mince words. They clearly identified the perpetrator as Turkey. They called the crime, "the first genocide of the 20th century . . .a brutal plan of mass murder," and "ethnic-cleansing." They stated that both major wars of the 20th century "were marked by genocide," thereby clearly drawing a parallel between the Armenian Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. They referred to the infamous Hitler statement, "Who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?"

At the end, when the narrator pointed out that "to this day, the Turkish government denies the genocide," the viewers could only feel disgust and horror at the Turks' shameful misrepresentation. This documentary marks a turning point in our long effort s to bring international recognition to the Armenian Genocide. This will also be the beginning of the end of Turkish lies and distortions. I have transcribed below the segment on the Armenian Genocide:...

Had I discovered Mr. Sassounian's article on the Internet earlier, it would have saved me the trouble of transcribing the segment. I will go with my transcription, not because Mr. Sassounian did not do an accurate job, but I took it from the first word to the last. (Besides, this way I won't feel all my time had gone completely to waste.) .

I love it when Armenians claim their "genocide" is so obscure. Naturally, since the "genocide" constitutes such a major part of the Armenians' "raison d'etre," nothing would please them more than if the "genocide" were referred to all the time... in every published article and every TV show. However, the Armenian "Genocide" is firmly established in the minds of Westerners, after nearly a century of a non-stop barrage of reminders; there are many, many, many genocides that are truly obscure, like the genocide of the Tatars begun with Catherine the Great and ending with Stalin, or the genocide that actually succeeded, that of the Tasmanians; the Armenian "Genocide" is anything but obscure.
Map of "Turkey" poised against Russia

Why is The Ottoman Empire called "Turkey,"? Persia
is not called by its present-day name, "Iran." Arabia
is also not identified as "Saudi Arabia."

Mr. Sassounian is quite correct. "The producers did not mince words. They clearly identified the perpetrator as Turkey." Indeed. That was the whole IDEA. In fact, their accusatory agenda was so obvious, they even marked the map on their program as "Turkey," rather than the "Ottoman Empire," attempting to form a link between the alleged crimes of the past regime with the present day republic.

What the Program Said, and Holdwater's Comments

NARRATOR:

In Turkey in the year of 1915, war had two faces. One was the heroic stand at Gallipoli. The other, a brutal plan of mass murder.
In Northeastern Turkey, hundreds of thousands of civilians were to die. The war was the excuse. Ethnic cleansing of Christian Armenians out of the lands controlled by Islamic Turkey was the true intention.

Professor JAY WINTER:
Istanbul (?), during the days of the Ottoman Empire

Istanbul (?), during the days of the Ottoman Empire

The presence in the northeast of the country of a thriving cultured and relatively wealthy community of Armenians was a difficulty to Turks long before the First World War. It became a political and strategic threat when the war broke out because of the place of Armenians in the Russian Empire. However, most Armenians, two million of them living in the Turkish Empire, were no threat whatsoever.

In many ways, it shows that the old idea that war is politics by other means is outdated in the 20th century. War is hatred by other means. And in this case, hatred means extermination. The First World War was the biggest war ever to date. The Second World War was bigger still. It's not accident on my mind that both of them were marked by genocide. This is the logic of the brutalization of total war.

I'm going to have some things to say about Professor Jay Winter, after we get through the show's content. Already, we can see the producer and his cohorts have accepted the "Genocide" as fact, claiming from the outset that there was a "brutal plan of mass murder." Of course, if there were such a plan, there must be cold, objective, hard evidence, the lack of which prevented the British from convicting any of the Ottoman officials held for the Malta Tribunal not only of genocide, but of ANY war crimes. But, hold on. We'll get to what the program offers as "evidence," step-by-step.

An Armenian Family

So the professor is singing the same song about the Armenians in the country's northeast (described as "relatively wealthy"; the key word is "relatively." These Armenians, relative to the Armenians in the west of the country, were NOT wealthy. Maybe they were generally wealthier than their fellow Ottoman Muslim citizens, but the implication that these relatively poor Armenians were targeted for their wealth becomes bunk when we keep in mind their richer cousins in the western region were mostly exempt from the relocarion policy) targeted by the Turks for extermination for "strategic" reasons... which has truth, since the Armenians were colluding with the Russian invader... and for "political" reasons, implying it was the Turks' intention to cleanse the land of non-Turks, which is bunk. Why were the other non-Turks of the land, like the Jews, unaffected? If the professor meant the Christian vs. Muslim issue as "political," another standard argument of the pro-Armenians, why were the Catholic and Protestant Armenians excluded from the relocation orders? (Last time I checked, Catholics and Protestants were Christians.) Yet another Armenian explanation for the Turks wishing to exterminate the Armenians, in the Armenians' desperate search for a motive — any motive — was that the Turks were looking for a scapegoat, as angered as they were for having the empire diminish in the previous century. In other words the Turks had a hissy fit. Even if extermination were the aim, a period of desperate wartime struggle would have been the most inopportune time to get rid of such a valuable resource as the Armenians, who largely made the economic wheels turn.

How about looking at the one motive that makes sense? The ONLY reason the Armenians were relocated was because they were revolting! That is, in the sense that the Armenians betrayed their nation, acting as a fifth column behind the Ottoman lines. The United States Secretary of State, Robert Lansing, said in November of 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."

NARRATOR:

Only hours after the first allied soldiers stepped onto the beaches of Gallipoli, two hundred Armenian leaders were rounded up and executed. The Turks then began ridding themselves of entire communities; men, women and children were marched off into the desert.

VOICE:

The Turkish government had said that the men in prison would be released and allowed to go with their families. Some were simple enough to believe this and to think they would be allowed to settle down in some other place where they would begin life all over again.

Here we go with the same baseless charges, and the same unfair overlooking of the impartial, cold facts. The fact of the matter is, the Young Turks gave the Armenians every warning not to side with the enemy, as the Armenians historically had a knack for, since the 19th Century. When the evidence was clearly in that the Armenians would once again stab their nation in the back, as their revolutionary leaders instructed in a 1914 call to arms, somebody had to be found guilty. Who were the ones leading the Armenians? Was it the janitors and dishwashers among them? No. It would have had to be the "Armenian leaders," wouldn't it? These two hundred Armenian leaders, then... were they all so innocent, as the program implies?

Regarding the naive Armenians who simple-mindedly believed what "The Turkish Government Said"... let's see now. The Armenian Patriarch gave statistics to both the British and to the American president of Robert College (in Istanbul) in February of 1921, claiming the Armenian survivors in the Ottoman Empire were around one million. (The Partiarch also presented a document to the British specifying 625,000 Armenians were within the borders of what was left of the Ottoman Empire after the war, just before the Sevres Treaty. Hundreds of thousands were refugees in other nations, 500,000 in Transcaucasia alone, by Richard Hovannisian's count.) If over half a dozen neutral census figures came up with a median total population of Armenians of 1,300,000, it would seem a LOT of Armenians indeed did survive, and their government WAS telling the truth. Even if the Armenian casualties amounted to twice the remainder from the above computation (at 600,000, a number Holdwater accepts), did all of these people die of atrocities? Or could some of them died in the same way that their fellow Ottoman Muslims died, of famine and disease? (in addition to dying as treacherous combatants?) Even the Armenian guru, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, claimed in his ghostwritten book that thousands of Turks were dying daily. That's DAILY, assuming the ambassador was telling the truth (which is a big assumption, I'll admit.)

NARRATOR:

Leslie Davis

Leslie Davis, the American consul in the remote eastern province of Harput had heard rumors of crimes committed by Turkish soldiers and marauding bands. To see for himself he hired a guide and by horseback (went) into the desert.

“Greater misery could not be imagined. The dead and the dying are everywhere. Two or three small children may be seen weeping over the body of their dead mother. Other children are lying curled upon the ground dead or in convulsions. One sees dead bodies now in all directions and on every road. The whole country is one vast slaughterhouse.”

A "concentration camp"?

