357) The Splendid Fond Fleece: Christopher Simpson

 

 

 Christopher Simpson is currently an associate professor of communication at American University. His faculty page informs us that he "chairs the Historical Advisory Board of the Armenian National Institute." His beginnings was as an investigative journalist, and like practically all "genocide scholars," appears to have had no academic background in history. He disparagingly refers to the worth of history, as may be seen in the analysis below.

 

 

The first time I heard about Christopher Simpson is when I came across the "Young Turks" chapter of his "award-winning" book, "The Splendid Blond Beast" on the Internet. It's telling there are apparently no other chapters excerpted from this book but the one relating to the Armenian "Genocide," giving evidence to the vast organization of Armenian Genocide forces plastering the Internet with anything relating to their mythology.

 

It was not difficult to discover what a full-fledged member of the Armenian Genocide industry Mr. Simpson is. I don't know who gave an award to this book, but based upon the gross inaccuracies of this chapter, it's a shame award committees don't consider the historical integrity of such works. (Nothing new here; same with Samantha Power's genocide book, “A Problem from Hell...�, which actually wound up with a Pulitzer Prize.)

 

Let's examine what Mr. Simpson has written.

 

"During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Turkish religious extremists and security forces seeking racial and religious purity in Turkey had repeatedly instigated pogroms, murdering tens of thousands Armenians. One result was that militant Armenians took up arms and began pressing for political independence."

 

How fitting he should start out his chapter with such a whopper of a distortion.

 

The fact is, "religious purity" had no part to play whatsoever with this alleged ethnic cleansing, in a nation that was recognized even by enemies for its religious toleration. Turcophobes are aware of the potency of the old "Moslems hate Christians" charge, and even to this day, irresponsible scholars with an agenda shamelessly repeat this claim. Some of the CUP leaders were not even into Islam in their private writings.

 

So let's focus on the more common charge, the "racial purity" one that Mr. Simpson is repeating here, equally without evidence. The fact is, "Turk" was a term of derision in the Ottoman Empire. The racial theories of the 19th century, in what was an overwhelmingly racist world, classified the Turks as second-class human beings. Even Darwin had contempt for the Turks on the evolutionary scale. With this "inferiority complex," there were no Turkish leaders saying the equivalent of "Turkey for the Turks" in the 19th century. It was only after the Russo-Japanese War at the beginning of the 20th century, where inferior "Asians" gave superior "Europeans" a trouncing, that some Turks became aware of the fallibility of these race theories.
 

 

Professor Christopher Simpson in a publicity pose

 

Already we see how Christopher Simpson is attempting to fit the "crime" to the evidence. He's got to have some reason to explain what the motive was for the Turks to have massacred Armenians in the 19th century, so he's just simply telling us that "pan-Turanism" got a head start in the "last decades of the nineteenth century." Nowhere is there mention that after some six centuries of relative harmony, fanatical Armenian leaders set up terror groups to massacre Turks, to incite the Turks to counter-massacre, so that the Europeans could intervene and give the Armenians the hand-outs they were looking for. The Armenians noticed this was the pattern with the Balkan states, and they wanted a piece of the action.

 

It was only after nationalism became such a driving force with the former provinces of the Balkans, and then the Armenians, that some Turks began to realize nationalism was the only way out to save their nation from extinction. It was the Armenians who were into the "racial purity" business, one reason (besides hatred) that allowed the Armenians, with Russian assistance, to murder hundreds of thousands of non-Armenian Ottomans (Armenians who had converted to Islam were also among the victims), during and after WWI, in eastern Anatolian lands the Armenians controlled.

 

 Some Ottoman officials did have mad dreams. At the time of this writing, my American nation's government is controlled by neo-conservatives, some of whom also have mad dreams. It's a big leap to take individual writings and opinions of individuals and transforming them into national policy. Only false scholars, lacking real proof, would take the tidbits they find here and there and try to convert them into actual historical conclusions.

 

Christopher Simpson cites David Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace..." later in this chapter. But note how Simpson overlooked the following truism from the same book, because what was written did not serve Simpson's agenda:

 

"Enver Pasha was later associated with the dream of reuniting all the Turkish-speaking peoples and domains of Asia, and certainly the idea was familiar to him in 1914 - intellectually it was in the air - but, as of then, it did not enter into his plans. A small man, much addicted to theatrical gestures and to large programs that began with the prefix 'pan-,' Enver was also supposed to harbor pan-lslamlc ambitions. His treatment of Arab fellow-Moslems shows that this, too, was a slogan that he did not translate into policy."

 

Christopher Simpson will reveal his contempt for history later in the chapter, but here’s why history is so important: the Patriarch, during conversations with the British Ambassador in 1877, stated that if rebellions were necessary to gain the attention of Europe, they could be arranged.

 

British consular reports of the early 1880s indicated preparations for such rebellions. Van Consul Capt. Clayton, wrote in 1880 of associations being formed in Russian Armenia to send weapons to the Armenians of Turkey; Trabzon Consul Alfred Bliotti gave an 1881 account of the Russian Consul-General of Erzurum telling him that 'the Russian Consul in Van, who is of Armenian origin, was attempting to create incidents in Armenia.'

 

The first association founded by Armenians within the Empire was the Benevolent Union, 1860. Many societies appeared between 1870-1880, when the violent ones began to emerge. The Black Cross (1878), the short-lived 'Defenders of the Motherland' (1881), Armenakan (1885), Ramgavar (which might have been a later form of Armenakan), and the most famous terror organizations, Hunchak (1886?) and Dashnak (1890). What is called the "Armenian massacres" occurred mainly between 1894-1896.

 

As Kamuran Gurun astutely wrote, "At the very least 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."

