804) Ottoman-Armenians vs. Japanese-Americans

Van Johnson reluctantly takes command of the "Japs"

The Hollywood war film, starring Van Johnson, documenting the heroic efforts of a volunteer Japanese regiment during World War II (the 442nd; the 1951 film: GO FOR BROKE) begins with the following declaration from Franklin D. Roosevelt, the U.S. President who signed the order (Executive Order 9066) to lock up the Japanese Americans from the West Coast:

"No loyal citizen of the United States should be denied the democratic right to exercise the responsibilities of his citizenship, regardless of his ancestry. The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry."

(Roosevelt made this declaration to justify the re-opening of the military to Japanese-Americans.)

Those words are thought-provoking. When one is a citizen of a multi-cultural society, heart and mind takes precedence over race and ancestry. Otherwise, if it's "every race for themselves," soon there would be no country.

Does this always work? Of course not. Not in America, nor in other nations that have established ethnic enclaves. Usually, those other nations, like Germany and France, were homogeneous to begin with, so their cases are a bit different. But they are now becoming "melting pots" as well, which is what the United States is based on. (And what the Ottoman Empire was based on, as well.) Certainly little nation-states divided by culture, religion, language and social customs may be found in the United States as well as other countries. But there is not a country on earth that would not expect allegiance beyond all else. There is nothing wrong with having ethnic pride and honoring the cultural traditions of the "old country"; provided, in the case of the USA, that one is an American first and foremost.

Basically, this is the main difference. Japanese-Americans during World War II were mostly loyal. Ottoman-Armenians during World War I were mostly not. Not just in terms of putting their "Armenianism" before their "Ottomanism," which could be endured during times of peace. But in terms of fighting against their country, while super-powers were set on extinguishing their country off the face of the earth.

Much of what's below comes from jainternment.org; Let's examine the relocation orders in both historical examples, and their consequences.


A quick overview of the Japanese case, as provided by excerpts of a President Bill Clinton speech in mid-2000, paying tribute to Asian-American medal of honor recipients (here is the whole shebang).

In early 1945, a young Japanese American of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team lay dead on a hill in southern France — the casualty of fierce fighting with the Germans. A chaplain went up to pray over him, to bless him, to bring him back down. As the Chaplain later said, "I found a letter in his pocket. The soldier had just learned that some vandals in California had burned down his father's home and barn in the name of patriotism. And yet, this young man had volunteered for every patrol he could go on."

In a few moments I will ask the military aides to read individual citations, detailing the extraordinary bravery of 22 Asian American soldiers — some still with us, some to be represented by family members. We recognize them today with our nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor. They risked their lives, above and beyond the call of duty. And in so doing, they did more than defend America; in the face of painful prejudice, they helped to define America at its best.

(...)

Immediately following Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans in the United States military were forced to surrender their weapons. National Guardsmen were dismissed; volunteers were rejected; draft-age youth were classified as — quote — "enemy aliens." Executive Order 9066 authorized military commanders to force more than 100,000 Japanese Americans from their homes and farms and businesses onto trains and buses and into camps, where they were placed behind barbed wire in tar-paper barracks, in places like Manzanar, Heart Mountain, Topaz. I am sad to say that one of the most compelling marks of my youth is that one of those was in my home state.

One resident of the camps remembers his 85-year-old grandmother standing in line for food, with her tin cup and plate. Another remembers only watch towers, guards, guilt and fear. Another has spent years telling her children, "No, Grandfather was not a spy."

The astonishing fact is that young men of Japanese descent, both in Hawaii and on the mainland, were still willing, even eager, to take up arms to defend America.

In 1942, a committee of the Army recommended against forming a combat unit of Japanese Americans, citing — and I quote — "the universal distrust in which they are held." Yet, Americans of Japanese ancestry, joined by others of good faith, pressed the issue, and a few months later President Roosevelt authorized a combat team of Japanese American volunteers.

In approving the unit FDR said, "Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart. American is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry." That statement from President Roosevelt, so different from the executive order of just a year before, showed a nation pulled between its highest ideals and its darkest fears. We were not only fighting for freedom and equality abroad, we were also in a struggle here at home over whether America would be defined narrowly, on the basis of race, or broadly, on the basis of shared values and ideals.

When young Japanese American men volunteered enthusiastically, some Americans were puzzled. But those who volunteered knew why. Their own country had dared to question their patriotism and they would not rest until they had proved their loyalty.

