410) Comparing "9/11" with the Armenian 'Genocide'

Edward Zwick's THE SIEGE was a 1998 film examining Muslim terrorism in the USA and its aftermath. In the wake of 9/11, some of the scenes were disturbingly prophetic. . . .
Sequence of events: as terror incidents multiply in New York City, law enforcement can't cope. Ground is soon lost to intolerance, paranoia and hasty decision-making, leading to the rounding-up of those who share the same religion/ethnicity, even though most have nothing to do with the actions of a few fanatics. Martial law is declared and the Army is ultimately called in, brandishing its heavy-handed "broad sword," instead of the preferable "scalpel."

Sound familiar?

This is not a perfect analogy with the Armenians' raison d'etre, as we are comparing the mighty United States in all its modernity, a nation that did not have (in the film) its existence threatened by more powerful wartime enemies breathing down its gates... as was the case with 1915's "Sick Man." Consequently, there was no "deportation" (although the process is referred to, and the memory of the Japanese WWII internment is invoked) and "annihilation."

However, it's valuable to see how the United States would react at the very outset of such a crisis and compare with what the Ottomans were facing, after some forty years of Armenian violence and terrorism. What we'll discover as we lay the two cases side-by-side is how incredibly tolerant the Ottomans were.... a tolerance I fear would be out-of-the-question in my own country, if this parallel better approximated the actual conditions confronting the Ottoman Empire. The heavy-handed methods took place almost instantly, at the outset of terrorism, in THE SIEGE... whereas the critical step of resettling did not occur in the Ottoman Empire until a whole two generations of Armenian-incited terror, and only after the Armenian nation treacherously became "belligerents de facto" (as Boghos Nubar put it), with their country — in which the ungrateful Armenians had prospered for centuries — that was fighting for its very life.


For those who have not seen THE SIEGE, be warned some beans will be spilled. What we'll do, when appropriate, is to compare events in the movie with how the USA actually handled a similar situation, the PARALLEL WITH 9/11. Similarly, when appropriate, we'll also take a look at the PARALLEL WITH "1915" (with "1915" representing time periods of major trouble with the Armenians.)


Denzel Washington and Tony Shalhoub

The film introduces "Hub," our hero, a righteous FBI agent, played by Denzel Washington, and his partner "Frank Haddad," the Arab-American sidekick, played by Tony Shalhoub. The latter is the sympathetic character, the film's major attempt to remind the audience that not all Arabs are "bad." There are disturbing examples of terroristic trouble afoot. It's not long before our duo crosses paths with a CIA agent who provided training for Arabs, during periods when certain Arab nations were the USA's allies. This character, Elise, is played by Annette Bening.

Hub caps the hostages during negotiations

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: As in the movie, where different government agencies are portrayed as at odds with one another, we learned that the different departments, like the FBI and the CIA, had little coordination.

After a false alarm on board a bus, our heroes are called in to face a real bus takeover. Elise urges Hub to shoot the terrorists, aware of their 'suicidal' nature. The idealistic Hub prefers to talk it out. He convinces the terrorists to release the children. As he appears to be getting through with another request, the terrorists pull a fast one, and blow up the bus sky high.


PARALLEL WITH "1915": During the 1896 Ottoman Bank takeover, one of the rebellious "highlights" winding its way down to the 1915 Armenian insurrection, Dashnak terrorists took hostages, fired wildly in all directions, threw bombs from the rooftops (which "did not kill instantly but tore the victim's flesh and made them writhe in pain and agony," according to one of the terrorists, Hrach) .fanatically and heartlessly killed.

The Muslims in the film did not blow up the bus right away, waiting for news outlets to converge. The Dashaks wrote the terrorist's cookbook with this tactic, as they, too, were after P.R. (for different reasons; the Muslims of the film wanted only to create fear. The Armenians also wanted to elicit sympathy and attention for their "cause.") The film's Muslims did not care about living. Nor did the Armenians, if their testimonies are to be believed... they went in with the intention of dying.