 

. . . the Capitulations were more than merely a legal process. They constituted a mental attitude toward the Ottoman Government. They made it the Western habit to disregard the Ottoman Government and to establish contacts with its subjects quite independently of the existing relations with that country. Under the Capitulations, the West long ago established contact with the Ottoman Government's Christian subjects and a code of governmental conduct was unwittingly built up which the West applied to that Government alone. Under this code, any Ottoman Christian was given the right to rebel against the Government but the Government, although it was the only body charged with the maintenance of peace in the country, was denied the right to put down Christian rebellion. This code the West has applied to no other Government.

 

(Clair Price, The Rebirth of Turkey, 1923, p 77)

 

One of the revolutionaries told Dr. Hamlin, the founder of Robert College, that the Hentchak bands would “watch their opportunity to kill Turks and Kurds, set fire to their villages, and then make their escape into the mountains. The enraged Moslems will then rise, and fall upon the defenceless Armenians and slaughter them with such barbarity that Russia will intervene in the name of humanity and Christian civilization.� When the horrified missionary denounced the scheme as atrocious and infernal beyond anything ever known, he received this reply: “It appears so to you, no doubt; but we Armenians have determined to be free. Europe listened to the Bulgarian horrors and made Bulgaria free. She will listen to our cry when it goes up in the shrieks and blood of millions of women and children. . . . We are desperate. We shall do it.�

 

(William Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, pp. 157-8)

 

 In short, Christopher Simpson has the order wrong. The “militant Armeniansâ€� were the cause of the tragedies of the mid-1890s — not the result. The question becomes: did Christopher Simpson provide this “whopperâ€� out of mere ignorance and shoddy scholarship? Or did he know the real truth, hardly so difficult to find?

 

"These were the original 'Young Turks,' and their capacity for cruelty and violence still reverberates in that phrase today."

 

This statement reveals Christopher Simpson's racial prejudice. There are few terms with "Turk" that give a positive connotation in the English language, but "Young Turk" is one of them. My dictionary's definition: "A progressive or rebellious member of a political party or other organized group." (Another: "A young person who rebels against authority or societal expectations"... a characteristic we've admired in many movie heroes.) Because Mr. Simpson is a "genocide scholar" who likes to misrepresent the facts for his own agenda — preferring to simplify complex matters to black and white — when he sees the word "Turk" he thinks of "cruelty and violence." Maybe he's just thinking of the word "Turk," where the dictionary gives cruelty as a second definition.

 

Mr. Simpson has been described as "the author of several leading works on genocide and international human rights." I don't know how qualified an author can be to analyze human rights when his prejudices determine some humans to be less human than others.

 

"In the first months of World War I the Young Turks instigated a national effort to exterminate the Armenian population under the guise of modernization, suppressing domestic dissent, and securing Turkey's borders."

 

Leslie Davis wrote in "The Slaughterhouse Province" (p. 38)  that bread was almost unobtainable since the start of the war. The only thing occupying the minds of the Turks was how to hold off the dangerous attacks of world superpowers. The Ottoman Empire's war actions were confined to defense, not offense. Every man was needed at the fronts. There was simply no manpower and resources to spare to take on the colossal task of moving hundreds of thousands. The decision to move the treacherous Armenian community out of the way was taken only after a half-year of Armenian rebellion, as this May 2 telegram testifies.

 

The economy-controlling Armenian community (Leslie Davis, p. 59: "Most of the business of the region was in their hands") was a significant resource in this paralyzing situation. It would have been madness to choose this time to "exterminate" them, even if the Turks were of the mind to do so. If the motive for this murder was "racial purification," then other non-Turks of the empire, like Jews and Arabs, would also have been targeted. How immoral of anyone to present such false claims, in an attempt to make the accused look like a criminal. If Christopher Simpson were accused of a ruinous crime, he would hate anyone offering such false claims in order to prove his guilt, so why is he doing the same?

 

"Beginning in late 1914 and accelerating over the next three years, the Turkish government rounded up Armenian men for forced labor, worked many to death building a trans-Turkish railway for German business interests, then shot the survivors."

 

The Armenian men were conscripted, like all other Ottoman men were conscripted, to fight a war that amounted to life or death. Many Armenians refused conscription, and treacherously joined the enemy, as this New York Times article documents.... only days after Russia had declared war.  Many of those who weren't conscripted fled to Russia or joined the thousands of rebels operating from behind Ottoman lines. (Boghos Nubar's number for these treacherous Ottoman-Armenians: 50,000.) The Armenians who were in the army had to be put to work at doing something; "forced labor" is the business of the soldier. When many deserted or fired at the enemy with blanks, they needed to be disarmed and put to use for non-combat duties. They worked under terrible conditions, but their fellow Turks in the army were far from being wined and dined, either. Some Turkish soldiers were even barefoot... the government simply did not have the money. And of course some Armenian soldiers were mistreated and even murdered by those who were revenge-minded for the terrible betrayal of the Armenians during the nation's darkest hour. This is called "human nature." It's not admirable, but it happens.

 

"Underfed, misused, paid but little and that rarely, ragged and dirty, these Turkish troops were as wretched in their liberty as we were in our captivity."

 

Harold Armstrong, British POW, “Turkey in Travail,� 1925, p. 23

 

"Even before the war many Turkish troops had been in the most wretched condition. In 1916 some were fighting with ‘no overcoats and no boots’..."

 

Akaby Nassibian, “Britain and the Armenian Question, 1915-1923,� 1984, p. 121

 

 

 When Armenian soldiers were killed, at least some times the Ottoman Turks convicted the perpetrators responsible, and even hanged them. (General Vehib providing one example.) The fact that the responsible criminals were punished by the administration provides evidence against "extermination" being a national campaign — whoever heard of Hitler punishing SS men for harming Jews? Moreover, it is reprehensible of Christopher Simpson to make a claim that the policy was to shoot Armenian soldiers. Leslie Davis tells us in his incredibly biased book that he saw Armenian soldiers being transported to Harput. Unless this "trans-Turkish railway" (which I don't know anything about. Frankly, I'd think the Ottomans had more desperate circumstances that took precedence over business concerns) extended to Harput, why would these soldiers have been transported, if the idea was to murder them?