Let's get a few things straight. Nobody is denying Armenians did not suffer from the relocations. They were poorly defended by attacking bands that were mostly out for blood feuds, in retaliation for their own that the Armenians had massacred. Not all the gendarmes were lowlifes, as the Armenians claim.... some gave up their lives in the Armenians' defense. However, every quality man was needed at the front to defend the nation from the invading Russians and the backstabbing Armenians (not to mention other fronts, among four or five in the resource-depleted, bankrupt nation, such as Gallipoli -- also aided by Armenians). The pool of men these gendarmes were selected from were poor, and the Armenians were victimized by some who were assigned to protect them, as well. (Some of whom were tried and executed by the Ottomans in 1915! A greater number than twenty was no doubt tried and punished in less extreme ways. Did Hitler punish a single SS man during the Holocaust, for mistreating a Jew?) No doubt the Armenians suffered, and there were massacres. Massacres that would never have occurred if their leaders had not fired the first shot and betrayed their nation in their nation's darkest hour for survival.

However, massacres do NOT a government-sponsored genocide make. Was the American government guilty of a systematic plan to exterminate the Vietnamese people when one of their officers went bonkers and slaughtered the residents of My Lai?

What kind of a man was Leslie Davis, anyway? Information on him is sparse, but I dug up enough details from Armenian web sites that casts serious doubts on his character. Many U.S. Consuls, such as George Horton were equally racist as their boss, Ambassador Henry "Holier-than-Thou" Morgenthau. These consuls accepted wholesale the lies provided for them by Armenians (many of which were in their employ, including Leslie Davis) and the heartbreakingly unscrupulous missionaries, who were duty-bound by their pledges to God to be honorable. Why did Leslie Davis come up with the EXACT same casualty figures that he independently conducted as an "eyewitness," that a missionary lady came up with when she independently conducted her own "eyewitness" count? That would have been IMPOSSIBLE, given the extremely difficult circumstances. Read more about Mr. Davis, and judge how reliable his testimony is.

The deplorable scenario Mr. Davis described above could well have been on the money; nobody is denying the Armenians suffered horribly. However, people dying from famine and disease, as we can gather from the description, does not have anything to do with a "slaughterhouse," where people are deliberately murdered. Was food intentionally withheld from the Armenians, in an attempt to make them die slowly? If this was the evil intentioin, we must bear in mind two factors. How could so many Armenians have survived, if the idea was to kill them off? And how could Leslie Davis, a hostile foreign agent, have been permitted to eyewitness the suffering of the Armenians, if the idea was to exterminate them through starvation? Most convincingly, weren't the Turks dying of the same reasons in large numbers? Ambassador Morgenthau estimated an entire quarter of the Turkish population died from famine in his "Story" book, and a U.S. Consul wrote in his memoirs: "Since the beginning of the war even bread is almost unobtainable." That consul was Leslie Davis himself. ("The Slaughterhouse Province," P.38.).

By the way, if the country was one vast slaughterhouse as Davis wrote in his testimony above, why were the children spared? That doesn't make sense. If there's going to be a massacre, I can't understand why everyone was not massacred. That's the way the Armenians did it.... they did not spare the Turkish children.

Davis’s reports were not the only ones. Other eyewitnesses also complained of the killings. One was a young medic in the German army, Armin Wegner. Against orders smuggling in his camera, he visited a refuge camp filled with survivors.

Armin Theophil Wegner

“In the last few days I have taken numerous photographs under penalty of death. I do not doubt for a moment that I am committing an act of treason. And yet, I am inspired by the knowledge that I have helped these poor people in some small way.”

What Armin Wegner captured in these photos was a visual record of the first genocide of the 20th century.

“Hunger, death, despair… shout at me from all sides. I was seized by the terror and hurried out of the camp, my heart pounding. I was overcome by dizziness as if earth were collapsing on both sides of me, into an abyss.”

Armin Theophil Wegner sure wrote poetically, did he not? Just like many of these accounts of suffering Armenians that are written poetically... by Armenians! Yes, his writing style is markedly different than the cold, matter-of-fact style of a Leslie Davis, provided previously.

Regardless of Mr. Wegner's ethnicity (is "Theophil" a German name?), what do his photographs prove? Like Leslie Davis, Wegner, too, is another Armenian "Big Gun," presented on the side of the evidence for genocide, within the "The Armenians, A Story of Survival " PBS program. The photographic examples on both programs show suffering people, of whom there were many throughout the empire. The Ottoman Muslims were not cavorting about swimming pools with cigars in their mouths. (Remember they, too, were dying.... by the thousands.... daily... according to Ambassador Morgenthau.) There is one photo in the lot from THE GREAT WAR that is the most incriminating.... a pile of skulls. Since the photo's quality was so different from the other Wegner photos shown on the program, I suspect it came from another source. Even if it did not, was this photo documented? The director of the German museum, (Stutgart's Schiller-Nationalmuseum Deutsches Literaturarchiv) where the Wegner photo originals are housed, said:

“Unfortunately, we do not have any indication regarding when or in what country the Wegner photographs were taken. As a result, the dating, and sites depicted must be determined by whoever uses the photos.’’

This means those skulls could have belonged to anyone. Unlikely such a fraud could not have been perpetrated by the Armenians? Then you're not familiar with the long line of Armenian forgeries and falsifications.

Suffering Armenians. At least they're alive.

Even if the skulls were Armenian skulls... does that prove a genocide, as defined by the U.N. Convention of 1948? Think again.... massacres by themselves do not prove a government-sponsored policy of extermination.

Please go to Armin Wegner's page on TAT to find out more (the details on the German museum director are here), and to see the photographs used in THE GREAT WAR, including the small pile of skulls... and determine for yourself whether these undocumented photographs are a visual record of a genocide, or a record of suffering and dead people that singled out only one segment of the entire population... during a period of strife, famine and disease that did not discriminate among its victims.

Professor JAY WINTER:

In many ways, it shows that the old idea that war is politics by other means is outdated in the 20th Century. War is hatred by other means. And in this case, hatred means extermination.

The first world war was the biggest war ever, to date. The second world war was bigger still. It’s no accident in my mind that both of these were marked by genocide. It is the logic of brutalization of total war.

NARRATOR:

A few found a way to tell what had happened to them. One Armenian woman smuggled out a message in a shoe. ‘I seize the opportunity of bringing to your ear the cry of agony which goes out from the survivors of this terrible crisis through which we are passing. They are exterminating our nation(s). Perhaps this will be the last cry from Armenia that you will hear.’

To this day, the Turkish government denies the genocide. Estimates vary as to how many Armenians died. Some cite the figure of half a million. Others, one million. Whatever the number, the Armenian genocide was one of the darkest chapters of the Great War.

Not a pretty time for anyone.

In years to come, Armin Wegner would send a letter to Adolf Hitler in defense of the Jewish people. It was a plea which fell on deaf ears. For Hitler had learned a completely different lesson. He told his inner circle: ‘Who remembers the Armenia massacres today.’

"The last cry from Armenia that you will hear"? How wrong that poetically-writing Armenian woman was. Sympathy-seeking Armenians are crying louder than ever... like forks scraping a blackboard.

It's not just the Turkish government that "denies" the "genocide"... impartial scholars do, as well. That is, those who are still brave to speak the truth, after being targeted for character assassination or just plain assassination by some of the more fanatical Armenians. What a dishonest program. The producer really did the services of the many fine, talented people who worked on this program a great injustice by making the decision to support what must have been the views of his California Armenian friends. When just one segment is filled with such propagandistic materials, doubt is cast on the seaworthiness of the entire ship... the whole "Great War" series now becomes untrustworthy, its credibility impaired.

Naturally, the biggest gun of the Armenian "Genocide" is the alleged Hitler Quote. If it wasn't for the services of the Armenians' fellow Aryan, I don't know if there would be ANY "proof" of the "Genocide."