Another commonality is that Muslim terrorists hate America. These Armenians? Here is what a European aboard the yacht where the terrorists were scooted away reported (William L. Langer's "The Diplomacy of Imperialism: 1890 - 1902," 1972): “Their hatred of the Turks was beyond all description, and the gloating of the rank and file over the Turks they had killed was truly horrible and savage... They also told me that it had been their intention to kill all the Turks in the employ of the Bank before blowing the latter up, but that they had not had time, as things finished sooner than they had expected.”


The incidents escalate; in quick succession there are attacks in a crowded theater, a classroom (which Hub defuses in heroic fashion) and a devastating attack in "World Trade Center" territory, targeting the headquarters of the FBI, with a toll of 600.

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: While there was a "slow burn" in the USA with an attack on the World Trade Center a few years back and the Oklahoma City bombings by domestic terrorists, it basically took one terrorist attack (a particularly big one) before the nation mobilized.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": The Ottomans were becoming used to Armenian treachery by the onset of WWI. With the formation of terror groups toward the latter part of the 19th century, the Armenians engaged in numerous attacks, a highlight being the 1896 Ottoman Bank takeover... where Armenians provided the guidebook for all future terrorists to follow. Because of Armenian massacres and terrorism, 5,000 Muslims were killed during this period, true massacres the biased Western world has never acknowledged. Revolutionaries provided a constant irritation to Ottoman authorities, with the unfortunate result being that the Turks would be blamed for "massacres" every time they acted, one notorious example being 1909 Adana. Many times when the mass murderers would be caught, their sentences would be imprisonment (and not execution) as with the cases of Hamparsum "Murad" Boyaciyan and Gevorg Chavush... and sometimes the criminals would be pardoned, as with the ones who attempted assassination upon the Sultan in the early 1900s. By 1915, even Armenians loyal to the empire mostly were forced to choose sides, after so many years of animosity. It's a testament to the Ottoman Empire (with the understanding their hands were tied by European imperialists) that they didn't deal with their terrorist problem in a greater, iron-fisted way.

The FBI finds that its success in fighting what amounts to a shadowy network is limited.

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: The failure of American intelligence in preventing 9/11 when certain signs were in place has been well documented. After the event, obsession with an unseen enemy got so out of hand, the news reports would latch on to the tiniest clue with which to frighten the American public, that a new attack would be forthcoming.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": Ohanus Appressian described the frustrated Ottomans' efforts in dealing with homegrown terrorism well:

"Within a few years, following the beginning of the movement, an invisible government of Armenians by Armenians had been established in Turkish Armenia in armed opposition to the Turkish Government. This secret government had its own courts and laws and an army of assassins called “Mauserists” (professional killers) to enforce its decrees.

Ramifications of the organization took root everywhere throughout Turkey and to a lesser extent in Russian Armenia. Its strongholds were the American, German and French schools and colleges in Turkey. In perhaps every one of these, chapters or branches existed, usually under the guise of literary societies. It was from among the students of the schools and from the Armenian members of the faculties that the leaders were recruited.

The Dashnacks were in continual open rebellion against the Turkish Government. The Turks took severe measures to stamp out this society but without achieving any great success because they had nothing tangible against which to direct their rage. It was as though they were battling with the air."

To accentuate this latter point, Listen here as to how FBI Agent Hub from THE SIEGE worded it.


Even though Hub has a social conscience, the cop (he is also a lawyer) in him emotionally gives orders for his agents to leave no stone unturned, making sure to even go after those who said a bad word against the country. (Listen here)

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: The "get tough" mode of the police, at least in New York City, was plain to see.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": When Armenians were investigated, they were portrayed as being "persecuted." For example, here are Dr. Gwynne Dyer's reflections on Abraham Hartunian's "Neither to Laugh nor to Weep: a Memoir of the Armenian Genocide" (1968): "He ... had to destroy some of his private papers hurriedly when Ottoman soldiers came to search his house in this period. He wrings much irony from the fact that among the papers he had to destroy because the Turks might have found them to be 'just' causes for suspicion were a photograph showing the leaders of the Armenian resistance at Zeytun in military garb and a long printed poem he had written extolling their victories over the Turks. I must say that they seem to me just cause for suspicion in a country at war."

Will the hero stab the suspect with a lit cigarette?

