851) One Reason Why Dennis Papazian is in a Genocide Tizzy

What is one reason why Prof. Dennis Papazian, of "Armenian Research Center" fame, has been in a tizzy to spread the falsehoods he has been spreading all of these years, in his agenda-ridden purpose to affirm the "genocide"?

Why not let him tell you in his own words, from a mid-2004 interview ("When is Genocide not Genocide? Recognising the Armenian Genocide, eighty-nine years on," by Andrew Lawless) appearing in the "Three Monkeys" web site:

Why is it important to recognise the events as Genocide? It’s widely recognised that atrocities were committed against the Armenians in 1915, why is official recognition important?

Recognition opens all sorts of legal doors for restitution. It can be shown that the present Turkish state is the legal successor state of the Ottoman Empire, particularly that of the Young Turk government which carried out the Armenian Genocide. While no significant cession of land can be expected, there is every possibility of some sort of financial restitution. For example, my family owned tracts of land along the Bosporus, land which would be invaluable today. I personally would like to get my hands on some of that money. It is not wrong for a victim to seek restitution.

By golly, suddenly Papazian's habitual diversions from the truth have taken a whole new meaning!



It's certainly no surprise to hear Papazian go on about "reparations"; that has been an underlying reason for the genocide hoopla for the longest time. Never mind, of course, that the legal document Armenia signed at the end of the 1920 war that they had provoked makes this idea (unless one lacks faith in the word of Armenians) an impossible dream. 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."

(And is modern Turkey the legal successor to the Ottoman Empire, a regime modern Turkey had overthrown?)

Let's clear up a few things here.

As everyone knows, the relocation policy (what pro-Armenians regard as synonymous to "genocide") largely left those in the west and northwest of Anatolia untouched. So if Papazian's family used to own property around the Bosphorus, why should they be regarded as victims? Unless they comprised the few unfortunates who were booted out, the odds are they, as the bulk of Armenians in this district, stayed put.
The Armenians of Istanbul, and the Armenians in the sanjak of Kutahya and the province of Aydin had not been required to emigrate. The Armenians who at the present time are in the sanjak of Izmit and in Bursa, Kastamonu, Ankara, and Konya, are those who had emigrated from these areas, and who have returned. There are many Armenians in the sanjak of Kaiseri, and in Sivas, Kharput, Diyarbekir, and especially in Cicilia and in Istanbul, who have returned, but who are unable to go to their villages. The rest of the Armenians of Erzurum and Bitlis are in Cilicia.

The Armenian Patrirch, elaborating after the late 1918 decree permitting Armenians to return; British Archives, F.O. 371/6556/E.2730/800/44


And even if they were booted out, as everyone knows (correction: as everyone should know), the temporary policy of resettlement was reversed by 1918's end. (Armenians were already returning before this decree, as missionaries have "eyewitnessed." For details of the decree, see the 30th pg, or "p. 138," of this PDF file.) The majority of Armenians who had been resettled survived. How do we know if Papazian's family did not return?

(I would bet Papazian's family "largely survived the genocide," as Vahakn Dadrian admitted about his family, and probably was also the case with the family of Richard Hovannisian, who has told us of at least one grandmother who filled his head with fairy tales. How could there have been so many survivors, if the idea was to knock off all the Armenians? Truly, how could there have been so many Armenians still hanging around in the land of their "exterminators," as the Armenian Patriarch has recorded in 1921? How could Talat Pasha's Interior Ministry have been appointing Armenians to sensitive positions later in 1915, as provided by this example?)

Regardless, bad things happen in war. The Armenians as a whole betrayed their country, so not everything was going to remain rosy. There are examples of those who lost everything whose minds don't even dwell on the greed Papazian is displaying. For example, what of the hundreds of thousands of Azeris that the Armenians systematically exterminated in Armenia, circa 1919-20? (The one the Jewish Times noted was analogous to the Holocaust, and the one Dr. Gerard Libaridian had "no justification" for.) What about their lands, which they had owned for centuries before Armenians started trucking in around 1828, to what they call their "ancient homeland"?