The last segment of this chapter accompanying the show was a real cheap shot. It was illustrated with these photographs:

Armenians by railway car, meant to evoke the cattle car imagery of the Holocaust

Regardless of whether the people shown in these photos were actually the relocating Armenians on their way to their new homes or just arbitrary shots of Ottomans using the trains (look at those trains... made of wood. The bankrupt nation likely bought the cheapest train cars available, in the years before the First World War, and I doubt any of the citizens traveled sitting in the plush seats we know from Amtrak or the Eurail system), the connection is clear: the Armenians were inhumanely being transported in cattle cars, like their Jewish counterparts of the Holocaust. (I've never seen W.W.II Jews allowed to open the doors of their train cars and sit around in such a relaxed fashion.)

The railway system in the destitute land was very limited; this is why many Armenians had to travel at least part of the way by marching, where whatever cruelties occurred, occurred. As Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester wrote in "Turkey Reinterpreted" (The New York Times Current History, March 1922): 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. Had this been a period of time beyond relatively un-modern 1915, and there was a fuller railway system, the Armenians could not have been as open to attack. Which brings to mind, if the Turks' evil plan was to kill the Armenians not through outright massacres but by deliberately subjecting them to the harsh conditions of a march... why did the Turks allow any Armenians to board any trains? The sooner they began their death-march, the more easily could the planned genocide have succeeded. Ladies and gentlemen, the case for the Armenian "Genocide" simply does not add up, no matter how you look at it.

Here is a report by a U.S. Consul that paints a picture of how the Armenians were transported by train... from the Leslie Davis page.

Jay Winter wrote that it was NOT GENOCIDE

I didn't check this firsthand, but I had no reason to suspect the following was untrue (of course, I could be wrong): on pg. 148 of the accompanying book for the series ("The Great War," Penguin Books, 1996), Professor Jay Winter acknowledged that there was no genocide! If anyone has this book, a confirmation would be welcomed.

ADDENDUM 2005

This book appears widely available throughout the nation's library system, and I had a chance to check out page 148 of "The Great War":

"It is unlikely that a precise order to exterminate every single Armenian came down from the ruling Turkish triumvirate of Tallat [sic] Bey, Minister of the Interior, Enver Pasha, Minister of War, and Djemal Pasha, Minister of the Navy. The responsibility of these men for collective deportation is clear; but deportation — a time-honoured strategy in nineteenth-century Turkey — while tantamount to death for the old, the weak and the infirm, was not genocide."

The blame, Winter wrote, rested with "corrupt and incompefent elements of the army." And he is absolutely correct, there were elements in the army that committed criminal actions against Armenians. However, how highly irresponsible to conclude that such amounted to "genocide." In war, it is a given that some soldiers act irresponsibly, committing atrocities and war crimes; in fact, this inescapable part of war constitutes — unfortunately —the nature of war. (In other words: war is not "nice.") When American troops took it upon themselves to gun down hundreds of Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, it would be quite a stretch to characterize the event as the intent to exterminate all Vietnamese.

How many of these "bad" Ottoman soldiers directly massacred Armenians, and how many Armenians died from famine and disease? The vast majority fell nto the latter category, the same causes that snuffed out the lives of everyone in the ailing Empire, without discrimination.

Let's not forget there were also gendarmes who lost their lives protecting Armenians. The main perpetrators of murder were lawless bandits. Some killed because they were "bad." Many, however, were out for revenge for what the Armenians had done to their families. British Col. Wooley reported the Armenians had killed from 300,000 to 400,000 Kurds, very much in line with the Ottoman documentation pointing to the deaths of over half-a-million Ottomans at the hands of the Armenians (and some Russians).

That was the real extermination policy, and nobody talks about it because Muslim lives don't count in prejudiced Western minds. The acts of violence committed by lawless bandits and some renegade soldiers can not be termed "genocide." The lives these criminals haphazardly took could not have amounted to "a brutal plan of mass murder," as Jay Wnter irresponsibly stated in the TV program. Such a brutal plan could only work if the government were involved, and the government was NOT involved, according to Jay Winter in his book.

The rest of the book makes sure to drive home the "genocide" point in a major way. From the index, there are 12 pages on "Turkey" (Prof. Winter makes sure to call the country "Turkey" and not the Ottoman Empire. I suppose the "historian" must also call Russia by the name of "The Soviet Union." He is attempting to propagandistically link the previous regime with today's Turkey... as he made clear in the T.V. show's closing statements), many of which is just a passing reference. But there are 10 pages on the "genocide," and the professor lays it on thick; his main "evidence" is the testimony of the awful Turcophobe, Lepsius. (The German religious fanatic was nowhere near the scene; he relied on reports provided by Armenians and missionaries, shared to a significant degree by another who had it in for the Turks, Ambassador Morgenthau.)

The producer, Blaine Baggett, hailed from California, which is Armenian country. Perhaps some forces at work (What C. F. Dixon-Johnson called "The Invisible Hand") decided this program would present an excellent opportunity to push Armenian propaganda under the guise of "history." The PBS program made a big impact, added some important notches to Jay Winter's belt, and in the interim he has succeeded in getting out of England and settling into the prestigious Ivy League quarters of Yale University. Certainly the topic of "genocide" can work wonders with the careers of some people.

By this time, in 1996, I was not active in countering anti-Turkish injustices in the American media (like the typically apathetic Turkish-American), but THE GREAT WAR infuriated me in its blatant one-sided agenda to incriminate the Turks, and spurred me into action; I made certain to find the names and addresses of key people.

One of the Letters Sent:

February 11, 1997

Joanna Cherensky
Program Information
PBS
1320 Braddock Place
Alexandria, VA 22314

Dear Ms. Cherensky,

Did you run across this week’s news item of the high school student who wrote to the SAT board, challenging the accuracy of one of their answers? (Reported in, among others, Time Magazine.)

What if the SAT Board looked into this matter and, despite convincing evidence to the contrary, stubbornly stuck to their guns? Do you think that would have been the right thing to do?

I thank you for your response to my letter concerning The Great War series, but because the content of your response blindly disregarded everything in the materials I provided Mr. Duggan with, I feel it would have been better if you sent no response at all.

More Armenian victims from THE GREAT WAR

You say the series was exhaustively researched and compiled, and there was evidence of that in the series as a whole. As far as your claim that “internationally recognized and accepted scholarship” was used: are you sure about that? (Pertaining to the “Genocide” segment, anyway.) I mean, really sure? And what about the overwhelming evidence of accepted scholarship I provided Mr. Duggan with, in the form of the copy of my letter to Jay Winter?

When one point-of-view is unilaterally used, to the exclusion of all others, don’t you think there’s something fishy? And wouldn’t that cast suspicion to the credibility of the rest of the information in the series?

After the series aired, the only source of information provided in The Great War website was from an Armenian author; that doesn’t seem very even-handed to me. Even the co-author of the series, Jay Winter, acknowledges in his book, “The Great War” (Penguin Books, 1996) that there was no genocide! (Page 148).

I know you’re merely a cog in the PBS wheel, and I’ve also learned the uselessness of writing letters to PBS, because they’re obviously not seriously considered. I’m simply writing you as one human being to another; it was improper to shoot off a “form letter” type response, saying, in effect, “we don’t care how much evidence to the contrary we get from unbiased scholars and historians — we’re going to stand by our TV show no matter what.” At least show a little pretense in caring, and making an effort to look into the truthfulness of the situation.

Professor with an agenda?

There are, of course, so many professors like Jay Winter who blindly and unthinkingly obey the irresistible melodies of The Armenian AND? Anthem. What is so troubling that when there is an example of a professor who believes in the alternate view, he is quick to be branded a tool of the Turks, as happened to Dr. Heath Lowry during a two-year smear campaign orchestrated against him, largely by Peter Balakian (friend of several pro-Armenian PBS shows). The difference is, Dr. Lowry reaches his conclusions through meticulous and open-minded study and does not ignore the voluminous impartial evidence against the case for Genocide. (Read some of his works that have been presented here on the TAT site, and judge the man for his research.) A professor like Jay Winter, based on the "evidence" provided on the GREAT WAR series that was co-written by him (for the "genocide" segment) has no real facts to back up his genocidal claims with, and other "facts" have clearly been distorted. So why aren't American authors like Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut up in arms against professors like Jay Winter who might be influenced by their private agendas, as these authors were against Heath Lowry? Such critics' racist and ignorant patterns of thought become readily apparent, and the double-standard is truly stomach-churning.