As sons set off to war, so many mothers and fathers told them, live if you can; die if you must; but fight always with honor, and never, ever bring shame on your family or your country.

Rarely has a nation been so well-served by a people it has so ill-treated. For their numbers and length of service, the Japanese Americans of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, including the 100th Infantry Battalion, became the most decorated unit in American military history. By the end of the war, America's military leaders in Europe all wanted these men under their command. Their motto was "Go or Broke." They risked it all to win it all.

They created a custom of reverse AWOL — wounded soldiers left their hospital beds against doctor's order to return to battle. They were veterans of seven brutal campaigns. They fought in Italy to overwhelm entrenched German positions that blocked the path north. They fought in France and liberated towns that still remember them with memorials. They took 800 casualties in just five days of continuous combat in southern France, to rescue the lost battalion of Texas which had been surrounded by German troops.

Let's Get Some Differences Out of the Way


Before we get to the similarities let's make clear that we're comparing two different entities. ("OE" is the Ottoman Empire.)

USA = The world's greatest democracy
OE = A dictatorial empire, once very theocratic

USA = The world's richest nation
OE = The "Sick Man" was bankrupt

USA = The central government was strong and fully in charge
OE = The central government was weak, orders often ignored

USA = Relatively safe from enemy attack in WWII.
OE = Geographically, a nightmare to defend, attacked on all sides by superpowers, with the intent to snuff out the life of the Turkish nation, via secret treaties. In short, a life or death struggle. (End result = Death.)

A note on the first set. How could a democracy compare to a dictatorship? Yet the gap was not impossibly wide. Thanks to the "Millet" system, the Ottoman Empire came closest to Plato's Republic, as Arnold Toynbee opined. While Armenian propaganda stresses how persecuted the Armenians were (and, yes, there was a "giavour" mentality; as with any ruling nation, the rulers felt themselves superior), the fact is, the Armenians were still around after half a millennium and were, in a sense, the masters of Ottoman society. As Consul Leslie Davis pointed out in "The Slaughterhouse Province," "Most of the business of the region was in their hands. 95% of the deposits in the banks belonged to them." (He was referring to Harput, but the Armenians were similarly prosperous throughout the entire nation. Moreover, they were allowed to participate in practically every walk of Ottoman society.)


Daniel Inouye: war hero
(Photo: HomeOfHeroes.com)

Meanwhile, in the world's greatest democracy, if you didn't belong to a certain class or race, your chances for advancement were limited. (That is, "as with any ruling nation, the rulers [The WASPs, in the USA's case] felt themselves superior.") Before 1915, Catholics didn't have much hope of getting into government. (By contrast, Ottoman-Armenians were allowed entry into the highest ranks of government. It was probably not until 1959 when the first Japanese American was allowed in government in a substantial way, after Hawaii became the 50th state and Daniel Inouye, a veteran of the 442nd Regiment, became the first senator.)

Andrew Wheatcroft put it well:

Although the Ottoman reformers promised that arbitrary power would be abolished, and that all criminals would have the right of appeal ... arbitrary power continued to lie at the heart of the Ottoman system. Those who were well inclined to the Ottomans, such as Robert Curzon, suggested that injustices stemmed from inferior officers of the government who were oppressors without the knowledge or acquiescence of their superiors. He also pointed out that arbitrary power was not exclusive to the Ottoman empire, that the USA was ‘a land of liberty, where every free and independent citizen had the right to beat his own nigger’. In many cases it was maladministration, not bad faith, that produced injustice.


Three Quick Facts

1) While other American citizens representing the Axis Powers were left alone (since Germans comprised the majority of white folk, one supposes it had to be that way), "thousands" of Americans of German, Italian, and other European descent were also forced to relocate to the established camps. Many more were classified as "enemy aliens" and subject to increased restrictions, as sort of happened (in a less aggressive manner) to Arab-Americans, after 9/11.

2) While the total number of Japanese relocated varies from 100,000 to 120,000, there were also 23,000 Canadians of Japanese descent who were sent to camps in British Columbia. Unlike the USA, where families were generally kept together,
Canada sent male evacuees to work in road camps or on sugar beet projects.