 

" During the last two months quite a number of Armenian
soldiers have been brought back in groups of two or three hundred from Erzurum. They have arrived in a most pitiable state due to their exposure on the way at this season of the year and in the privations they had suffered."

 

Leslie Davis, "The Slaughterhouse Province" (p. 181)

 

 (Holdwater: Now why do you suppose these soldiers were transported all the way to Harput, when Christopher Simpson tells us the aim was to kill them off? When the Armenians mass-murdered over half a million Ottomans with Russian help, did they bother to transport their victims long distances?)

 

 

"The government then secretly ordered mass executions of Armenian intellectuals and political leaders in the spring of 1915."

 

If it was such a "secret" how does Christopher Simpson know about them? Especially since he doesn't offer any proof of these orders. On April 24, 235 Armenian rebellion ringleaders were arrested in Istanbul, and there were further arrests in other cities. The accused were sent to prison, and some were executed, as any nation would have done with wartime traitors. Peter Balakian gives evidence of some survivors in his "Burning Tigris," like a relative priest who "escaped." (This is the one who earns the nickname, the Action Priest.) The famed Armenian musician, Komitas, was released after two weeks.

 

Isn't it abominable for anyone to make such terrible claims of mass murder, without offering any proof?

 

"The state also uprooted Armenian women and children from their homes and drove them into vast resettlement camps that were barren of supplies or shelter. When the camps became full, the Turks expelled the people into the deserts of what is today Syria and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died from shootings, starvation, exposure, and disease."

 

Totally despicable. the reason why the Armenians were subjected to the awful resettlement policy was no different than why the Americans relocated their Japanese, or why the French relocated their Alsatians in WWII... except for the fact the Armenians were disloyal. (Certainly there were many innocents among them; but these became the victims of their own fanatical leaders who decided to betray their nation by conducting war.)

 

Ambassador Morgenthau wrote thousands of Turks were dying daily, estimating an entire quarter of the Turkish population dying from starvation, because few were left to till the fields, in his "Story" book. General Harbord thought 600,000 Turkish soldiers died of typhus alone. Certainly the Armenians suffered from lack of supplies, and died of famine and disease, like the rest of their countrymen. At least sympathetic missionaries and organizations like the Near East Relief, the most successful charity organization in U.S. history, were looking after some of the unfortunates. If the situation were that horrible, both Morgenthau (in his private diary) and Toynbee (in his 1916 “Treatment� report) wouldn't have believed half a million were alive (and getting on with their lives, according to what an Armenian representative told Morgenthau.)

 

It's terribly irresponsible to claim the Armenians who died of famine and disease died from "murder," when nobody can say whether they wouldn't have otherwise died had they remained in their homes... when everyone else was dying in droves of the same causes. Only those who died of climactic factors would not have otherwise died; all deaths are tragic, but there is no way to avoid death when war is declared. As far as getting expelled into the deserts for the express purpose of getting slaughtered, this is an assertion unconscionably made without evidence. If all the "deported" Armenians were targeted for extermination, 1 million could not have survived, as the Armenians themselves concede, from a pre-war population of some 1.5 million. The Armenian Patriarch himself provided 625,000 Armenians as remaining within the borders of what was left of the Ottoman Empire after the war, and before the implementation of Sèvres. Many of these Armenians had returned to their homes, after the temporary relocation policy had come to a halt. Hundreds of thousands had moved on to other countries, some as refugees (Richard Hovannisian figured 500,000 for Transcaucasia and 50,000 in Iran, non-Ottoman territories where the Armenians “escaped� on their own accord), and others by choice, moving to the greener pastures of Europe and the USA that the sympathizing Christian powers had welcomed them into.

 

"Turkish police encouraged gangs of thugs to prey upon the deportees as a means of humiliating and destroying these women."

 

Some of the gendarmes lost their lives defending the Armenians against the criminal actions of lawless brigands. Note how the ethically-challenged Christopher Simpson only points to the misdeeds of some, implying such was the policy in all cases.
  

 

 "Meanwhile, some Armenian girls were able to escape deportation by announcing a religious conversion to Islam, and in this way some Turkish men secured Armenian concubines and house slaves."

 

Again, with a “genocide scholar� at the helm, the purpose must always be to present "evil." My understanding is that the government largely did not accept such last minute conversions as an exception to resettlement. After the war, the Ottoman government went out of its way, spending over a million liras, and with the help of delegations of other nationals, to show what a farce this common "harem" charge had been.(bottom of tallarmeniantale.com/harems.htm) Not to say some abuses didn't occur; yet, Christopher Simpson is still shameless to present his black hat and white hat vision, with no concern for the facts.

 

"Surviving Turkish, German, and U.S. documents establish that the Ittihad expected to strike quickly, to keep the deportations and massacres secret, and to exterminate the Armenians as a race before the outside world learned of the atrocities."

 

What are these documents? Reports from the 1919 Ottoman kangaroo courts under allied occupation, from men anxious to save their necks with a puppet government out for retribution, don't count. Second-hand reports from religious and racist bigots should count only to those who keep giving evidence of being just such a bigot. The British themselves rejected the U.S. consul reports from the State Department, in 1921, during the Malta Tribunal process. If the idea to exterminate the Armenians was a fact, the Ottomans certainly did a most inefficient job, with the majority of Armenians surviving.