Through the years, America's Public Broadcasting System has curiously made a point of presenting one-sided broadcasts, as a mouthpiece for Armenians. This is a particular shame, as PBS is... in theory... not supposed to be beholden to one point of view, and is meant to represent the entire American public. Commercial television stations could be influenced by their sponsors; PBS as well is likely aware of not putting off wealthy Armenian financial sources, such as The Manoogian Foundation... which is almost always credited as being behind PBS Armenian programs.

Manoogian Foundation Logo
("Simone" is the married name of a daughter)

One recent example, from 2002, was called "The Armenians, A Story of Survival"

ADDENDUM: The producer of the program contacted me and corrected me on the title, which I had mistakenly referred to as ARMENIA: SURVIVAL OF A NATION, figuring it was based on Christopher Walker's book. If you were directed here from another page with this incorrect title, now you'll know why.

Here are a few highlights from the program, followed by Holdwater's thoughts, in yellow.

Narrator: "Although relations (between the Armenians and Ottoman Turks) were never completely harmonious, The Ottoman Turks, by the early 19th Century, referred to the Armenians as 'The loyal citizens of the Empire.' "

What does "completely harmonious" mean? The four centuries (along with the two previous centuries under non-Ottoman rule) in which the Armenians co-existed with the Turks earlier than the Nineteenth Century (before Armenians began stirring up trouble, encouraged by the independence of other minorities), the Armenians not only were free to do as they could like any other citizen (with slight restrictions... nothing compared to the restrictions for Moslems in Christian European nations of the period, where Moslems were generally not even regarded as human beings), but prospered... compared to the ordinary Turk. Sounds like a relatively happy existence to me.
Going for the sympathy vote, as usual... Don't Cry for Me, Armenia...?

Don't Cry for Me, Armenia...?

For example, in earlier centuries, the Armenian historian, Mathias of Edessa wrote (in Chronicles, Nr. 129):

"(Turkish Sultan) Meliksah's heart is full of affection and goodwill for Christians, he has treated the sons of Jesus Christ very well, and he has given the Armenian people peace, affluence and happiness"

The program unfairly tries, of course, to instill the idea that the Armenians were somehow oppressed. (How were the Armenians treated under the Byzantines and all the other entities that ruled them before it was the Turks’ turn? Were the Armenians allowed to rise up to the top ranks in virtually any endeavor in those other societies? Read in particular the first two paragraphs under "Trusted Armenians in the Ottoman Empire," for examples. Compare also to oppressed peoples in later centuries, such as American blacks until the middle of the 20th Century. Were blacks allowed to rise to America's top ranks in much more enlightened times?)

The Turks Viciously Attack the Poor Russians

As W.W.I erupted, the Ottoman Turks, as planned, launched a major military campaign against the Russians on the Northeastern front. Armenians found themselves on both sides of that front.

Wasn’t it Russia that declared war on the Ottoman Empire? (Granted, with the provocation of German-manned Turkish vessels sinking a Russian gunboat, acting on their own to push the Ottomans into war.) And wasn’t it Russia that harassed its weaker neighbor, “The Sick Man of Europe,” with constant wars the century or so prior... significantly leading to the empire's decline? While it’s true Enver Pasha took the initiative with a campaign that would ultimately prove disastrous, the wording makes it sound like the poor Russians were lying helplessly in the wake of the aggressor Turks. (Czar Nicholas confidently "annexed" "Constantinople" at the beginning phase of the war, aware of how weak his neighbor was.) Obviously, the program also insinuates that the poor Armenians were innocent bystanders with no part to play in the conflict... instead of playing the active role they did, making an arrangement with Russia to stab their own nation in the back.

"Hostilities were opened by the Russians, who pushed across the border on November 1, 1914, though the Ottomans stopped them and pushed them back a few days later. On December 21 Enver personally led the Third Army in a counterattack."

Stanford & Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. II.

The Armenophiliac Author, Christopher Walker

The Armenophiliac Author
Christopher Walker (author, The Armenians, Survival of a Nation):

“The Ottoman Armenians had agreed to support the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian Armenians had agreed to support the Russian Empire.”

With this one sentence (which you will hear, if you click above), Christopher Walker blows away whatever little credibility he has. How dare he make such a bald-faced lie? Unlike the absence of definitive evidence that there was a state-sponsored genocide committed upon the Armenian people, there are volumes of evidence that proves the Armenians were the Benedict Arnolds of their country... and a good amount from the Armenians themselves. Either Mr. Walker is the most incompetent researcher who was ever born, or he has a prejudiced agenda to fulfill.

ADDENDUM, Oct. 2006: In a sense, Mr. Walker's statement is not entirely untrue, because Ottoman-Armenians did agree to support their nation, as K. S. Papazian can tell you. The problem is, the Armenians did not keep their promise, and the problem with Mr. Walker is that he chose to let viewers believe the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were generally loyal. The reality actually was that distinctions such as "Russian" or "Ottoman" were irrelevant; the Armenians were only loyal to Hai Tahd, the Armenian Cause, no matter which nation they happened to be residing in. (Or, as Prof. Justin McCarthy put it in p. 26 of "Death and Exile": "Armenians under Russian and Ottoman rule obviously viewed each other as brothers, no matter their citizenship.")

"Although most Armenians maintained a correct attitude vis-à-vis the Ottoman government, it can be asserted with some substantiation that the manifestations of loyalty were insincere, for the sympathy of most Armenians throughout the world was with the Entente, not with the Central Powers. By autumn 1914, several prominent Ottoman Armenians, including a former member of parliament, had slipped away to the Caucasus to collaborate with Russian military officials."

Richard Hovannisian, "Armenia on the Road to Independence," 1967, p. 42

"...In the early part of 1915, therefore, every Turkish city contained thousands of Armenians who had been trained as soldiers and who were supplied with rifles, pistols, and other weapons of defense. The operations at Van once more disclosed that these men could use their weapons to good advantage..."

Henry Morganthau, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, Doubleday, 1918, page 301

If any of the two parties behaved genocidally, it was the Armenians. There is irrefutable evidence, for example, that the Turks tried to protect the relocating Armenians, and punished the Turks who behaved criminally... even by execution! (In 1915, twenty Ottoman Turks were put to death by their own government, for crimes against the Armenians; not imprisoned, but put to death. Imagine Hitler laying any kind of punishment on an SS man, for mistreating the Jews. Bear in mind as well that Lt. Calley's American punishment for the My Lai Massacre was only three days' imprisonment, followed by house arrest.) Meanwhile, whatever Muslim village came under the Armenians’ control, they systematically cleansed the village of every man, woman and child. (In hopes of laying the foundation of an ethnically pure state... and they certainly succeeded with what is Armenia today; the Muslims were the majority, not that long ago.)

I vote France bring Christopher Walker to trial for making such inaccurate statements in cases that involve genocide against Turks and Muslims.

Narrator: But since some Armenians in Russia, were in fact, fighting against the Ottoman Turks, the Young Turks feared the Armenians in their own empire might join the Russian enemy. The Ottoman Turks then began a campaign to remove what they considered to be "The Armenian Threat" within their own borders.

Poor, innocent Ottoman Armenians. Why, it sounds like they were no different than Japanese-Americans in W.W.II America, who were relocated... and, worse, placed in concentration camps... with barely any evidence of supporting the enemy.

"Evidence" of the "pre-prepared graves."

I guess this shot from the program is supposed to lend
"evidence" to the "pre-prepared graves."
Walker: The entire Armenian community of Anatolia was uprooted and either shot on the spot, or driven to the desert to die. The men were driven from their towns and villages, and shot a few miles outside and their bodies were buried in pre-prepared graves. The women and children were forced to walk over the mountains, into the deserts, and were left to die in terrible circumstances. The authorities said that they were going to new locations, new towns, but these were complete fantasies; they were just dumped in the desert to die.