3) After the Japanese Empire invaded Alaska in early June 1942, the American military evacuated (June 12) Aleuts from Aleutians and Pribilofs. A demolition crew from the USS Gillis burned the Aleuts’ homes on Atka, with all their personal possessions still in them. As alaskamaritime.fws.gov further informs us, days later "Pribilof Aleuts are evacuated from their islands with several hours notice and start their journey to internment in abandoned salmon canneries and mines in Southeast Alaska until May 1944. A total of 881 Aleuts were removed from their homes in the Aleutian and Pribilof islands."
Living Conditions


Behind the barbed wire

We know the living conditions of the Armenians were horrible. Naturally, it depended on where the Armenians were sent to. Some were sent into makeshift camps. (Were these enclosed by barbed wire? To my knowledge, no.) Others integrated into villages. (The idea of relocation was that Armenians would be sent into areas in the manner that the Armenians would not exceed 10% of the local population, in order to cut down on the chances for their rebellions.) So it's not like the Armenians were "locked up." (All I know thus far, mainly from missionary reports, is that their living conditions were believably awful. But I have yet to see evidence that any of the Armenians were in an enclosed prison setting. I'm sure there were guards to make sure they would stay put.) Some managed to earn livings. Some had trickled back during the war years, as missionary Mary Graffam reported, indicating guns were not always pointed at the Armenians' heads, and often Armenians were unguarded. (This is in vast contrast to the lot of the Japanese-Americans, who were all "locked up" in prisons.) The killers of the Armenians were mostly famine and disease. The bulk of the 2.5 million Turks also lost their lives in such a fashion; as Morgenthau wrote, thousands of Turks were dying daily from such factors.

The terrible conditions had to do with a shortage of resources and Turkish ineptness. No doubt there were times revengeful local officials also had it in for the Armenians, regarding them as traitors.

How did the USA, the richest country in the world, fare? jainternment.org tells us:

Many families lived in horse stalls under unsanitary conditions, often by open sewers. Others occupied hastily constructed barracks. Toilet and bathing facilities were communal and devoid of privacy.

Barbed wire fences and armed guard towers with guns facing toward the inmates surrounded these compounds. They were, in fact, prisons.

Inmates stood in line for everything, including meals, latrines, supplies and services. Meals were nutritionally inadequate, medical care, minimal.

According to a 1943 report published by the War Relocation Authority (the administering agency), Japanese Americans were housed in "tarpaper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind." Coal was hard to come by, and internees slept under as many blankets as they were allotted. Food was rationed out at an expense of 48 cents per internee, and served by fellow internees in a mess hall of 250-300 people.

We are also constantly told the Armenians were sent to the desert to die, going for the sympathy vote. (While the fact is, Armenians were sent mainly to regions known historically as "The Fertile Crescent.") What of the Japanese-Americans?

These camps were located in isolated inland areas in vast, sandy deserts or swamp lands. Inmates, who had come from relatively mild climates of the West, experienced frequent dust storms, bitter cold winters, and sizzling summers for the first time.

Both Japanese-Americans and Ottoman-Armenians experienced a nightmare. At least there were no lawless bands preying on the Japanese-Americans, so the Ottoman-Armenians had it much worse. Yet for those of us who believe, as accounted for in many internal Ottoman reports which were never meant to be public relations exercises, that the Ottoman government's heart was in the right place... that they tried to take care of the Armenians as best as they could, which is worse? Armenians suffering from lack of food and medical care because there wasn't enough to go around in the whole desperate Ottoman nation, or Japanese-Americans not getting sufficient food or medicine, even though the United States government was in the position of taking much better care of their own?

Now for Some Similarities

An American publication, The Weekly Tribune, had the following to report in its February 20, 1942 issue (entitled, "President Roosevelt Signs Executive Order 9066"):

Yesterday, February 19,1942 President Roosevelt signed the Executive Order 9066. This order gave the army the ability to designate what are called “military areas”. Areas that certain people can be excluded from. The intent of signing this order will give the U.S. the ability to force the Japanese out of certain areas, giving us a way for mass removal of any people with Japanese ancestry. President Roosevelt and the Justice Department believe that the mass removal of Japanese of any descent is a step in the right direction. A little over two months ago Japan signed an alliance with Germany and Italy, which heightened the already high tensions between the U.S. and Japan. On December 7,1942 Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was bombed by the Japanese. The following day the U.S. declared war on Japan, and Germany and Italy — being alliances with Japan — declared war on the U.S. WWII had officially begun. Although the FBI has promised the United States government that the Japanese pose no threat, many people still believe that the Japanese may have had spies of some sort. Which would have given them an insight of how and when to bomb Pearl Harbor. There are many mixed opinions about the recent events. Some people believe that what is being done to the Japanese is an act of racial prejudice and are taking sides with the Japanese, while others believe that it is perfectly justified.