 

"The Ittihad also persecuted substantial numbers of Greeks, Jews, and other minority groups, in some cases deporting them along with the Armenians."

 

Is there any stopping this Christopher Simpson? Ataturk himself said the Jews were the most loyal subjects of the empire, standing by the nation that had saved them many times when "no" other Christian nation would. If there were disturbances in Palestine with some rebellious Jews, it's up to an unethical pharisee to label these as "persecutions."

 

"The Ottoman dynasty is the saviour of Turkish Jews. When our ancestors were driven out of Spain, and looked for a country to take them in, it was the Ottomans who agreed to give us shelter and saved us from extinction. Through the generosity of their government, once again they received freedom of religion and language, protection for their women, their possessions and their lives. Therefore our conscience obliges to serve you as much as we can in your darkest hour."

 

A Jewish station manager replying to a thanks-giving Ottoman Caliph, which brought tears in all eyes; Philip Mansel's CONSTANTINOPLE : City of the World's Desire 1453-1924, 1996, p. 414. The Armenians were truly being persecuted by the Byzantines, before the arrival of the Turks; allowing in the prosperity of the Armenians for many centuries.

 

Putting down an insurrection is the right of any nation. Whenever an insurrection took place within the Ottoman Empire, the counter-reaction will automatically be a "massacre" or "genocide" with those such as Christopher Simpson.

 

"When the genocide began, a number of Western diplomats and Christian missionaries in Turkey (including a German, Pastor Johannes Lepsius) made determined efforts to record the massacres and deportations and to mobilize world opinion against Turkish actions. The U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, and several U.S. consuls ..."

 

Should we even bother to go further? If Christopher Simpson is going to give credence to such terrible Turk-haters like Lepsius and Morgenthau, he has done a terrible disservice to his own credibility.

 

The way to deterrnine truth is to consider sources without conflicts-of-interest. If Christopher Simpson were a real truth-seeker, he would automatically dismiss these men whose own words have condemned them as being terribly partial. Of course, Christopher Simpson has proven himself to be no different... thus, the testimony of racist and religious bigots serves the agenda of Christopher Simpson only too well.

 

"Tragically, Armenia could supply an almost unlimited number of such accounts. Unlike some war propaganda, most of the stories were true."

 

True because Christopher Simpson desires them to be true? While ignoring all the genuine historical factors as he has done with the writing of this chapter?

 

When we consider the testimony of those true eyewitnesses (like Russian officers) who recorded the unbelievably inhuman actions of the Armenians as they went about their massacring of innocents, many of the same techniques crop up in the horror tales the Armenians sold to teary-eyed missionaries and fellow sympathizing Christians. It appears after the extremist Armenians performed the ghastly crimes, they did not need to imagine too many new details, as they passed on their massacre stories. "Hearsay" can never substitute for true evidence. For one such as Christopher Simpson, "hearsay" is good enough.

 

He is right, however, when he writes, "Armenia could supply an almost unlimited number of such accounts." As Captain Norman wrote in 1896 ("The Armenians Unmasked"): 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 eye-witness." When these accounts of pure fiction have been accepted on such a wide scale, and still are being accepted thanks to the efforts of those such as Christopher Simpson, the result can certainly be called "tragic." Perhaps a better term would be "morally criminal." (The word is “Rufmord,� according to Prof. Erich Feigl, and Christopher Simpson is happily committing this crime.)
  

 

 "At the height of the pogroms in 1915, the governments of France, Great Britain, and czarist Russia issued a joint declaration denouncing the mass killings of Armenians as 'crimes against humanity and civilization' and warning the leaders of the Turkish government that they would be held 'personally responsible'."

 

These are the same governments, of course, that maintained secret treaties as to how they would divide the carcass of the Ottoman Empire between them. What greater justification for their evil aims than to come up with a devilish crime at the hands of their enemy, supported by massive propaganda bureaus like Britain's Wellington House? Taking the heat off of Russia's treatment of Polish/Lithuanian Jews was also a convenient factor... the attention of these massacred Jews that was being received in the U.S. press had to be supplanted by an even greater monster.

 

Christopher Simpson relates how Djemal Pasha made an offer to the Entente Powers, offering to end the massacres in exchange for abandonment of Allied claims on "Turkey and the Ottoman Empire." (What was it, "Turkey," or "The Ottoman Empire"? Of course, the name of the nation was the latter. It is the aim of pro-Armenians to equate an old regime with the current one. Would Simpson refer to today's Russia as "The Soviet Union"?)

 

I don't know about this episode, but it's possible Djemal Pasha wished to capitalize on the impression that the Entente Powers believed the Armenians were being massacred, rather than the fact they were being massacred. From what I've ascertained, Djemal Pasha was doing whatever he could to ease the plight of the Armenians (his kindness was rewarded by an Armenian assassination). This is why the author of Simpson's source, David Fromkin, was quoted as having written, "Djemal appears to have acted on the mistaken assumption that saving the Armenians... was an important Allied objective." The key word is "appears." It's possible Djemal Pasha attempted to use the "excuse" of the Armenians (not out of massacre realities but what he believed was how these massacres were perceived from the viewpoint of the West) to try and save his nation from disaster.

 

I'd like to learn more about the documentation that supports the above claim. What I do know is that recent declassified British archival evidence points to Lloyd George's openness to making a deal with Enver Pasha. (Unlike what was stated above, this deal originated from the British. ) If Enver were to consider this deal seriously (it was under consideration and apparently never made; the idea was to bribe the Turks out of the war with a truckload of money: 25 million dollars), that would have had to mean an "amnesty" for possible war crimes... which goes to show how seriously the British treated their own "genocide" claims.

 

Christopher Simpson makes good use of Vahakn Dadrian's painstaking efforts to uncover what came out of the 1919 Ottoman kangaroo courts.