It's not long before Muslim-Americans are targeted for harassment. Although the film has an American tell us 'They love this country as much as we do,' (unaware of the irony in the "they'' and "we,'' as Roger Ebert wrote in his insightful review; see below for excerpts), it's hard to tell friend apart from foe. Arabs are dragged in and the line between normal questioning and torture becomes fuzzy, even before martial law gets declared. The picture above is between our hero, Hub, and an Arab suspect.

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: Racial profiling was an uncomfortable fact in the hysterical aftermath of 9/11. Even Turkish-Americans [that is, those representing America's "ally"] were rounded up (and subsequently highlighted by some TV shows as being regular Osama bin Ladens). Several groups added were to an ultimate list of18 (later 17 — keep reading) mostly Muslim nations, declared to be under suspicion as potential terrorists, and the nationals of these groups were required to go through the humiliating process of fingerprinting and registration. Only one group had the financial power and loud, shrill voice to get their "terrorist" status quickly overturned... the nation that enlists terrorism as its primary export, the Dashnak Armenians. (The Justice Department was at a loss to explain why... but readers of this site shouldn't have trouble figuring it out.)

PARALLEL WITH "1915": Whereas American Muslims mostly want to loyally mingle into the American Melting Pot, by 1915, the bulk of the Armenian community was openly hostile to their Ottoman nation, where they had prospered for centuries. (Leon Surmelian made this attitude crystal clear in his 1945 book.) This was despite the fact that the "silent majority" knew they had it pretty good, but the Armenians' fanatical terroristic leaders twisted every Armenian's arm. As Oppressian noted above, "This secret government had its own courts and laws and an army of assassins called 'Mauserists' (professional killers) to enforce its decrees." It was "You are either with us or against us" (eerily echoing Attorney General John Ashcroft's words in bulldozing rights-curtailing decrees through a cowed Congress — such as the "Patriot Act" — in the post 9/11 USA), and even the loyal Armenians soon learned to either comply or die. The "secret government" was so powerful that every Armenian over 13, based on confessions by Armenians, were forced to enroll in Armenian committees as functionaries or soldiers throughout most major Ottoman cities. In their series of articles on propagandistic-poster boy Vahan Cardashian, Armenian Review (Sum. 1957, p. 58) clearly spelled out Armenian-on-Armenian intimidation tactics that go on more than ever to this day: "There can be no more serious charge thrown at a person of Armenian extraction than that of 'pro-Turk' or 'Turk-lover.' Years before Cardashian's era, an earlier Armenian American intellectual, Cachadour Oscanyan, had been practically fored and quartered by his Armenian companions for having taken over an advisory position with the Turkish Embassy." And Oscanyan's period was circa 1870, before the establishment of the more lethal Armenian committees. Conclusion: Most Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were truly "belligerents de facto" to their nation, or traitors working for the dissolution of the nation. What would any nation have done with such traitors, especially when friend could not be separated from foe during a desperate life-or-death war?

Annette Benning is Elise

One of the tactics used by FBI agent Hub to intimidate suspects is to threaten them with deportation. Listen here; in this example, he is actually threatening CIA agent Elise, with an Arab informer she has cultivated a relationship with.

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: Due process soon became a memory as the rights of many became trampled upon. Even with citizens of other countries, the USA behaved poorly. For example, the United States actually deported an Arab-Canadian to Syria, knowing full well that he would undergo torture in his native country, and the victim spent a year of hell. The country to have deported him into should have been, of course, Canada.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": Once the Armenians rebelled as soon as Russia declared war, the Ottomans endured half a year of significant Armenian treachery in all corners. Here is only a brief rundown of the many acts of disturbances leading to the fateful May 2 telegram where first notions of resettlement were raised. In this telegram, Enver Pasha preferred to truly deport the treacherous Armenian community into Russia, just as the heartless Russians were doing with hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims, forever, from their ancient lands. Yet, the tolerant Turks still preferred to spend huge quantities of money and resources that could have easily been put to better use elsewhere so that the Armenians could be moved around the country, and not out of the country.