Christopher Walker has already lost complete credibility with his earlier statement, so anyone who takes whatever he says at face value would be a fool. I haven't read his book, but he has obviously chosen to take his information almost completely from Armenian sources.

So the new locations the Armenians were taken to were “complete fantasies,” ehhh? American Rear Admiral Colby Chester wrote, "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." Oh, Chris. Of what value is a man who has no honor?

(Addendum: After writing the above, I came across Dr. Heath Lowry's examination of a sample of Mr. Walker's work. Dr. Lowry is very kind to conclude Christopher Walker merely suffers from "poor scholarship." Does Dr. Lowry's summation come out of thin air? Judge for yourself, at the risk of injuring your jaw from dropping when you realize the extent of the British author's unprofessional methodology.)

WALKER: "...The women and children were forced to walk over the mountains, into the deserts, and were left to die in terrible circumstances."

"...[T]he Armenians were moved ... to the most delightful and fertile part of Syria. Those from the mountains were taken into Mesopotamia, 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. "

Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester, Turkey Reinterpreted, The New York Times Current History, 1922

"All sources confirm that, for instance, they say they were exiled to Mesopotamia. I don't know if you've been there. Armenians claim Mesopotamia is a desert and people were exiled there. In fact, the places they were exiled to like Aleppo, Dayr al-Zor, southern Urfa and Mosul provinces were located within the region called the Fertile Crescent. I don't agree with the term "desert" they use to arouse pity. That region is not a desert at all."

Prof. Kemal Cicek, "The Ottoman Armenians: The Question of Relocation and Immigration During WWI," 2005

Regarding Walker's irresponsible claim that the Armenians were "left to die": an Armenian representative reported to Ambassador Morgenthau himself that half a million Armenians had "already settled down to business" and were "earning their livings," by September of 1915. The contemptible ambassador was later quoted (by Vahan Cardashian, in a March 3, 1916 letter to Lord Bryce) as saying Armenians were found in good numbers in almost all the interior cities of Turkey, and that the attitude of the Government was passive. (The Armenian Review, Winter 1957, p. 107.) It must be said that Armenians did die of famine and disease as the years dragged on, in a bereft nation where U.S. Consul Leslie Davis had written bread as almost unobtainable since before the war. Many Muslims were similarly "left to die in terrible circumstances." If this is the criteria, why does Walker not charge the Ottoman government with committing a genocide against the Turkish people? What unfair, simple-minded, prejudiced statements.

Leslie Davis

Another eyewitness, Leslie Davis, the United States foreign consul in the Harput region of Turkey from 1915 to 1917, documented everything he saw, including an experience at a nearby lake.

Leslie Davis

In 1915... thousands of Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless women and children, were butchered on the shores and barbarously mutilated. (Cue sad music.)

Leslie Davis’ observations also formed the most “valid” basis for the genocide segment of the other PBS program we’re exploring, “The Great War.” So Leslie Davis is an Armenian “Big Gun,” in their quest to brainwash people into believing there was a "Nazi"-style genocide. I always pay attention to what non-Armenian and non-Turkish observers of the period had to say. (There are, for example, reports from Germans... the Ottomans’ allies... that make me think. I read about them mostly from Armenian web sites. Armenian web sites, unfortunately, follow the same principles as Christopher Walker, and you can trust them as far as you can throw them.)

However, when one encounters Western "eyewitness" accounts describing atrocities against the Armenians, two things have to be kept in mind: first, many Westerners entered this scene with a bigotry against the Turks firmly established. Some of these racist observers, like Ambassador Morgenthau, relied on biased third-party accounts (missionaries, Armenians) and reported them as their own. Secondly, there is no denying Armenians were massacred, many by Kurds who were getting back at the Armenians who slaughtered the mainly Kurdish people who lived in these regions, and also by Arab bandits. However, if Leslie Davis reported accurately of innocent Armenians getting butchered , that is not evidence of a state-sponsored genocide.

The program makes it sound like Leslie Davis was standing around, witnessing the butchery of "thousands of Armenians." Is that credible? If the parties doing the massacres were government representatives — as is the implication here — ...would the Turks have told the American consul, Oh, here, have a ringside seat while we get on with our bloody business? There is no question that Mr. Davis... like Ambassador Morgenthau... simply swallowed the horror stories missionaries and Armenians were only too happy to tell him. (Leslie Davis did take a stroll or two away from the comforts of his consular office, and saw corpses here and there, unlike many of his co-consuls and Morgenthau. Massacres were committed by both sides in the intercommunal civil war, and the Turks never hid the fact massacres took place... unlike the Armenians, who won't admit they gave defenseless Turkish villagers as much as a nosebleed. Dead corpses, however, do not prove there was a government-sponsored extermination policy. Think: My Lai.)

More on Mr. Davis and other American consuls.

A genuine foreign eyewitness who made it his business to observe

"The Turkish Government"... Again

Genocide victim... or victim of the desperate times?

Or victim of the desperate times?
The Turkish government today denies a genocide took place... and lobbies foreign governments and journalists, urging them to express the Turkish side. But when our producers asked to interview a representative of the Turkish government, their spokesperson refused; unless given up to nine full minutes of uncut, and uninterrupted, air time.

There is that “Turkish government” bugaboo again! Hey. It’s NOT just the Turkish government that denies a genocide took place.... there are many impartial scholars and historians who do as well, braving Armenian reprisals against their credibility or even their lives! As far as the Turkish government’s finally taking the steps to present the truth after the Turks’ image got relentlessly battered for nearly a century, and even earlier.... when the Armenians, Greeks and other Turk-haters were the only voices being heard... it’s about time. Naturally, the insinuation here is the Armenian “Genocide” is irrefutable, and the Turkish government is evilly engaged in challenging the Armenian “truth.” There has to be some force to counter the exceptionally well-financed Armenian organizations, and the smaller numbers of settled Turks in countries like America don’t have the comparative wherewithal or appetite to harp on this issue as obsessive Armenians do. On one hand, Turks are generally more apathetic, which is unfortunate; but they’re also trying to live their lives and not get hung up on the events of nearly a century ago.

Regarding the government spokesperson who gave his or her condition, my God! He or she would have been stupid not to. An interview can be taken and edited in such a manner to have the opposite effect of the actual spoken message.

A few years ago, there was a report on “60 Minutes” by Ed Bradley, which I believe was exploring the Kurdish issue. The program had naturally made up its mind that the Turks were the villains, but made the effort to interview one person to represent the counterpoint. This person happened to be a representative of the Turkish government... and his shots were mostly filmed in extreme close-ups. When his face was seen as taking up the screen while the other interviewees were composed in a normal head and shoulders manner... what do you suppose the effect was? There is definitely something more jarring about an extreme close-shot; it could present the effect that a person has something to hide, capturing the slightest twitch in a more magnified fashion. There are ways for filmmakers with an agenda to make a subject appear to lack credibility.

Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel: To have an entire country, an entire nation, to say it didn't happen... it pains. It's an insult, it's an offense to memory, it's an offense to dignity, it's an offense to humanity... to the humanity of the Armenians.
Elie Wiesel: Holocaust Man

Holocaust Man

Well... Elie Wiesel is another “Big Gun” of the Armenians, especially since he, as a famous Holocaust survivor, gives that all important connection to the Holocaust, just like the presumed Hitler Quote. I don’t know how much research Mr. Wiesel has done... I fear he is so genocide-sensitive, he has accepted the Armenian version of events without asking too many questions. (It’s hard to shake a version of events that has been bombarded, unchallenged, for nearly a century. It becomes part of one’s deeply-rooted belief system.) Probably Elie Wiesel has bought into the “Of course, the Turks were known barbarians” symptom, and he chooses to believe what he prefers to believe.