 

As Justin McCarthy stated: "An ideologue takes evidence wherever he can find it, and may invent the evidence he cannot find. He does not look too closely at the evidence, perhaps because he is afraid of what he will find. As an example, the ideologues contend that the trials of Ottoman leaders after World War I prove that the Turks were guilty of genocide."

 

Christopher Simpson is just such an idealogue.

 

The 1919 courts are invalid. The puppet Ottoman administration was under the whim of the occupying British and other allies, and their purpose was to find guilty parties with little or no due process, for invented crimes that went well beyond the “genocide.� The Damad Ferid Pasha government had a long record of lying about its enemies, the Committee of Union and Progress (Ittihadists), and was out for retribution; as Dadrian himself informs us, the British told them to come up with culprits, otherwise the Turkish nation would be treated most unfairly at the Peace Conference. [These lackeys’ reward was the Sèvres Treaty, signifying the death of the Turkish nation.] One may as well argue for the legality of the courts of Vichy France under Nazi occupation.

 

 "The new (Kemalist) movement welcomed Ittihadists to its ranks and placed some party veterans in leading posts," Simpson writes, as if these Ittihadists were proven Nazis. Disgraceful.

 

The author has Nazis on the brain. His first book was "Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War," where he detailed his outrage over how Nazi criminals were given a new lease on life in the United States, in return for their communist-fighting assistance. In Christopher Simpson's simple world, all the Ottoman officials must have had Nazi-like blood on their hands.

 

Harold Armstrong, British POW of the Turks and later assistant to the British High Commissioner, from "Turkey in Travail" (1925):

 

The story of these deportees is a sorry one. Among them were evil criminals, who had murdered prisoners-of-war. Many were ordinary normal Turks who had been leading men in Turkey during the war. Some were arrested on the poor evidence of a couple of Armenian women or on that of an enemy. More than one was arrested in error. They were imprisoned in conditions quite out of keeping with their rank or position. They were kept two years in confinement without being charged with any crime. They were herded all together, those arrested for political offences old and new, and those for massacre, murder and evil crimes... Many of the deportees were men of great importance. When released they became ministers and deputies in the Angora Government, and their hatred of the British was not diminished by their imprisonment, degradation and general treatment in Malta.

 

For one such as Christopher Simpson, apparently simply being accused of a crime is good enough to prove their guilt. The reason why these high officials were released was that no evidence could be rounded up against them, despite desperate efforts of searching for over two years.

 

 
THE IRONY:

 

If Christopher Simpson had true "investigative journalism" chops, he would not have ignored the fact that among the Nazis given a lease on life in the United States were the Armenians. So many of these terrorist Dashnaks infiltrated our shores that they took over the leadership of the world's Armenian diaspora... in their time-honored fashion of persuasion through any means possible. This is why many lazy-thinking scholars are quick to accept whatever these morally-challenged fanatics present (helped by a healthy dosage of the scholars' own anti-Turkish prejudice.)

 

A real investigative journalist, who didn't simply rely on reports from the Freedom of Information Act but actually went undercover, details the above in The Armenian Displaced Persons
A First Hand Report on Conditions in Europe
By JOHN ROY CARLSON
(Arto Derounian)

 

 "(Kemal) sparked large demonstrations and public protests against the trials," Simpson writes, failing to mention Ataturk was not in a strong position to do much in 1919, the year when the bulk of these Ottoman trials were held. The trial process Kemal targeted later on was the Malta Tribunal, which was to be tried by the British, had they found the factual evidence they were seeking between 1919 to 1921.

 

"Kemal skillfully played the three powers against each other and insisted on amnesty for the Ittihadists as part of the price for his support in the division of the defunct empire."

 

There are many words to describe the foregoing, and one that comes to mind is "stupid." Simpson makes it sound as though Kemal was a co-conspirator with the enemies of his country, in determining who would get which parcels of land. One needs to read the entire archival evidence for the Malta Tribunal to see Kemal didn't have "amnesty" in mind; he knew the Turks interned on Malta were being railroaded on baseless charges. The only reason why the Turks were ultimately released was because the British could not find the evidence to convict them. The British tried as late as the summer of 1921, searching as far as the archives of the United States.

 

What an awful distortion of the facts.

 

"The U.S. High Commissioner to Turkey was Admiral Mark L. Bristol, a man with a reputation as a bigot and a determined advocate of U.S. alliance with Mustafa Kemal. 'The Armenians,' Bristol wrote, 'are a race like the Jews-they have little or no national spirit and poor moral character.'

 

Even one of the most rabid Turk-haters of the period, U.S. Consul George Horton (who would go on to author "The Blight of Asia," where he was comfortable to cast the entire Turkish people in the role of the anti-Christ; this is one of the consuls Mr. Simpson would point to as a credible witness), thought Bristol was "an extremely attractive personality: honest, brave, generous, with frank and winning manners."

 

It is truly abominable for an agenda-ridden party like Christopher Simpson to take one select quote of Bristol in an attempt to paint him as a creep... totally ignoring what an outstanding man of character Mark Bristol was, evident from the letter he wrote to Missionary James Barton. It's as if one were to fault Abraham Lincoln for having used the word "nigger" (which Lincoln did), to paint him as a racist.

 

People shot from the hip in those days. One has to dig much deeper than the cheap shot one is afforded by what would be deemed politically incorrect for today. Unlike Morgenthau, Lepsius and the consuls, men whom Simpson has no trouble with, the great thing about Bristol is that he did not ignore the humanity of all people. Of course, that was his crime for those like Simpson who attempt to discredit him... Bristol actually looked upon the Turks as human beings. (One could dig up quotes by Bristol about the Turks that would sound equally bigoted on the surface.)