The nation becomes more desperate. New York City is brought to its knees. Retail sales are down, hate crimes are on the increase, the FBI seems incapable of stopping the terror, and streets have become eerily silent. (Listen here)

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: Much of the described took place; business took a huge beating, it was much easier to find parking spaces after many frightened New Yorkers took at least a temporary powder, and Islamophobia began to have an open door policy as rarely before.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": One side effect of Armenian rebellions rarely spoken of is the disastrous effect such random violence must have had on the local economies, a loss that the bankrupt nation could ill afford. Hate crimes? Human nature obviously kicked in, perpetuating the hatred on both sides. The Armenians would keep acting up, always firing the first shot. After some forty years of such shenanigans, even those among the tolerant Turks came to despise the treachery of the Armenians. Surely the innocent Armenians were included along the ride of disgust, which undoubtedly drove the loyal Armenians even more into their own fanatical camp.

The impotence of law enforcement forces the President's hand, and the Army is called in. Major General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis) pulls no punches in stopping the terrorists, even when it comes to stepping on the toes of other law enforcement. Martial law is declared and Brooklyn, New York (where there is a concentration of Arab-Americans) is "taken over," to the shock of the local inhabitants. Devereaux admits the demoralizing effect of such actions, but makes it clear "the enemy" leaves no other choice. (Listen here) The reason: what is going on is nothing short of war.

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: Indeed, it was unsettling to see soldiers in fatigues brandishing rifles within subway stations in 9/11's aftermath. There were signs, although not as overriding as with the movie, that there was a military takeover in certain locales. This was justified because "they" were out to get us and "we" had every right to defend ourselves.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": Whenever the Ottoman Turks defended themselves against Armenian terrorism, the racist West always was quick to label the outcome as a "massacre." As Kamuran Gurun put it so poignantly, "At the very least it would be fair for those ... 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." With "1915," the word would become "genocide." What the world never considers, as Devereaux put it in THE SIEGE, is that the Armenians were declaring war.


Yes, we are a normal human family as well!

The film offers a few examples of what a "normal person" Hub's Arab-American partner is. We see Frank making warm eye contact with Hub, as Hub attends a Muslim ceremony Frank's son is taking part in. An attractive actress is even cast in the role of Frank's wife, a strategy Armenians can appreciate, because in their sob stories, Armenian women must always be "beautiful." (As with the twenty ill-fated brides of Siamento's "The Dance" that Atom Egoyan recreated for ARARAT.)

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: Most Arab-Americans are patriotic citizens of the United States. The ones responsible for 9/11 were mostly (if not all) imported from the "outside." And most Muslims in the USA want nothing to do with the fundamentalists. In recent years, the ultra-conservative Wahhabis have managed to exert influence... only because their Saudi dollars are plentiful. Most Muslims don't want anything to do with them.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": Most Ottoman-Armenians were patriotic citizens of the Ottoman Empire... until the middle-to-end of the 19th century. A combination of factors got most Armenians to change. The educated "outsiders" among them began to spread discontent, as well as the missionaries, who sharpened the Armenians' naturally superior attitude. Terrorist groups beginning to form were salivating to get some of the nationalistic action taking part within the Balkan nations. European imperialists, eager to cash in on an Ottoman break-up, stirred the Armenians further. Huge truckloads of Muslim refugees streaming into the "last stop" of the Ottoman Empire, chased away as a result of ruthless Orthodox "Death and Exile" strategies were resentful — knowing of the part traitorous Armenians played in their terrible fate. "There can be no more serious charge thrown at a person of Armenian extraction than that of 'pro-Turk' or 'Turk-lover'," became the mantra of Ottoman-Armenians, and even the loyal ones couldn't afford to stay loyal for long. (Price to pay: bang-bang, you're dead. 2 of 3 victims of Armenian terrorism in the three year period of 1904-06 were fellow Armenians.) The sad result: By "1915" most Ottoman-Armenians had sided with the enemy.


"The Armenians of Deurt-yol [Dortyol-Mersin] are now well armed with modern rifles, every male adult having one in his possession."

Consul Fontana to the English government, Oct. 21, 1913, FO, 371/1773, No. 52128

"One of the leaders.., Boghos Nubar Pasha, has represented to me that the Armenian population of Cilicia would be ready to enroll themselves as volunteers in support of a possible disemberkation at Alexandretta, Mersina, or Adana on the part of the allied forces...."