What about more recent history, in 1992, when Armenians stole the lands of the hundreds of thousands of Karabakh Azeris, frightened into leaving once Armenians displayed their old penchant for massacring?

Furthermore, is Dr. Papazian making plans for returning his New Jersey home to the Indians, whose own lands were once taken away?

But let's get to the crux of the matter. Note how Dennis Papazian is referring to himself:

It is not wrong for a victim to seek restitution.

Dennis Papazian was not even born at the time.

How does he have the audacity to call himself a "victim"?

Dennis Papazian is not a "victim." If anything, with his perpetuation of dishonest and hateful propaganda, still molding the minds of impressionable, genocide-crazed Armenians, and with his reinforcement of anti-Turkish stereotypes, Dennis Papazian is a victimizer.

And now we have a better idea of why he has been so active in the spreading of his despicable propaganda, as (for example) with his infamous "What Every Armenian Should Know." Let's hear it again:

I personally would like to get my hands on some of that money.

Horrible.



"Three Monkeys" is a "current affairs/arts magazine, published monthly by writers in Ireland, Italy, and Spain, and read worldwide!"

Naturally, most of these surface-thinking and biased Europeans are deep believers in the genocide myth.

I'd prefer not to get into the Papazian poppycock in detail, but let's examine a few of the other things he has said here.

When planning the Holocaust, Hitler famously referred to the Armenians...

Of course, our putative professor is referring to the infamous Hitler quote, a statement the Armenians' favorite moral witness very likely never said. If he said it in 1939, it was mentioned in reference to his invasion of Poland, and had nothing to do with his plans for the Holocaust. Hitler's inspiration for the Holocaust most likely originated from his nation's handling of the Hereros, back around 1904-06. Some of those behind the Herero policy, such as those in the Goering family, reasonably must have gone on to whisper in the Fuehrer's ear. In short, Hitler did not need to look up to the Ottomans to get the idea for his "Final Solution." If there really was an Armenian genocide, it would be more logical to presume the Germans, who were in charge of the Ottoman military for all intents and purposes, passed on the extermination ideas they had first come up with. (Massacres took place in Ottoman history, but never a plan to exterrminate; "genocide" is a pre-20th century European concept, from the Russians vs. Muslims, Americans & Australians vs. aborigines, British, French, Belgians, etc. in their colonial holdings in Africa and elsewhere.)

Actually, Papazian sort of confirms this. Listen:

Some say the Hereros in Africa experienced the first genocide of the 20th century when they were murdered wholesale by the Germans.

I am not familiar with these events, and so I can make no determination as to whether or not it was truly a genocide. But in any case, we can see that the Germans at that time already had the concept of lesser peoples who were expendable for a greater cause.

You'd think a "professor" who goes around proclaiming his fairy tale was the "first" genocide of the 20th century would have familiarized himself with the case of the Hereros. But, of course, Papazian once again proves he is not a genuine scholar, but a "propagandist." He does not care what the real first genocide of the 20th century was; that would cut into his sob-story perpetuating agenda.

It does not take too much research to discover the German colonialists had in mind to get rid of the Hereros. Lieutenant- General Lothar von Trotha made this pretty clear after forcing the Herero people into the desert, and then by declaring the proclamation: "Any Herero found within the German borders with or without a gun, with or without cattle, will be shot."

Besides, the first genocide of the 20th century might well have been committed by Papazian's own country, in the Philippines.

Here is the way Papazian justifies his "other" own:

As far as the Armenian Genocide is concerned, it was the first major genocide of the 20th century...

How dare he! The Hereros lost perhaps 75-80% of their people through an actual policy of systematic extermination, whereas general war conditions claimed a total of around a third of the pre-war Armenian population (1.5 million; Armenians concede one million survived. Subtract), and most had died from reasons having nothing to do with intentional murder; famine and disease affected all Ottomans.