Mass removal of the Japanese Americans will begin as soon as possible. Japanese families will be loaded up, taken to segregation camps, registered, and given numbered tags that will be used to identify them and their belongings. They will be able to bring only what they can carry, which will include household and personal items for their daily living. Until they are evacuated from their homes, they have one week to prepare and have strict guidelines that they must follow, including curfews and travel permits to leave their homes.

We learn that in both cases:

1) The populations from the "danger zones" (or as the article above put it, "military areas") were affected. The Japanese-Americans from New York City were unaffected, for example, as were the Ottoman-Armenians of Istanbul.

2) Both were allowed only to bring with them what they could carry. Both were forced to sell assets at fire sale prices. Armenian homes, according to Ottoman decrees that were not always followed, were meant to be safeguarded until the Armenians were allowed to return (and contrary to what Armenian propaganda tells us, many did return, especially after the Ottoman decree of late Dec. 31, 1918; there were 644,900 Armenians in what was left of the Ottoman Empire by 1921, according to the Armenian Patriarch. With the Allies in charge, once Armenians returned, you can bet their homes occupied by others, such as Muslim refugees, were vacated).

It appears the Japanese-Americans had it far worse; in contrast to the Ottoman government that promised to look after the properties of their Armenians, the U.S. government did not give the same option to their Japanese.

As another site informs us, the commanding general of the Western Defense Command, Lieutenant General John L. De Witt, , issued (on February 14, 1942) a final recommendation to the secretary of war arguing that it was a military necessity to evacuate "Japanese and other subversive persons from the Pacific Coast." In his report, he cited that "The Japanese race is an enemy race," and that "112,000 potential enemies of Japanese extraction" had to go from the Pacific Coast (California, Oregon, and Washington). He also added, in a crazy case of lopsided logic: "There are indications that the very fact that no sabotage has taken place to date is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." (War Department 1942, 34)

The above was merely an interesting prelude to the point we were trying to get at; the article further informs us:

On February 25 General De Witt ordered the eviction of the two thousand Japanese living on Terminal Island, in Los Angeles, giving them twenty-four hours to sell their homes and businesses.

If this was the rule, then it appears Japanese-Americans, unlike Ottoman-Armenians, were not allowed to hold on to their properties.

With this example, then, the Ottomans were even more humane than the Americans.



Notice on Bainbridge Island to Japanese-Americans

3) The article cites another De Witt order on March 24, regarding an island in Washington (Bainbridge), where the Japanese community also got only 24 hours notice. By early 1942, other Japanese were given "a matter of days."

The average notice given to Ottoman-Armenians was about a week. Taner Akcam stresses the norm was 24 hours, and no doubt examples of that may be found (the rules changed, depending on the whims of the local officials), but all the pro-Armenian sources encountered so far state otherwise. Looks like the Ottomans once again, although not by much, edged out on the humanity over the Americans.

4) Length of Time:

In 1944, two and a half years after signing Executive Order 9066, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rescinded the order. The last internment camp was closed by the end of 1945.

The Ottoman relocation began at the end of May. Talat Pasha called a halt to the relocations in August 1915. It was ignored by locals, forcing Talat to keep repeating the order into 1916, the year Vahakn Dadrian tells us, "the genocide (that is, the relocation) had "run its course." The Ottoman authorities first considered rescinding the order in 1917, allowing the Armenians to return, but that did not officially take place until the end of 1918, bringing the total time length to three and a half years
Loyalty

Here we don't have an equal comparison. For centuries, Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were known as 'the Loyal Millet." Certainly there were Armenians who loved their country, the country that had allowed them to prosper so well... when "enlightened" European countries treated the Moslems residing in their territories as little more (and sometimes less) than slaves.

Yet, while racism was nothing new for Japanese-Americans, the resettlement policy came out of nowhere. Japanese-Americans did not have a history of disloyalty to their country. In contrast, with the establishment of Armenian terror organizations in the mid-to-late 19 century, the bulk of the Armenian community had done an about-face, in terms of their loyalty. Some didn't want any part of it, but when Dashnaks in particular made fatal examples of those who did not comply (the old, "if you're not with us, you're against us" trick), even loyal Ottoman-Armenians learned that they had to choose sides.