Mr. Chetham to Sir Edward Grey, Nov. 12, 1914, FO, 371/2146, No. 70404

Not without my daught... that is, son!

A shut-down on civil liberties, one step removed from a right-wing police state. House to house searches are conducted, and a large portion of the Islamic community is placed within secured camps in a football stadium. One of the arrested is Frank's own 13-year-old son. Frank goes bananas, furious the authorities could break in, knock down his wife and otherwise violate such a loyal American family. He throws his badge at his partner, proclaiming that he belongs with his kind now and that he will no longer be one of the U.S. government's "sand-niggers." (Listen here) Later, Hub tries to do what he can to get Frank Jr. released, but Devereaux can't be swayed.

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: There were many examples of abuses and many more that weren't publicized. An IMDb commentator gives one example, from 2002: "Just this week, I heard of cases in Colorado where the FBI has jailed foreign Arab college students for not meeting the minimum standard for a full load of credit hours, typically 13 hours. In one case, the student had received permission from the school to drop a class, which put him below the level. This is unprecedented. Are we to assume that some individual is acting in a shady manner just because he/she doesn't take enough classes one semester? It follows precisely what Colonel Devereaux's troops were doing by rounding up all Arabs between 14 and 40. Take them all and we'll eventually find one who's got a hidden motive." Another sums it up: "The rounding up of citizens, as depicted in the film, and the declarations of martial law, are not that far away from the provisions of the Patriot Act, which violates First Amendment rights, the right to privacy, and the right to due process."

PARALLEL WITH "1915": With 9/11 and particularly the more intense scenario of THE SIEGE, the many had to suffer for the actions of a handful. With "1915," the many had to suffer for the actions of too many. Among them were many innocents, of course, and who wouldn't be bitter over such terrible treatment when one really hasn't "done" anything... even though the majority of the ones who weren't activists still had their hearts and minds with the "cause." But what needs to be remembered boils down to this: "The struggle begun decades ago against the Turkish government brought about the deportation or extermination of the Armenian people in Turkey and the desolation of Turkish Armenia. This was the terrible fact!" (Hovhannes Katchaznouni, first Prime Minister of Armenia, 1923. Let's keep in mind even when Armenians... especially of Katchaznouni's stature... try to be honest, they still can't let go of the "extermination" idea.) With 9/11 and THE SIEGE, despite terrorist attacks' spinning out of control and thus threatening America's way of life, the situation in the Ottoman Empire was a matter of life or death, with superpowers threatening every gate. Such a desperate situation calls for desperate measures and most countries in the same boat probably wouldn't have bothered with a "deportation."


Let me draw a parallel imaginary case. Suppose that Mexico was a powerful and rival country with which we were at war, and suppose that we sent an army to the Mexican border to hold back the invading enemy; suppose further that not only the negroes in our army deserted to the enemy but those left at home organized and cut off our line of communication. What do you think we as a people, especially the Southerners, would do to the negroes? Our Negroes have ten times the excuse for hating the whites that the Armenians have for their attitude toward the Turks. They have no representation, although they have an overwhelming majority in large sections of the South, and have nothing to say in the making or administration of the laws under which they are governed. South of the Mason and Dixon line they are practically a subject race, while the Armenians in Turkey have not only full representation but special privileges not accorded by any other country.

The Turkish Government ordered the Armenians deported from the districts they menaced That they did not have railways and other means of transportation was not their fault, and the deportation had to be carried out on foot. That this was not done in the most humane manner possible is undoubtedly a fact, and the Turkish Government has condemned the unnecessary cruelties that occurred; but I feel confident that if America had been put in the hypothetical situation above referred to, it would have stopped that insurrection if it had had to kill every negro in the South, and would not have gone to the tedious and laborious defensive act of deportation, in spite of our extensive means of transportation.

Arthur Tremaine Chester, Angora and the Turks, 1923


In one scene, as Hub's FBI is working on a bust, Devereaux's troops bombard the location, and Hub barely escapes alive with his prisoner... outlining the fact that different government units can have a mind of their own. Just as a presidential advisor tells Hub in private (after each asks the other whether they are wearing a wire, exhibiting their paranoia): Do you think the government acts as one coherent entity? (Listen here)

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: Indeed, some U.S. government agencies have acted as though they were in competition with one another.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": If some revengeful or corrupt government personnel took it upon themselves to abuse Armenians when the official government orders decreed the safekeeping of the Armenians... how could anyone responsibly conclude it was the government giving such orders, especially if no evidence exists?