 

Bristol was not a "determined advocate of U.S. alliance with Mustafa Kemal" because he was in love with Kemal. Bristol was a loyal American who served his country to the utmost; Bristol recognized the value of his nation's maintaining friendly ties with the Turks. As the Cold War would escalate in later years, it's a good thing Bristol had such foresight... the world's history might have been different if Turkey had fallen under the Soviet bloc, following Armenia's willing example.

 

"It was better for the United States, Bristol contended, to jettison support for the Armenian republic as soon as possible."

 

And what a wonderful service Bristol performed for his nation, seeing through the Armenian lies and deception that made his "blood boil," and to prevent his nation from plunging into its first Vietnam, saving many thousands of American lives (Harbord asked for an American army of 60,000, the Armenians lobbied for 72,000) and three-quarters of a billion dollars (over five years) in 1920s value. Is Christopher Simpson so in bed with Armenian forces that he does not consider the enormous cost this mandate would have had upon his own nation?

 

"Bristol barred newspaper reporters from access to areas where renewed massacres of Armenians were taking place, purportedly to avoid inciting further atrocities against civilians."

 

I'm not aware of a single instance. (Where were these "renewed massacres" taking place? In Cilicia, where the Armenians had gathered and were acting pugnaciously, and whatever skirmishes that took place usually occurred because the Armenians fired the first shot?) Quite the contrary, American eyewitnesses, when they were really on the spot, reported the horrifying excesses caused by the Armenians, and on the good behavior of the Turks. (tallarmeniantale.com/BristolPapers.htm) If only Christopher Simpson would have valued actual, non-partisan history, instead of the propaganda he relishes, for his "award-winning" book.
 

 

Allen Dulles

 

"Dulles supported Bristol's initiatives. 'Confidentially the State Department is in a bind. Our task would be simple if the reports of the atrocities could be declared untrue or even exaggerated but the evidence, alas, is irrefutable...'"

 

Who can blame Allen Dulles? He was, like every other American, bombarded by unilaterally presented pro-Armenian propaganda for years. Ironic that the State Department evidence he termed "irrefutable" was not even acceptable for the British, when they were desperately looking to convict the Malta Turks! (The State Department actually specified the British could make use of the information on condition that the source not be identified. Obviously, the State Department was aware of how shoddy their own "evidence" was.)

 

Smyrna Burn-a: Marjorie Housepian Dobkin

 

"One recent study by Marjorie Housepian Dobkin found that between April and December of 1915, the New York Times published more than 100 articles concerning the massacres when the killings were at their height. All of the Times coverage was sympathetic to the Armenians..."

 

Wellington House illegally operated a foreign government branch on American soil, run by a Canadian. The British wanted to create sympathy for the Armenians in the United States, hoping to induce the USA into war — and they succeeded magnificently in conveying their exclusive point-of-view, especially after the German cable to the USA had been cut. Already bigoted American publications received their news from propagandistic sources, assisted by the reality that readers demanded atrocity stories, particularly when barbaric Turks kept cutting up poor, innocent Christians. When the few correspondents attempted to put the truth in, press censors would disallow the truth. Even the "ally" of the Ottoman Empire, Christian-conscious Germany, disallowed the truthful reports!

 

So it is the contention of Christopher Simpson that simply because newspapers like The New York Times encouraged this propaganda, we should too.

 

"Retired U.S. Admiral William Colby Chester joined Admiral Mark Bristol as a leading public spokesman for reconciliation with Turkey. Chester was not a disinterested party. The Turkish government had granted him an oil concession in Iraq that was potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars."

 

Here, Simpson will try to discredit a lone voice of integrity that saw the situation for what it really was: Admiral Chester. Even before the war, the Ottoman (not "Turkish") government had lost most of its interest in its oil companies, to the British. By the end of 1918, the British were in possession of Iraq. What kind of a concession can be granted for resources that are no longer in possession? (The reader can judge as to how “shady� Chester was: tallarmeniantale.com/Chester-dad.htm... does it sound like he was trying to cover anything up, or to speak the truth, in hopes of undoing the massive propaganda and lies?)

 

Simpson elaborates later: “The new Turkish leader Kemal agreed to relinquish all claims on the territories of the old Ottoman Empire outside Turkish borders, thus formally opening the door to the Anglo-American control of Middle East oil.�

 

This door was already wide open. The fact is, whether Kemal agreed to relinquish claims or not (and T. E. Lawrence himself wrote in his “Seven Pillars of Wisdom� that before the war ended, the British knew where Kemal stood: “... Mustapha Kemal (was)... too keen on the Turkishness of their mission to deny the right of autonomy to the Arabic provinces of the Ottoman Empire."), the Mosul oil fields were in the control of the British, and these oil fields were the prize the British had sought, as specified in the secret treaties. There was no way the British would have surrendered its cherished war booty. In other words, Christopher Simpson is not being honest by hoping to smear Colby Chester, accusing him of being influenced by an “oil concession� the Turks had no power to grant. (What would the Turks have told Chester? “There is a one in six billion chance the British will return our oil-rich lands, and if that should happen, we’ll grant you a concession�?)
 

 

Admiral Chester; would you buy a used car from him?

 

Reading Chester’s own article, he was not without commercial interests [the Chester Project], and he reveals these concessions were granted in 1911, including “the great oil fields both of Mesopotamia and of Mosul.� It sounds like Chester was still harboring hopes these rights would be honored [“the oil fields occupy our principal attention�], and I don’t know how open the British would have been to the suggestion. I’m going by the logic that a conqueror would be disinclined to share the goodies with anyone else.