So let's keep this difference in mind, as we proceed further. In other words, if there was a 40-year-old building policy of sedition among the Japanese, the Japanese-Americans who were so quick to volunteer to fight for their country may not have been the reality.

Regardless, let's take a look at how many Japanese-Americans behaved, in spite of their humiliating conditions. We already had a good idea of what happened from President Clinton's speech excerpts presented above, but let's examine in closer detail.

As we've seen from Clinton's speech:

Immediately following Pearl Harbor, Japanese Americans in the United States military were forced to surrender their weapons. National Guardsmen were dismissed; volunteers were rejected; draft-age youth were classified as — quote — "enemy aliens."

The difference: The Japanese were largely not given the chance to enlist, as soon as Pearl Harbor forced Americans to enter the war. Ottoman-Armenians, like all other Ottomans, were conscripted during the preparatory stage of war in 1914, and served, some quite faithfully, at the beginning stages.

The Armenians were disarmed only after there were many indications of their disloyalty, including their refusal to be conscripted (many hopped across the border to join the Russians as, for example, Talat Pasha assassin Soghoman Tehlirian, from Erzurum), along with betrayal of Armenians in the Ottoman ranks (firing blanks at the enemy, or firing on their fellow Ottomans), among those who did not desert in droves. Professor Justin McCarthy estimates there may have been as many as 50,000 Armenian troops who did not serve during the 1914-15 campaign, which could have made the difference at Sarikamish. (Here are other Ottoman-Armenian troop figures, betraying their nation.)

Soon after the many reports of Armenian rebellion throughout the empire, the Armenian troops were disarmed and sent to labor battalions. Were there Armenians who still wished to fight for their Ottoman nation? Certainly; but Armenian leaders had poisoned the atmosphere, and there was no outlet left for armed combat. With excellent reason, Ottoman leaders could no longer trust that those Armenians would not turn their rifles upon fellow Ottoman soldiers.

But would those Armenians, if given the chance, have fought with as much gusto as the Japanese-Americans did? The example of the latter was extraordinary.

The U.S. government at first (Jan. 1944) gave the option for the young men in the internment camps to enlist, as a way out. Quite a few, understandably, refused. Eventually, however, many volunteered. It seemed they were so offended by being deemed "enemies" when they had given no signs of disloyalty, they were on a mission to prove what loyal Americans they could be.

As our main web reference goes on to tell us (the Nisei were American-born Japanese, as opposed to the Issei, the older generation):

A number of Nisei left the barbed wire confines to volunteer for the Army. A sizeable number volunteered out of desire to prove their loyalty and in response to the urgings of the Army and the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL).

Several thousand volunteers served in the all-Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team (RCT). Together with the 100th Infantry Battalion, composed of many Japanese Americans from Hawaii, they fought brilliantly overseas in Europe and suffered tremendous casualties.

For its size and length of service, the 100th Infantry Battalion / 442nd Regimental Combat Team became the most highly decorated unit in U.S. history.

Reparations

In 1988, the USA and Canada paid around $20,000 in reparations to each of the survivors of the internees.

As we know, the Armenians are also looking for reparations, even though practically everyone from the 1915 period is dead. Unless Armenians have no faith in Armenians keeping their word, "reparations" is an irrelevant issue, because:

As Dashnak Critic Arthur Derounian wrote, referring to the Gumru/Alexandropol Treaty: "Highly significant Is Article 8, wherein Dashnags agreed 'to forego their rights to ask for damages... as a result of the general war,' thus closing the doors FOREVER to reparations for the enormous destruction of Armenian life and property."

Regardless, from a moral standpoint, do the descendants of the Armenians deserve reparations? In fairness, we must also ask whether the over half-million Ottomans whom the Armenians killed and looted also deserve reparations from the Republic of Armenia (which came into being while portions of eastern Anatolia were still being held by Armenians, after most Russians had left), but since "human rights" advocates are too racist to deem these other victims as human equals, once again the world focuses only upon the "Christian" Armenians.

Conclusions

What the USA did was clearly wrong and will forever serve as a stain upon U.S. history.