The innocent civilian Filipino losses numerically rivaled the Armenians' losses, and what of the Balkan Turks? (1912-13, pre-dating "1915.") Of some 1.5 million who were ultimately exiled, over 600,000 were killed... a close parallel to the Armenians' own experience. The difference: the Balkan Turks did not go off and start killing people and committing terrorism; their only crime was that they were Turks. The Balkan Turks were truly deported (while the Armenians were transferred to another place in the country, permitted to return afterwards), from a systematic campaign of brutal ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians and Montenegrins.

In his interview, Papazian touches on the fate of the Balkan Turks:

Of course, after the two Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, the Turks were pushed out of most of Europe.

That's all he has to say, and evidently in the context of "they deserved what they got." Certainly, it's no surprise that he would choose to ignore the Turks' huge cataclysm. To Dennis Papazian, only the Armenians must maintain exclusive victimhood.... even those Armenians who were born years later, as himself.

In fact the Armenians are an Indo-European people and a Christian nation, more in harmony with Europe than the Middle East.

After centuries of Asiatic life, the Armenians magically became "Europeans"? (Yes, wealthy Ottoman-Armenians sent their children away to be educated, and there was missionary influence. But these developments mainly began to occur toward the later part of the 19th century, and did not affect most Armenians.)

Sir Charles Eliot wrote in his 1900 book Turkey in Europe that until the years succeeding the Turkish-Russian War of 1877-78, "the Turks and Armenians got on excellently together... The Russians restricted the Armenian Church, schools and language; the Turks on the contrary were perfectly tolerant and liberal as to all such matters. They did not care how the Armenians prayed, taught and talked... The Armenians were thorough Orientals and appreciated Turkish ideas and habits... (They) were quite content to live among the Turks... The balance of wealth certainly remained with the Christians. The Turks treated them with good-humoured confidence..."

(Please make a note of Sir Eliot's accurate conclusions, as later Papazian will go on to tell us the familiar propagandistic tale that Armenians were persecuted, despised, and "slaves.")

Even today, some westernized Armenians display their "Oriental" tendencies before all else. When more emotional Armenians get insulted, it"s not unusual for thoughts of revenge or killing to be far behind, as this American-Armenian displayed against President Bush, once the USA added Armenia to the list of "terrorist" nations. Defenders of Vahakn Dadrian, when he got into trouble over a code of conduct, justified his misbehavior by citing "cultural differences."





Papazian:

The Europeans in the Ottoman Empire, for the most part, as I said, considered the Armenians more progressive and European-like than the Turks. This being the case, the genocidal massacres and expropriations of the Armenians drew wide European attention and opprobrium. Thus, the Armenian Genocide can be rightly termed the first genocide of the 20th century since it was well-known and widely recognized.

Truly, the man knows no shame. The Europeans didn't care beans about the Armenians, particularly many of those who got to know them firsthand. What the imperialists latched upon was their common religious bond, not because they loved the Armenians (as history has demonstrated time and again, particularly in the hands of the Russians), but because it was their way to weaken the Ottoman Empire, and ultimately get their hands on that precious Ottoman geography. (Similar to how Papazian is hungrily eyeing present Turkish real estate.) Any real historian can't escape this irrefutable fact, but nobody is saying Dennis Papazian is a real historian.

Turkey even expanded its territory slightly in the East at the expense of Armenia.

By taking back lands that had been Ottoman for centuries? Through a war that Armenia provoked, as its first prime minister admitted? ("...[T]here remains an irrefutable fact. That we had not done all that was necessary for us to have done to evade war... because we thought we would win.") If Turkey was so expansionist, why did they not take all of Armenia... particularly since the Armenians were defeated so decisively? Why didn't Turkey behave as Armenia's Russian "friends," in the form of the Soviet Union, who later came in and completely took over? (Papazian will later tell us how much better Russia was for the Armenians. Please make a note of this point.)