Let’s examine Mr. Wiesel’s words: “To have an entire country, an entire nation, to say it didn't happen... it pains. It's an insult, it's an offense ...” To say WHAT didn’t happen? Turks are the first to acknowledge Armenians were massacred. By contrast, how many Armenians acknowledge they massacred Turks, Kurds and other Muslims? Mr. Wiesel... why are you not applying this very same criteria to the Armenians? When Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora refuse to admit "it" didn’t happen... it pains. It’s an insult, it’s an offense... unless you feel Turkish lives are somehow more meaningless. I refuse to believe you would think that way, which makes me conclude.... you just didn’t care to do your homework.

Naturally, what Elie Wiesel is talking about when he says "it" is... genocide. Well, no matter how much you believe the Ottoman Turks systematically tried to wipe out the Armenian people... if there’s a mountain of objective evidence that says "it" didn’t happen, then it’s the DUTY of honorable people not to give in to politically correct pressure. On the other hand, there is irrefutable evidence that the Armenians DID act genocidally. What’s painful is that someone with the surface sensitivity of Elie Wiesel looks at the world in such a black and white way: the Armenians wear the white hats, the Turks wear the black hats. (Well, we can't blame Mr. Wiesel too much, since that's the way practically every other brainwashed Westerner observes the equation; however, Elie Wiesel bears a greater responsibility to be objective... since he comes across as being so "sensitive," for one.)

Perhaps Elie Wiesel doesn’t exactly understand the meaning of the word "genocide," as defined by The 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Now, that would be ironic.

It’s even more ironic that the Nobel Prize winning "Champion of the Holocaust," Elie Wiesel, is so eager to give the Holocaust connection to a people whose sense of identity unfortunately thrives on it. In doing so, Elie Wiesel cheapens the meaning of the Holocaust. What should be kept in mind is that Elie Wiesel is not the only "voice of conscience" regarding the Holocaust, even though he is perhaps best identified with it. There is a long list of Jewish historians and Israeli officials who disagree with Elie Wiesel’s view. (Although there is probably a much longer list of ignorant Jews who have been as brainwashed as Elie Wiesel... eager to cast stones at one of the very, very few historic friends the Jews have ever had.)

(ADDENDUM: Holocaust survivor Guenter Lewy looked into this matter in the most scholarly way, and arrived at a different conclusion.)

Another irony is that Mr. Wiesel probably has said nothing about the Armenian "Jew Hunter," General Dro... who sharpened his skills by targeting Turkish women and children (literally women and children for the most part, it appears) for mass murder, to later work for Mr. Hitler in his campaign to victimize people just like Elie Wiesel.

Since Mr. Wiesel appears to have never bothered to investigate the Armenian "Genocide" in a serious way, other than blindly accepting what the Armenians have told him... I believe his ignorance extends to not having one clue about whether Armenian-Nazis existed. (Holdwater contacted the Simon Wiesenthal center, for example, to see if famed Nazi-hunter Mr. Wiesenthal ever looked into heavyweight Nazis like Dro, who was stashed away to America and lived very comfortably. In the meantime, the small potatoes Ukranian concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk... wrongly accused of being "Ivan the Terrible"... was making headlines, while his life was made hell for being just another cog in the wheel. [He was ultimately returned from Israel, where he was tried, and got his American citizenship back... but only thanks to documents made available from the break-up of the Soviet Union.] The Wiesenthal representative seemed surprised there was even such a thing as an Armenian-Nazi.)

Naturally, the fact that Armenians were Nazis during World War II has no bearing on whether they could have been the victims of a state sponsored extermination policy in World War I, or not... but this knowledge might help assist a closed-minded person like Elie Wiesel to open his eyes. If he starts seriously looking into Armenian patterns of behavior, he would learn the innocent lambs have had a historic way of deliriously wiping out defenseless people, from the 19th Century to World War I to the close of the 20th Century.

Sadly, for those of us who firmly believe that the Holocaust took place, some scholars of the Genocide of the Jews have attacked any reconsideration of Armenian-Turkish relations out of a fear that this will somehow give comfort to those who, against all evidence, disavow the Holocaust. It must also be admitted that we academics have been unwilling to undertake studies of Armenian-Turkish relations, because of problems with career advancement and even physical dangers.

Prof. Justin McCarthy, 1996 Congressional testimony

(After learning what a lazy-thinker Elie Wiesel can be, now I see him in a different light. Here's a reference to Mr. Wiesel from "TV Guide" magazine that didn't help to uplift the respect for him that I once had.)

A Turkish Scholar

Narrator: Today, most scholars acknowledge the history as fact, including this Brown university professor, Engin Akarli, who is of Turkish descent.

Akarli: We have to put things in their appropriate historical context; yes, these things happened...

(OFF-SCREEN FILMMAKER’S QUESTION): What are these things?

Akarli: Genocide, okay? The genocide, in the sense, that attacks against a distinctive part of the population.. that attacks against a distinctive, specific part of the population. In this sense, that's what I understood of genocide. It happened. We need to face it, to understand why it happened, under what circumstances it happened, and what are its moral implications, what does this event tell us about the times, what does this event tell us about great power politics, problems of nationalism in this part of the world, there are many issues that this particular sheds light on.

Naturally, when one manages to get a scholar who shares the ethnicity of the opposite side who speaks for your side... the legitimacy factor increases considerably. Needless to say, what supersedes all else should be the facts... and one’s belonging to a particular tribe should be irrelevant. That is, the fact that a professor of either Turkish or Armenian descent happens to support the other side does not necessarily make him or her correct. At least psychologically, however, getting the opposing team’s “cooperation” can be very effective.
Engin Akarli

The Turkish Scholar

Sometimes people have other motivating factors besides the truth. The first time I heard about a Turkish scholar (someone other than Engin Akarli) supporting the Armenian “Genocide,” my ears pricked up. Whoa! He’s Turkish, and he thinks the “Genocide” really happened? My first thought was, maybe he has come upon some definitive evidence... and I certainly wanted to learn more. As I said, the jury is still out... all people of honor can rely on are the facts. So far, the facts overwhelmingly point to there being no government sponsored genocide, and the evidence from the Armenian side almost always turns out to be fraudulent. However, if suddenly a “Wannsee Conference” sort of Ottoman Turkish meeting is trustworthily discovered (for example), I would have to sigh and say... yes, those bastard Young Turks definitely orchestrated the extermination of the Armenian people.

However, then I learned this other Turkish scholar had his own self-serving agenda; not all Turks are “good,” and not all Armenians are “bad.” To think in such terms would be racist. Turks can be just as susceptible to factors that have little to do with the facts of the case. Maybe a Turkish professor figures espousing the Armenian case would be a way to get the spotlight so desperately craved. Maybe a Turk has bought into the endless anti-Turkish sentiments the West is constantly bombarded by and has developed a prejudice against those of his own kind. (I’ve met Germans with a sense of self-loathing, because of their being German; I’ve met Jews who can be the worst anti-Semites.)

This is not to say Professor Engin Akarli is not a man of integrity. Because he has a different view doesn’t mean I’m going to attack his credibility... that would make me no better than the Armenians who are set to destroy the reputations of scholars they don’t agree with, such as Professors Heath Lowry and Bernard Lewis. I know nothing about Professor Engin Akarli. I certainly will keep my ears open to hear what he has to say. Maybe he knows something more definitive than I do.

What I gathered about the way his interview was handled on the program was that the professor initially appeared reluctant to use the word “genocide.” Only when the filmmaker prodded him, did he use that particular word. (Once he was "deflowered," he had no problem with repeating the word later.) It must be kept in mind “genocide” is one of the most overused words in the English language. Practically any killing of people can be referred to as a “genocide.” People easily forget there has to be “specific intent,” as described by Article II of the (1948 U.N.) convention... and the victims also must not be allied politically, as the Armenians violently were, with the invading Russians. As a result, what some British filmmakers hoped to present as the killing of British P.O.W.s in a proposed film suddenly became a “genocide.” It sounds to me like the professor was using the word “genocide” in a general sense, as he continued in a very “professorial” way, speaking of issues that weren’t directly related to the Armenian “Genocide.” However, this was only my impression.

"This is a question of definition and nowadays the word 'genocide' is used very loosely even in cases where no bloodshed is involved at all..."