 

Even if Chester were given a piece of the action, he must have surely known by 1922 that his gains would have had nothing to do with Turkey... since Turkey was not going to be allowed back in what was to be Iraq. If Chester were to make out like a bandit, thanks to the good graces of Iraq's new occupiers, he would have had no reason to defend Turkey from his oil profits. Chester had been attacked at the time of his article as well; because people disagree, they think nothing of making slanderous conclusions. The fact is, the points Chester has made in his article — such as the basic honesty of the Turks — has been repeatedly confirmed by other objective sources. So was the American admiral lying for the Turks because of his interest in probably unrealized “hundreds of millions of dollars� that would have had nothing to do with Turkey? In other words, does it go without saying that because a person stands to make money, he would always lie through his teeth? The best testament of Chester’s character should be apparent in the essence and substance of his own article, which the reader is urged to evaluate.

 

"Chester contended that the Armenians had been deported not to deserts, but to 'the most delightful and fertile parts of Syria ... at great expense of money and effort'."

 

A lot of money was spent to resettle the Armenians, a startling fact, since the Ottoman government was bankrupt. If the idea was to exterminate the Armenians, surely this 'great expense of money and effort' could have been utilized elsewhere during the desperate life or death struggle. Is Simpson contending the Armenians were relocated strictly to sandy desert regions, the uninhabitable dunes of "Lawrence of Arabia"? That's what it sounds like, doesn't it?

 

The orders actually specified the Armenians be dispersed throughout the Ottoman Empire, so that they would not go beyond 10% of a village's population. Even if these orders weren't scrupulously followed and the bulk were transported to the Arabic regions, the idea was to prevent the Armenians from organizing in greater numbers, and turning traitor again. If the Armenians were sent to sand dunes, like Christopher Simpson's genocide industry would have us believe, ZERO Armenians would have survived.

 

Why is Christopher Simpson turning to such a biased and truth-challenged source like Marjorie Housepian Dobkin? When he encounters a truthful source, like Bristol or Colby, why is his first instinct to try and discredit them?
  

 "Dobkin reports that missionary leaders such as Cleveland Dodge and George Plimpton, who had once been instrumental in documenting the genocide, began to lend their names to publicity insisting that the reported Turkish excesses had been 'greatly exaggerated'."

 

Of course, a propagandist like Dobkin is going to reel in pain with such disclosures. If she were into truth, she would admit the reports were nothing but 'greatly exaggerated.' (Read the reply of missionary James Barton who was hurt over his victimization by the 'greatly exaggerated' reports of Armenian propagandists.) She should be delighted the Christian missionaries who were lying through their teeth (and breaking the Ninth Commandment, THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR) were finally telling truth, and following what should be true Christian principles, for truth and humanity. I would imagine a true Christian would be delighted, anyway.

 

"Western governments had discarded wartime promises of action against the Ittihadists who had murdered about a million people ..."

 

Horrible. Getting out of the way the fact that the British desperately attempted such action via the Malta Tribunal and failed (in other words, there was no discarding; trial action was very seriously taken), it is simply inexcusable for anyone to label all these deaths (which numbered around half a million, not a million. Simple math: Pre-war: 1.5 million. Survivors: 1 million) as "murder." Richard Hovannisian, for example, reported (in 1967) some 150,000 Armenians died of starvation while accommodating the Russian retreats, when the Turks' bloody swords were not within reach. Were these war casualties "murdered"? How irresponsible for such a "human rights" champion as Christopher Simpson to make such "exaggerations."

 

Simpson closes his chapter with: "In fact, the Turkish government even today continues to refuse to acknowledge Ittihadist responsibility for the Armenian massacres, and has instead in recent years financed a large and sophisticated publicity campaign aimed at rewriting the history of the war years."

 

Le Figaro investigated these "murders" and concluded in 1977 that 15,000 Armenians died from shootings, sickness and deprivation on the march. Ones who massacred Armenians were mainly lawless bands, Kurds out for revenge, and even government agents that one can only conclude acted on their own, since NO FACTUAL PROOF has been found linking their actions with the central government, just like "My Lai" didn't prove the United States government intended to liquidate all Vietnamese.

 

If the geriatric Turkish government was that adept in countering this massive propaganda, surely acceptance of the Armenian "Genocide" would not be the common wisdom it is today, Whatever pathetically little attempts the Turkish government has made, it has been in the cause of overturning this great lie — not in "rewriting...history." The real history is there for those who choose to seek it. All one needs to do is not consult bigoted sources like Morgenthau, Lepsius, Dobkin and Simpson.... but sources without conflict of interest, such as C. F. Dixon-Johnson, H.J. Pravitz, the non-propagandistic post war report of the German officer who was there, and the many others that are featured on this site.
Further examining Christopher Simpson's scholarship chops 

 

 

Simpson (along with Peter Balakian and Richard Hovannisian, and fellow non-Armenian peas in his pod, Robert Melson and Roger Smith), served on the seven-member Academic Council of the Armenian National Institute (ANI), "composed of individuals who have distinguished themselves in the fields relevant to the Institute's activity," according to its web site. (As of early 2003.) The non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. "is dedicated to the study, research, and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide. Its overarching goal is affirmation of the worldwide recognition of the Armenian Genocide."

 

So Christopher Simpson has officially committed himself to an organization dedicated to affirming the Armenian "Genocide." There is a word for this, and it has nothing to do with "scholar." A scholar dispassionately examines all sides of a story. A better word for one who selectively presents just one side of a story would be "propagandist."

 

According to cilicia.com/armo10i_usa.html, Christopher Simpson gushed in Armenian accolades, receiving an "ANC Freedom Award." We are told that Simpson explained, "we see the failure of the international community to address the Armenian Genocide driven, in part, by greed, frankly, and particularly by a desire for oil wealth, leading to laying the basis for the non-response to the Holocaust in the next generation."