Thus the ethno-genesis of the modern Turkish state is based on genocide and expropriation of wealth.

Well, what do you expect him to say? The fact is, after the war, measures were taken, at times under the guidance of international bodies (the Ottomans were under occupation), to see that the Armenians had their homes and belongings returned. In 1921, the Patriarch tells us nearly half the pre-war Armenian population was sticking around. Several treaties (Gumru, Lausanne) gave the rest of all Ottomans, including Armenians, the right to return within a specified time. (But, are you kidding? Were they going to leave the greener pastures they had found in the homes of sympathetic Christian nations? The same reason why the "patriots" among the diaspora would not dream of moving to Armenia today.) Of course, there was no "genocide," but a resettlement of an on-the-whole traitorous community, and when things went wrong, it was in spite of the safeguards the central government had put in place. What Papazian is stating can be more correctly said about Armenia. They committed the real genocide against the Muslims living in Armenia, and expropriated all of their wealth. (The 1926 Great Soviet Encyclopedia, that country's equivalent of the Encyclopedia Britannica, tells us that in 1918, only some 800,000 of the 1.5 million people in Armenia were Armenians. Of the rest, nearly 600,000 were Azeris. What happened to them, and their properties?)

President Woodrow Wilson even sent to the U.S. Senate, after World War I, a request for a Mandate over Armenia. After Wilson had his stroke, the issue of Americans taking responsibility for Armenia and Armenians was no longer a viable alternative.

Wilson's blind Christian sympathies had already lost hold, and the failure of the mandate had nothing do with the Armenophile president's stroke. American politicians wisely realized that it would have been a boneheaded idea to sacrifice many millions of dollars and many young American men, only to be mired in a hopeless "Vietnam."

Nevertheless, the U.S. Congress established the... Near East Relief, chiefly to help Armenian survivors who had been forced-marched to the desert of greater Syria to die. Most of these survivors were children, since the children had stronger constitutions and in some cases could withstand the dreadful forced marches. Furthermore, the area was taken by the British and Arab troops who fought their way up from the south, thus saving many survivors from perishing.

If they weren't dead by 1918, after the "genocide" had all but run its course in 1916 (as even Vahakn Dadrian is on record for stating), they were far from saved in the nick of time. (For example, Lt. General Sir W. N. Congreve opined in 1919, after returning from Syria: "I did not see a thin one amongst a good many thousand I saw, and most looked cheery too. The massacres seem to have been a good deal exaggerated." And this area has historically been known as "The Fertile Crescent"; Papazian is presenting a false picture with the word, "desert." And that's an interesting theory on how invulnerable children can be; some would say the very opposite. He is also not telling us that not all Armenians were forced to march; those coming in from the West could travel by train. All Ottomans were forced to march, in areas where there was no mode of mass transit. Here's an example.

So why is the United States in denial? Simply to please the Turks.

Brother! Yes, the Turks sure have an uncanny hold over the Americans, all right. This is why programs of pure Armenian propaganda, as with the United States' Public Broadcasting Service, can be produced. The United States Library of Congress, the nation's harbinger of truth, is a willing accomplice to Armenian propaganda, as its director (Billington) has taken sides, and the one allowed to direct the "history" is an Armenian.

There was so much infatuation in the U.S. State Department with Turkey after all these years, that officials are loathe to recognize the changes which are taking place before our very eyes. Note the Turkish attitude towards the American invasion of Iraq, the Kurdish question in Iraq, and the rise of an Islamic government.

Hoo-boy! Once he gets going...

It appears (in retrospect) Turkey was in the majority opinion, with the rest of the world, regarding the questionable decision of the USA to invade Iraq under false pretenses. And of course Turkey has the right to be wary of terroristic PKK elements right on its border, after suffering over twice the mortality the USA faced with 9/11. As far as the unfortunate rise of that Islamic government (Papazian is not labeling it correctly; the Turkish government is still thankfully secular, but just as in the USA, powerful religious interests are working to chip away at the line between church and state), what makes Papazian think that Turkey's becoming more Islamic (and thus weaker) is not in the interests of the USA?