"Generation Jihad"

That was the title of an October 3, 2005 TIME Magazine article exploring the threat of "Homegrown militant Muslims" in Europe; London's July 7 suicide bombings, for example, were carried out by four British citizens. (Unlike the Islamic troublemakers coming from the outside, as has generally been the case with the United States; with the Armenian "Genocide" too, the troublemakers first came from the outside and then spread to "homegrown militancy" in a major way.) A passage relevant to how the law-abiding Ottoman-Armenian must have felt, when the Armenians had it good:

Yassin el-Abdi, 24, a trained accountant in Mechelen, Belgium, who has been unemployed for three years, says extremists in Europe are making a bad situation for Muslims even worse. "These people who are planting the bombs are wrecking things for us." (The article indicates unemployment, due to discrimination, is only adding to the jihadists' ranks. That is one critical difference with the prosperous Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. It was the wealth and education of the Armenians that helped add fuel to the traitorous fire.)

Other parallels: "What's worrisome is how openly [radical] rhetoric [e.g., "The more body bags of Americans we see coming back from Iraq, the happier we are"] is received among ordinary Muslims, many of whom consider themselves moderates." Naturally; as each side becomes more polarized, a false sense of safety is offered only in one's own camp. For example, "In the wake of the July 7 bombings, [Britain] introduced a zero-tolerance policy toward hateful rhetoric, pledging, among other things, to deport clerics seen to be inciting violence." Some Muslims' sense of being further regarded as outsiders may be heightened as a result. "Public demand for tougher measures against terrorism is stifling open discussion of the grievances that are fueling extremism — which allows hard-liners to crowd out moderate voices."

In the Armenians' case, there was no room for "discussion"; the fanatical leaders had made up their minds to break away into a new state, and the populace [that is, aside from the many who didn't need convincing] stepped in line because the hard-liners had squashed the moderate Armenians' voices. [In the following typically fanatical Armenian manner: "You don't agree? We KILL you!"]

You here for my protection? No tanks!

It's not long before civil unrest and anarchy ensues, in the customary cycle of violence and injustice begetting more of the same. Here, the movie begins a shifting of the villains from the terrorists to the heavy hand of the government. (Finally to wind up with a Hollywood style unrealistic ending.) Torture and killings become permissible; the film warns us not to stray from our ideals, otherwise we risk sinking to the level of the terrorists themselves. As Hub argues, "So we kill one, how about two, or six."

PARALLEL WITH 9/11: This one is disturbing to contemplate, since the USA surely bent a few of the rules, as evidenced by the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons. Due Process took a beating on the home front as well with the Patriot Act where commandos would show up at your doorstep merely at the say-so of the slightest rumor.

PARALLEL WITH "1915": Leon Surmelian wrote: "we Armenians talked too much; we did not know how to keep our mouths shut. Thus we proclaimed our love for Russia, England, and France from the house tops. The Turkish comic paper Karagoz had truthfully said, If you want to know the situation in the Dardanelles, look at an Armenian’s face. " Whatever few Armenians were left who dared to profess love and loyalty for their Ottoman nation increasingly must have found it difficult to do so... aside from reprisals from the fanatics among them, more and more Turks increasingly looked upon Armenians as suspect. (And who could blame them? Substitute with your country being at desperate war, and imagine a minority openly proclaiming its loyalty to the enemy.) Thus, as much as Ottomans officially attempted to safeguard the Armenians, the Armenians were not going to get out of this situation easily. As even one of the most zealous pro-Armenian missionaries wrote, "I am not in any way criticizing the government. Most of the higher officials are at their wits end to stop these abuses and carry out the orders which they have received, but this is a flood and it carries all before it." What an apt decision; in war, matters have a way of getting chaotically out of hand. What happened in the Ottoman Empire was exactly that... a flood. And a flood has a mind of its own. People grew fearful on both sides, and as "The Siege" demonstrates, fear often brings about unwanted conclusions.