Critics from the period, such as Eugene V. Rostow, professor and later dean of the Yale Law School, contended that the evacuation program was a drastic blow to civil liberties and that it was in direct contradiction to the constitutional principle that punishment should be inflicted only for individual behavior, not for membership in a particular demographic group. That's from another site, which also informs us:

In a memorandum written in February 1942 that became known as the Ringle Report, Ringle estimated that the highest number of Japanese Americans "who would act as saboteurs or agents" of Japan was less than three percent of the total, or about 3500 in the United States; the most dangerous of these, he said, were already in custodial detention or were well known to the Naval Intelligence service or the FBI. In his summary Ringle concluded that the "Japanese Problem" had been distorted largely because of the physical characteristics of the people and should be handled based on the individual, regardless of citizenship, and not on race.

The Japanese were not disloyal.

It was easier to target the Japanese because of their identifiable racial characteristics.

President Harry Truman spelled it out, when he honored the 100/442nd Regimental Combat Team, on July 15, 1946:

"You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice – and you won. Keep up that fight, and we will continue to win – to make this great Republic stand for just what the Constitution says it stands for – the welfare of all the people, all the time."

The Ottoman Empire, as so many other nations, was without the protection of that most valuable document, the U.S. Constitution. But that still would not have excused them from resettling their Armenians, if they had done so for the same reasons as the Americans.

Armenian propagandists tell us the reason why Armenians were singled out was because it was "Turkey for the Turks" time, and the Armenians happened to be non-Turks. Like the Japanese, the poor, innocent, unarmed Armenians were victimized for racial reasons. (This is important for "genocide" identifiers, because victims of a genocide need to be from a particular group, and they need to be innocent, attacked for no other reason than for belonging to that group, as demonstrated by the Nazi-Jew example.)

Everything else about real history tells us otherwise. If there were reasons of racial animosity, not many Armenians would have been left after centuries of co-existence. No other non-Turkish groups, such as the Jews, went through what the Armenians had gone through.

The only reason why what happened to the Armenians took place may be summarized by the words of the Armenian leader, Boghos Nubar:

"...[E]ver since the beginning of the war the Armenians fought by the side of the Allies on all fronts... the Armenians have been belligerents de facto, since they indignantly refused to side with Turkey."

The Armenians committed treason in their nation's darkest hour. During times of desperation, with enemies at the gates, it was impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff. The bulk of the Armenians from the "military zones" had no choice but to suffer as a whole.

This page demonstrates that the Americans, despite their great Constitution, did the exact same thing with their Japanese. (Except, fortunately, they were in a position to prevent massacres from lawless bands and local officials who behaved criminally). In some cases, the Americans treated their Japanese in an even less humane manner.

Let's repeat part of Roosevelt's words from the top of the page: "Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry."

The same was true of "Ottomanism." There was such an absence of racial hatred on the part of the forward-thinking Turks, that if anyone was ridiculed and looked upon with contempt, it was the "Turks" of the empire. If the Armenians had not become so racist, treacherous and opportunistic, and kept in mind the brotherhood of all Ottomans, they would have never experienced this tragic episode in their history.

What's more, the Americans can offer all the apologies and reparations they want. But if ever "war hysteria" reigns, as happened in a less extreme way after 9/11, all bets will be off. It is the duty of a nation to preserve itself. If the United States was in the same predicament as the Ottoman Empire, on its knees and bankrupt and with limited manpower and resources, attacked on all sides by enemies bent on the extinction of the USA... and if a sizeable community — say, the near-million Armenians of California — were compelled to rise up against America, hitting the army from the back and massacring fellow Americans to make way for an ethnically pure "New Armenia," then you don't have to hesitate. You can be sure the consequences against the Armenians would be at least as severe as what they experienced during Ottoman times. I'd bet the consequences would be even more severe.

This would be the right of any nation. Only the Turks are criticized, because there is great prejudice against Turkish people in the world, no thanks to certain ethnic groups who are in power positions to keep perpetuating the age-old "Terrible Turk" bigotry. It is a given that the Turks must suffer from this double standard; the "Mongol Turks" have more in common today with WWII era Japanese-Americans, looked upon so contemptuously by their racist contemporaries, than Ottoman-Armenians ever had.

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© Holdwater

The source site of this article gets revised often, as better
information comes along. For the most up-to-date version, and
the related photos, the reader may consider reviewing
the direct link as follows:

www.tallarmeniantale.com/japanese.htm
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