The Turks, of course, are not Arabs and are not very sympathetic to the Palestinians, who are Arabs with a strong Christian minority.

Boy, he's really hitting below the belt. The Christian element of the Palestinians is not that overwhelming. What Papazian is going for here is the old "Christian vs. Muslim" stupidity. (He mentioned the above, by the way, after telling us Israel is afraid of acknowledging the Armenians' genocide mainly because Turkey might shut off the water. Incredible. It's not even within the realm of possibility, as far as he is making it sound, that there are some intelligent Jews who are aware the Armenian tale is far from the parallel to the Holocaust that the Armenians would love for you to believe. Those such as the Nobel prize-winning Shimon Peres, who remarked in 2001 that claims of an Armenian Genocide are "meaningless," further adding:

"We reject attempts to create a similarity between the Holocaust and the Armenian allegations. Nothing similar to the Holocaust occurred. It is a tragedy what the Armenians went through but not a genocide."

Papazian then goes on to tell us:

It is useless to play the invidious game: more of my people died in these terrible events than your people. Therefore my people suffered more. Or, the technological quality of the Holocaust sets it apart from the Armenian Genocide that was carried out in a more primitive fashion.

But wasn't he playing this game earlier, basically pooh-poohing the experience of the Hereros and all the others who suffered what might be called a genocide, just so he can give the Armenians "first prize" in claiming to be the 20th century's initial genocide?

The war crimes trials held after World War I in Turkey, held by the Turks and not the conquering Allies, amassed a great deal of evidence which showed the guilt of many leaders in organizing and directing the Armenian Genocide.

The trials were held by the Turks under the thumb of the allies, which makes a big difference. These trials were such a travesty of justice, even the British could not make use of the findings of these kangaroo courts, in the process of the Malta Tribunal.

[T]he evidence amassed was sufficient to condemn Talaat Pasha, Enver Pasha, and Jemal Pasha, the chief architects of the Armenian Genocide, in absentia.

Horrifying. The reasons why these three were given death sentences by a revengeful puppet administration went way beyond the Armenian business. There is no evidence that these three were such "architects"; if anything, the real evidence points to how much they tried to save Armenians. Talat Pasha issued many orders safeguarding the lives of Armenians and their properties (not always obeyed, as central command was not strong), and especially in the case of Jemal Pasha, who went out of his way to help Armenians, as even Lepsius is on record to corroborate. Dennis Papazian should be ashamed for making such a thoroughly false statement as this.

Now it is time for a good laugh: Papazian's "Proof"



What are the chief sources we have, that prove a systematic genocide and how reliable are the sources?

It is only people’s ignorance of the plentiful and overwhelming sources which allows some to demand proof. The proof is beyond question. We have eyewitness reports from American consular officials, American missionaries, Armenian survivors, German consular officials, German missionaries, Austrian officials, and business people of various nationalities. We even have photographs that were taken at the time by German nationals. We also have Ambassador Morgenthau’s diary and his book which was written from notes in his diary. He spoke directly to Talaat Pasha on many occasions to plead for the welfare of the Armenians, and Talaat Pasha acknowledged that he was solving the Armenian Question once and for all by killing all of the Armenians.

We also have the evidence accumulated by the investigative committees established by the Turkish parliament and by the Turkish courts martial that was used in the abortive trials. These, for the most part, are official Turkish documents. To add to that, we have the debates in the Turkish parliament in which Arabs and other members spoke out against the genocidal massacres of the Armenians which were taking place.