How unethical of one side and their supporters to still cover up their responsibilities and, aided by their obsession, wealth and Christian sympathy, put forth the idea of a Nazi-like "genocide."

One more example from the film; but let us apply it to the Turks


Voice-overs from the film ask, what if this were to happen to other ethnic groups, like the Italians? The point made was that the Arabs are a powerless segment of the population. (Listen here)

When an ethnic group is powerful, we know how easily they manage to manipulate political decisions. As we sampled from above, the Armenians got out of being designated as potential terrorists so fast, it made the Justice Department's heads spin, and we all know how Armenians have been successful at manipulating world politicians to get meaningless genocide resolutions approved.

But when an ethnic group is not vocal (in fact, if their culture teaches them to absorb their tragedies instead of advertising them) and have the maturity to look ahead in life rather than dwell on century-old tragedies, then it's going to be easy to push such an ethnic group around. The ethnic group we're referring to here are the Turks, taking the example of the Arabs... which are too often blended together by ignorant westerners.

Roger Ebert puts his finger on the issue within his film review:

"OK, what if they were black or Italian? What if the movie was a fantasy about the Army running rampant over the civil liberties of American Irish, Poles, Koreans? Wouldn't that be the same thing as rounding up the Arab-Americans? Not really, because the same feelings are not at stake... Many Americans do not draw those distinctions and could not check off on a list those Arab countries we consider hostile, neutral or friendly. There is a tendency to lump together "towelheads'' (a term used in the movie). Arab-Americans feel vulnerable right now to the kinds of things that happen in this movie, and that's why it's not the same thing as targeting other ethnic groups. (By way of illustration, it is unlikely, even unimaginable, after recent history, that a fantasy like "The Siege'' would be made about the internment of Japanese or Jewish Americans.) Oh, the movie tries to temper its material... I'm not arguing that 'The Siege' is a deliberately offensive movie. It's not that brainy. In its clumsy way, it throws in comments now and then to show it knows the difference between Arab terrorists and American citizens. But the prejudicial attitudes embodied in the film are insidious, like the anti-Semitism that infected fiction and journalism in the 1930s — not just in Germany, but in Britain and America.


The round-up

... By the movie's end, the filmmakers can truthfully say they tried to balance out the villains. But most audiences won't give it that much thought. They'll leave the theater thinking of Arabs (who are handled as an anonymous group), not of dangers to the Constitution... Most people will not be watching a political movie, but a popcorn movie... They'll be comfortable with the Arab villains because that's what they've been taught on the news. True, at the present moment most of America's enemies in the world are Arab. But at one time or another, this country has been at war with the home nations of most of the major ethnic groups in America. And it was 'we' who were at war — all of us. Japanese-Americans who fought in U.S. uniform in World War II (or were in U.S. internment camps) will not have to have the buried message of 'The Siege' explained to them."

While Arabs were never perceived in the Christian West as "fully human," they have only acquired their "serious villain" status in the past sixty years or so, mainly because of Israel, and to a lesser extent, petrol politics. However, because the Ottoman Turks represented a genuine threat since their heyday centuries ago, the Turks have always been the acceptably monstrous "Other." It hasn't mattered how Westernized and democratized and secularized Turkey has become, and how many times Turkey has bent over backwards to show what a faithful ally it can be (or, as Andrew Wheatcroft put it, "The West remained preoccupied with the entrenched images from the past. ‘Civilization’ did not bring acceptance, merely a greater fear of the alien qualities of the Turk. ")... this "enemy" status is still alive and well. Combined with the Turks' incapability for public relations and the hatred some ethnic groups harbor as a substitute for religion, "open season" on Turks has still had no let up within this prejudiced world. This is precisely why the historic facts have not mattered to pro-Armenians and their genocide scholar allies. These forces operate from a vantage of immorality, not truth. We can see from a movie such as THE SIEGE and (to a lesser extent) its real-life "9/11" counterpart when any other nation exercises its right to defense, such a nation is subjected to a different set of rules. When the Turks do it, the aforementioned evil forces will always find a way to make the events appear to be a massacre, or even a genocide.


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© Holdwater
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