Professor Bernard Lewis

Professor Justin McCarthy offers his views on Turkish scholars supporting the Armenian "Genocide."

ADDENDUM

After writing the above, I came across a correspondence between Turks and Professor Akirli which was, unfortunately (for me) written in Turkish, but I understood enough to get the gist of it. After watching the PBS program, one Turk requested documentation to back up the professor's claims, and the professor was kind enough to reply... unfortunately, not with any documentation, and just his opinion. (Which is what Armenians are really good at providing, instead of the facts, so the professor has something else in common with the Armenians.) The main thrust of his argument was that the Young Turks' Committee of Union and Progress had no right to accuse 400,000 Armenians, particularly the women, children and elderly among them. "Because they did it to us, we did it to them does not alleviate the guilt," the professor (paraphrasingly) opined. Governments have a responsibility for all citizens. Yes, sometimes it's hard to separate the innocent from the guilty, but sometimes it's easy, he went on to write.

Who can argue with any of that? It's true... and I am the first to agree the Ottoman government was guilty for not properly protecting the innocent Armenians who were forced to relocate. The Ottoman government was equally guilty for not being able to protect the hundreds of thousands of Turks/Muslims who were slaughtered by the Armenians, perhaps even before the Russian army swung by to lend the Ottoman-Armenians a helping hand.

In retrospect, it's easy to look at the tragic events transpired so long ago and say from one's comfortable armchair, yes, the Ottomans were heavy-handed in their response. However, I know from reading Henry Morgenthau's "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" that the situation was really desperate for the Ottoman Empire. The nation was bankrupt, and "thousands of Turks were dying daily"... mainly because the Turkish men were mobilized for the army, and there was no one to till the fields, or to protect Turkish women and children from the marauding attacks of the revolting Armenians. Famine and disease were everywhere, and every available man was needed at multiple fronts when the nation was engaged in a desperate struggle for its very life.

Armenian women helped with manufacturing bullets

Yes, there were innocent Armenians who didn't want to play a part in their leaders' treacherous directives, but almost all complied; some did out of fear of knowing what happens to Armenians who step out of line... and many did so willingly, having planned for the opportune moment for years by stockpiling weaponry, and sneakily waiting for the right moment to strike, when their nation was at its weakest. When the whole community is supportive of such treachery, willingly or not, whom do you trust? Women may not be at the front lines, but they're helping with the manufacturing of bullets and the tending and feeding of the revolutionaries. Children can be active participants, as American soldiers were recently reminded with Iraqi kids during "Operation Iraqi Freedom"... in a New York Times report on the heroes of Musa Dagh, an Armenian bragged about how an Armenian child (Peter Gragosian) shot to death four Turkish soldiers. Did the Ottoman government actually have the resources to investigate every family to determine who was loyal, and who was not? How do you determine loyalty, anyway... by the way Armenian faces smile at you? As Enver Pasha said (in so many alleged words) in "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," you may have the luxury of making such determinations during peacetime, but not with mighty mortal enemy Russia crashing through the gates and with world powers England and France smashing through Mesopotamia and threatening the Dardanelles.

Armenian female-perpetrated violence:

"The women, armed with axes, guns, daggers, and sticks, chased the Turkish prisoners who were escaping, and killed most of them, only 56 of them were able to escape."

Diary of Aghasi [or Aghassi], leader of 1895 Zeitun rebellion, p. 289 [as cited in "The Armenian File"]

Armenian woman with Browning
revolver. (Source: The Great World
War: A History, edited by Frank A.
Mumby, London, 1915-1917)

"...Zeki Pasha had come down to the station, evidently trying to escape, when some of these Armenian women recognized him and attacked him savagely. To save his life, the British soldiers locked him up..."

Rev. Ernest Partridge, "The Pensacola Party and Relief Work in Turkey," Armenian Affairs, Summer-Fall 1950, Vol. I, No. 3-4, pp. 293-297

"When the Kurds burst the village gates," said Miss Marcara, "we took rifles and mounted to the roof. I fired eighty shots. The Kurds were forced to withdraw outside the village wall. There I killed two and David two. Later we killed four more, one of whom was the Chief."

"Elizabeth Marcara, an Armenian girl," as related in an April 26, 1915 New York Times article entitled "Kurds Massacre More Armenians."

(This section keeps growing, and a page has now been devoted to the topic: Killer Armenian Women)

We now can conclude America was a touch too xenophobic when the lives of Japanese-Americans were ruined during WWII... but the Americans did it in a Western country that was more "civilized" than how the Ottoman Empire is perceived, at a time more modern almost thirty years later, and — this is most important — with a people who did not betray their country... women, children and elderly included.

Would Professor Akarli classify what happened to the Japanese-Americans as "genocide"? Yes, their lives were not in danger as were the lives of some of the Ottoman-Armenians being relocated... but America had no enemies immediately knocking on her doors and had plenty of resources, relative modernity and manpower. Armenians were killed during the relocation, but was that out of a government-sponsored plan to deliberately exterminate them? If that's what you believe, Professor Akarli, provide the hard evidence; otherwise, please educate yourself on the meaning of "genocide."

I am not saying this "Turncoat Turk" is not genuine in his views, because I don't know the man. I find it interesting, however, that he would consent to appearing in such an uncompromisingly anti-Turkish program to express his views, in a land that is so uncompromisingly anti-Turkish. Does he share an ethnicity like (probably) Armin Theophil Wegner that is not evident from the surface... what is his driving force? There are opportunists who make names for themselves simply by being contrary... while I'm not saying Engin Akarli acted upon such a motivation, what is clear to me is, if I didn't see him on this program, I would have perhaps never heard of him... and probably, neither would you.

OCT. 2005 ADDENDUM: I've seen some other evidence that has softened my views on Prof. Akarli. While I still don't understand why he allowed himself to be used on this program, and why he has attended "genocide club" conferences, there are parts about him that I like, and I'm no longer putting him in "Turncoat Turk" category.

Creating an Armenian Myth

On the program, a female editor of an Armenian magazine explained:

Armenians create their own Armenian myth wherever they go. One example of this is a man in South Africa who lives alone; no other Armenians around him. Who felt the need for a church. Built his own little church. An Armenian church. In the middle of nowhere.

Lone Armenian man in South Africa who built an Armenian church

NARRATOR: As Pulitzer Prize winning author William Saroyan understood, "When two Armenians meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia."

Well... this is an example of ethnic pride, and on one hand... deservedly so. On the other hand... I find this attitude arrogant and even a little scary. Imagine, this fellow is the only Armenian in a South African city or village, and he sets up a whole institution of his Armenian-ness. And there are no other Armenians to share this proud feeling of “Armenian-ness” with him..! Why didn’t he concentrate his efforts on celebrating being a South African... since he is living among South Africans? Why not do something the people who happen to be living with you can benefit by? Talk about being self-centered.

Maybe this sort of attitude helps explain why members of the Armenian Diaspora aren’t always loyal citizens of the nations they live in. We already know this from the Ottoman Armenians (who sure tried to see to it to “create a New Armenia”), but even here in America: the Armenian-Americans don’t seem to care about American interests. Turkey has been a rock, as far as being a Western ally. Whenever there are conflicts, Turks are the first to pledge their support... as demonstrated during the 1991 Gulf War, where Turkey’s invaluable cooperation made a huge difference (Turkey borders Iraq), even at the expense of many billions (an estimated forty billion) of dollars of financial loss. (One of the reasons that made the Turks think twice about mindlessly supporting the USA during the second Gulf War, the first time Turkey has balked in going along for the ride of Western adventurism.) With the largest European army in NATO, Turkey was Western Europe’s first line of defense against Soviet expansionism. The Turkish Brigade saved U.S. troops from annihilation during the Korean war. Turkey is the only democratic Muslim country in a region where many Islamic nations are often not that friendly to the United States. Turkey’s balance of trade with the U.S. lately favors the U.S. The list goes on and on.