We also have the evidence that is consequential to the massacres. When Russian, Greek, and French armies marched into Anatolia, they could see the corpses, the bones, the burnt out houses and churches, the destroyed equipment, ravaged places of business. Even today, when I made a tour of Turkey, I saw the ruins of many Armenian churches and could identify even some of the homes of famous Armenians who perished in the genocide.

So here is what he offers as his "beyond question" proof:

1) Missionaries. In their prayers, these religious fanatics had a "license from God" to vilify Turks.

2) Germans and Austrians. The latter annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina from the Ottomans only a few years prior. For centuries, the Turks were their bogeyman, and a reluctant alliance was not going to wash away their contempt. Surely, the more prejudiced among them were going to be sympathetic to whatever "fellow Christian" missionaries and Armenians told them.



3) Photographs by German nationals. Here are some from Armin Wegner. Do they prove a "genocide"? Or simply, suffering people?

4) Ambassador Morgenthau. Forget it... don't even go there. Morgenthau, a bigoted man who felt Turks had "inferior blood," was dying to get the USA into the war for various reasons. He is what we would call a source with a "conflict-of-interest." His successors, Bristol and even Elkus, are the ones to heed.

Naturally, Prof. Heath Lowry exposed what a liar Morgenthau was by comparing his private letters and diaries to the awful "Story" book Morgenthau came up with, that Papazian is asking you to accept as real history. In a private correspondence, Papazian actually tried to put across the idea that the Armenians were akin to the Indians, based on words Morgenthau tried to put in Talat's mouth. I pointed out to Papazian that Talat actually compared Armenians to America's "Negroes." (That is, Talat was getting at the idea of "segregation," and not "extermination.") Papazian was simply twisting the facts, as he is woefully doing above, with this false statement: "Talaat Pasha acknowledged that he was solving the Armenian Question once and for all by killing all of the Armenians." Talat Pasha said no such thing. Papazian is interpreting for us statements in "Ambassador's Morgenthau's Story," where Talat was made to say he would "take care" of the Armenians. Instead of the essential meaning of the words, Papazian is telling us Talat Pasha was using "gangster slang" in 1915. Perhaps New Jerseyite Papazian is living next door to Tony Soprano.

5) We already covered the irrelevance of the post 1918 puppet Ottoman Turks, and their kangaroo courts. If there is a court proceeding to focus on, that would be the British-directed Malta Tribunal process, the parallel to "Nuremberg."

6) If anything, the Russians and the French bore witness to the criminal nature of the Armenians. And what is he talking about, the "Greeks"? Has Papazian flipped his lid? The Greeks didn't even travel that far east to see any "genocidal evidence." If there was any "genocidal evidence" to tie in with the Greeks, it would be more accurate to state that the Greeks created that evidence, with their own murderous campaign.

The above constitutes no evidence whatsoever, and Dennis Papazian knows it. That's why later in the interview, he reaches into his hat, and pulls out the worthless "opinion" of the "genocide scholars." You see, if these hypocritical non-scholars who back-engineer history say there was a genocide, that must "prove" it.

Regarding his last comment, if he visited homes of Armenians who "perished in the genocide," let's bear in mind most Armenians, as most Turks, died from reasons having nothing to do with outright murder. It was a calamitous time of war and inhumanity for everyone, where people were dying from famine, disease, exposure, combat, all over the land. For example, Hovannisian wrote in 1967 that some 150,000 Armenians died of starvation while accompanying the Russians, and the Turks were nowhere in sight. Of course, this huge number has been dishonestly added to the final tally of some half million Armenians who died in total. To one like Papazian, an Armenian who has died from any reason must be considered a "genocide victim." And as for those ruins... well, at least the fact that the churches have been allowed to stand after these many years says a lot::

"Why are there more open and operating Armenian churches in Turkey today than there are open and operating Armenian churches in Armenia? Why for example are there no operating and open mosques allowed to function in Armenia today?"