 

If Simpson said these words... is he living in another dimension? The "international community" by and large has recognized this mythology, in large part from politicians scared to death of bucking the noisy diasporan forces living in their countries, ready to go on the attack against those who dare disagree. The deeply ingrained anti-Turkish bigotry certainly doesn't hurt, and since none of these politicians try to make an honest accounting of genuine history, these resolutions are meaningless, anyway.

 

OIL WEALTH? Does he mean the oil-importing nation, Turkey? The oil-producing Arabs are not friends of Turkey. What is he talking about? And is he actually serious in tying the possibility of "non-response to the Holocaust" ("in the next generation"... is he for real?) to this false, alleged genocide? Perhaps the human rights champion should look at the countless real genocides his industry doesn't care about, because the victims aren't considered "human" enough. He could start with the 5.5 million Turks/Muslims the Orthodox nations eliminated until WWI's end, half-a-million from Armenian (and some Russian) hands. ("Death & Exile" has been around for a decade. Why has he been ignoring this real history?)

 

Simpson proves he is 100% partisan, with every word he produces. Shameful.

 

His fact-challenged statement serves as reminder for his ridiculous conclusion at the end of the "Blond Beast" work: "The cycle of genocide can be broken through relatively simple — but politically difficult — reform in the international legal system." Yes.... so neat, easy, and Simpson-simple. As if crimes can be eliminated through the enactment of laws.

 

There already is an international "law" on the books against genocide; that would be the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention. Just like the murderer who can't be swayed by reason and has nothing but murder on his mind, you can bet the 1948 Convention did not make a difference in those determined to embark on later extermination campaigns... for example, in Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Rwanda. Since the mantra of "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (Credited to philosopher George Santanya; his actual quote: "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are content to repeat it," which doesn't have quite the same meaning.)  is often muttered by the simple-minded genocide scholar, it might be argued (especially by these highfaluting types) that each of the "third world" examples above were too ignorant of the "Law."

 

So why not look at an example occurring immediately after the U.N. Genocide Convention was established, by the people who inspired the law in the first place? Menachem Begin was criticized by outraged American Jewish intellectuals, including Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt, in a December 4, 1948 letter to the editor of The New York Times, for being a "fascist" and a "terrorist," and for being involved in a terrible massacre of innocents that Begin and his Freedom party were proud of, inviting "all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin." In a few years (1953), Arial Sharon would establish his Death squad, "Unit 101," targeting the massacres of women and children. It certainly can't be argued the Israelis, of all people, were not aware of the "genocide law," and yet it didn't make one bit of difference. And here "Professor Simpleson" is telling us improvements in  international law would curtail genocide.

 

One can set up all the laws one desires. Unfortunately, at the end, the opposite of the genocide scholars' simple-minded mantra will come true, as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel wrote:

 

"History teaches us that man learns nothing from history."

 

 

Let's examine his statements from one of the many closed "genocide club" (these are never honest debates) he has attended, "Academic Conference on Genocide Denial" (Jan. 2002), an article by Richard Giragosian (hairenik.com/armenianweekly/jan_2002/history001.html)

 

"Exposing the Denial of State-Sponsored Crimes Against Humanity," was held at Georgetown University in Washington, organized by Armenian National Committee (ANC) of Greater Washington, the Armenian Students Association of Georgetown University, and the Genocide Prevention Center/Improve the World International. Reportedly, other crimes against humanity were touched upon, like Rwanda and WWII Japanese atrocities (Simpson has written a study on "Comfort Women"), but who wants to bet the bulk of this mainly Armenian-sponsored "conference" concentrated on the Armenian sob story?

 

Pro-Armenian pal Roger Smith turned the floor to Christopher Simpson, who declared the Armenian Genocide is "a genocide without doubt." One of his stipulations for defining genocide appears to be "the intent to destroy the targeted group," as laid out in the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention (which also exempts politically aligned groups, which already invalidates the Armenian case, since the Armenians joined the Entente Powers and were "belligerents de facto," as Boghos Nubar admitted. Don't these "genocide scholars" know of the basic rules for genocide? Or do they conveniently overlook them, in the "intent" of pursuing an agenda?).

 

The problem with Christopher Simpson's “without doubt� Armenian "Genocide" is that "intent" has not been proven. He amateurishly looks to false kangaroo courts for his proof of intent, but these exercises in corruption would not constitute genuine evidence. He also turns a blind eye to every real fact not to his liking.

 

"(Simpson) went on to show that the failure to reform Turkey and the Allied policies allowing the institutions of Ottoman Turkey to maintain power in the new modern Turkey transformed by Attaturk (sic) forged the foundation for the denial of the Armenian Genocide," the article tells us. If there is one thing about Ataturk, it's that he miraculously did away with many institutions of the Ottoman Empire. The Allies thankfully had nothing to do with what was not any of their business, interference in another nation’s affairs, and the reason why Ataturk did not focus on these past ills was to make sure Turkey's youth did not grow up with hatred in their hearts... in the mature interest of forging ahead, in peace and brotherhood. These must be foreign concepts to those who prefer to perpetuate hatred and vengeance.
 

 

Christopher Simpson

 

Simpson is quoted as sneering at the statement, "let's leave the Armenian Genocide to the historians." Of course he must advocate contempt for genuine history, since the man is not coming from the perspective of historical truth... as can be ascertained from the above analysis of the sorry chapter in his "award-winning" book. If there’s anything missing from Simpson’s book chapter, it’s what the article calls, "principled, established historical fact� to prove the Armenian “Genocide."

 

The trouble is, the world is mindlessly accepting the terribly unethical distortions putative scholars as Christopher Simpson advocate. Prejudice is an ugly partiality, as this supposed "human rights" champion should be the first to admit. It is time such irresponsible people be held accountable for their hurtful, hateful propaganda.

 

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© Holdwater 
tallarmeniantale.com/GS-Simpson.htm

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