The Armenian-Americans don’t give a pig’s eye about any of that. By “bribing” American congressmen and politicians who would sooner sell out American interests in order to get money and votes, the Armenian-Americans don’t even bother with the consequences of alienating Turkey, this great American and Western ally, as long as they can get their resolutions passed, in recognition of the Armenian “Genocide.”

At least on one point I agree with the female editor, when she said, "Armenians create their own Armenian myth wherever they go." Armenians have proven themselves to be experts when it comes to creating myths... such as their own Myth of Innocence.

Instead of the truth of a human disaster, a great myth has arisen, the myth of the Evil Turk and the Good Armenian. The myth has been perpetuated by stories of the sufferings of the Armenians. The stories are often true, but they never mention the equal or greater sufferings of the Turks. The myth has been generally believed by non-Armenians because it fits well into a larger, centuries-old myth — the Terrible Turk. To Europeans, who had feared Turks for more than five centuries, the myth of the Armenian genocide seemed just one more example of what they had been taught was the savagery of the Turk. It spoke to a prejudice that had been nurtured by textbooks, sermons, folk tales, and ancestral fears of the horsemen riding out of the East. The false image of the Turks was too strong to be affected by facts.

Professor Justin McCarthy, "Armenian Terrorism History as Poison and Antidote."

During the "Commercial Break"

"The Armenians: Survival of a Nation” was presented by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) during “Pledge Week.” (As American public television is non-commercial, the network’s local stations appeal to the viewing audience to raise money. Airing “special” programs helps to get viewers to become members.) When the show aired in New York City the first time, two guests that appeared with the station personnel were the producer and director of the program, Andrew Goldberg, and one of the interviewees of the program, author Peter Balakian (his book credit is subtitled, “An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past.”) What they had to say during the money-raising station breaks was interesting.

Andrew Goldberg also produced and directed 2000's "The Armenian-Americans"; people involved in one way or another in this 90-minute exercise (mostly, if not all, as interviewed subjects) were tennis player Andre Agassi, Mike "Mannix" Connors (Krikor Ohanian), Eric Bogossian, SCTV's wonderful Andrea Martin (whose gramps emigrated in the early 1900s from Ottoman Turkey, and changed the family name from Papazian), NCAA basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian and good old Peter Balakian.

Goldberg: I have to say, there were numerous efforts to stop me from telling this story properly...

PBS: Your life was in danger at one point.
Producer/Director Andrew Goldberg

The Producer/Director

Goldberg: At one point, yeah. When we were in Turkey, ahh... in a village, the Turkish soldiers came. With machine guns. And said to us, Are you journalists doing a story on the genocide. And they took us back to their base camp. I mean, it's rather terrifying. I mean, you don't expect that to happen walking down the street and suddenly having the American military point guns at you just for being a journalist. And there were so many attempts to do it, and, you know, I came to this with what I thought was a Jewish consciousness about that I was taught these types of, y'know, with the Holocaust, there's no room for revisionism, the truth must be told, history must be told the way it happened. And that's why I went as far as I needed to go to get this. That's what makes Public Television so special. This is where we can tell these stories.

Hmm. So according to Mr. Goldberg, the first accepted version of a story is the truth, and anything that comes afterwards to try to correct the inaccuracies would be “revisionism.” That would mean if the Nazis were still in power, all the lies they spread about the Jews would need to be accepted as the gospel truth. I guess Mr. Goldberg must still then believe the American Indians were the real historical savages.

Benjamin Franklin once said that generally historians do not write what has really happened but what they want to believe in. Obviously, history is a matter of perspective. Mr. Goldberg has nerve to proclaim the material in his program represents the truth to the exclusion of “revisionism,” when his sponsor was the Manoogian Simone Foundation. How do you spell “conflict of interest”?

A reviewer for the book, Death And Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, put the concept of "revisionism" beautifully:

In fact, revising one-sided history and changing deficient traditional wisdom is the business of the historian, and in few areas of history is revision so needed as in the history of the Ottoman peoples.

Regarding his story illustrating the uncivilized nature of the Turks (“I mean, it's rather terrifying. I mean, you don't expect that to happen walking down the street and suddenly having the American military point guns at you just for being a journalist”): There are a few things Mr. Goldberg would do well to bear in mind. For one thing, a true “journalist” does not look at just one side of a story. One who presents a one-sided story is either an unethical or incompetent journalist or a “propagandist.” Also, Mr. Goldberg was not in America; how chauvinistic to assume every nation must precisely follow America’s Constitution. For example, dare to proclaim there is no Armenian “Genocide” in France, a Western nation with limited freedom of speech, and you might well wind up in prison. And it’s not as though heavy-handed treatment by American police is the most unheard-of concept.

I don’t know if Mr. Goldberg meant that guns were being pointed at him in a literal way... sounds like he meant it as a figure of speech. If he was exaggerating, then since when does the process of being questioned by the police put one’s life “in danger”? What a desperate attempt to reinforce the impression of the Turks’ cruelty, as depicted in the one-sided program he has produced.

Secondly, the Turks have learned from how welcoming foreign journalists and media people with open arms, in the traditional style of Turkish hospitality, has backfired time and again. (For example, the lying producers of MIDNIGHT EXPRESS claimed they were shooting a documentary, in order to get permission to shoot establishing shots for their racist production.) If you know you’re going to be at the receiving end of an expertly orchestrated campaign whose only purpose is to hurl mud at you, it would be natural to take some precautionary measures. There would be no way to stop Mr. Goldberg from telling his subjective story, anyway; the Turkish authorities must have figured they were going to get pierced no matter what, but there would be no reason to supply Mr. Goldberg with all of the arrows.

Lastly, Andrew Goldberg’s “Jewish consciousness” might make his Armenian sponsors giddy with delight, as aware as they are of the sympathy-stirring value of connecting the Holocaust to the Armenian “Genocide”... however, he is far from doing the Jewish victims of World War II a favor by putting these unequal stories on an equal plane.
Peter Balakian

CLICK ON THE PIC to hear
Mr. "Double Killing"

When the discussion turned to why the Turkish government does not recognize the Armenian “Genocide,” Peter Balakian added (using a phrase of Elie Wiesel's) that the Turks were guilty of a “double killing.” Since the precedent for the first imaginary genocide has already been so firmly established, perhaps it’s only appropriate that a second imaginary genocide should follow. (Probably the Turkish government will not accept the responsibility for this second genocide, in which case it will be time for a “triple killing.” The more the imaginary genocides, the better the chance of getting even more sympathy... followed by the possibility of reparations.) Perhaps what Mr. Balakian, if he considers himself to be a fair man, should ask is the following question... put so eloquently by Dr. Turhan Baykan (in his article, “On Turkish Suffering”):

Why do the Armenians insist on an apology from us? I believe that any sensitive person would not ask anybody else to apologize for their parents’ sin. If they insist on it, as Armenians do nowadays, then I would suspect that they may have a ulterior motive in doing so, such as propaganda or politics.

The pledge drive break within the program provided for PBS representative Denise (Richardson?) to interview one of the volunteers who was handling the telephones.
PBS representative Denise (Richardson?) interviews an Armenian-American volunteer

Was this program made for the PUBLIC, or for Armenians?

PBS: With me now is Armen Nishanian, one of our volunteers... and a member of the New York Armenian community... why are you proud to be here, particularly tonight?

Nishanian: ...Also, as an Armenian-American, it's a tremendous opportunity. And a tremendous honor for me to be here, I'm thrilled...

PBS: Okay. Well, these phones have lit up. But for those who may be sitting home saying, well, my neighbor will call. What do you say to the Armenian community right now?

Nishanian: I think what the Armenian community should be doing is getting on the phone, making a pledge...

Perhaps America’s Public Broadcasting System should be reminded their duty is to represent the public as a whole, and not just select ethnic groups... and they should not engage in the practice of excluding less-advantaged groups, who don’t have the means to purchase television air time (along with American politicians).

Armenian Genocide Resource Center

13.7.05

214) Biased, Armenian Butt-Kissing PBS Shows: Armenian Journey- The Great War- The Armenians, A Story of Survival

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