Devoted Baptist and Christian Scholar Sam Weems, in a 2002 letter to Rev. John Hagee; Weems had produced a Christian video at the time ("The Seven Churches Of Revelation"), and conducted extraordinary religious research. Elsewhere, Weems declared: "[T]here are more Armenian churches in Muslim Turkey than there are Armenian Christian churches in Christian Armenia."


Papazian next tells us Armenian terrorism achieved its goal of attention being paid to his genocide, and that "there was no further advantage in killing Turkish officials." Yet the reasons why the terrorism ended were more complicated than a terrorist leader's simply stating, "Oh, the world is now paying attention, let's stop." Papazian also adds, "The worldwide Armenian community was beginning to turn against the perpetrators since killing would not ultimately solve the problem." That is not true at all. The Armenian community was fully supportive of their heroes, the murderous terrorists, and there were no signs whatsoever from Armenian leaders publicly pleading for the killers to "Stop." If anything, the Armenian community was encouraging these killers with their praise, along with contributions to the defense funds of the few who got caught.

“As an Armenian, I never condone terrorism, but there must be a reason behind this. Maybe the terrorism will work. It worked for the Jews. They have Israel.“ {Kevork Donabedian, editor of The Armenian Weekly, as quoted in the November 18, 1980 issue of The Christian Science Monitor.)

The Turks have lost their propaganda battle. The controversy excited scholars to do research, and once that research was done it became obvious that there was an Armenian Genocide. Even the New York Times and the Boston Globe, two bastions of the establishment, have now made it policy to write about the Armenian Genocide without any qualifications and without the necessity of talking about the Turkish point of view.

There's a lot of wishful thinking going on with the above. Has anyone taken a close look at what Papazian describes as "Turkish propaganda"? "Turkish propaganda" generally utilizes sources that have no conflict-of-interest. Very much opposed to Armenian propaganda, nearly all of which has a conflict-of-interest. How do we determine the truth? If we're looking at sources that had no reason to lie, or whose partisanship rests with non-Turks, is it even fair to call that "propaganda"? The word for that would be "truth."

What really happened after the early-to-mid-eighties, when people began to question genocide claims, is that the pro-Armenians got very worried; their dirty work was becoming endangered. That's when the underhanded tactics began. Smear campaigns (example 1, example 2), along with acts of intimidation and even violence (famously in 1977: the bombing of Prof. Stanford Shaw's home), frightened away almost all legitimate researchers from the study of this matter. Add to that the backing of "genocide institutes" with Armenian wealth. Toss in the age-old Armenian fanaticism and Dashnak terror tactics that rarely fail to intimidate. These ingredients combined with an already established prejudice against Turks, in addition to Turkish indifference, are what has enabled the "genocide" to become the accepted wisdom.

How do we know that Papazian is talking out of his hat when he makes a bold statement such as "The Turks have lost their propaganda battle"? Papazian would never dare to debate legitimate historians. When there are "fixed" attempts at debates (where the moderator and producer clearly have sided with the Armenians to begin with), such as the one offered by PBS in early 2006, the Armenian propagandists resort to low-blow smear attacks, or outright lies. They know they can get away with their unscrupulous methods, because the wool has been considerably pulled over prejudiced parties like PBS and the New York Times (which has a long and shameful history of "News Unfit to Print," regarding the "genocide").



Armenians, Greeks, and Jews were never assimilated into Ottoman society. They were dhimmi, or tolerated subject peoples, not citizens. The Turks consider them to be gavours, nonbelievers. As such, they occupied a position beneath Turkish society and there was no assimilation. It is true that a few Armenians rose to high places in the government, because of their unique talents...

(This is the part where we asked you to bear in mind Sir Eliot's statement, above.)

Of course these minorities were assimilated into Ottoman society. (In fact, as millets, they were all generously granted an "internal autonomy," as Richard Hovannisian has written, adding "The millet system proved workable and beneficial for the Armenians.") This is why the propagandist, Dennis Papazian, would never dare debate a genuine Ottoman historian. He knows he can get away with such false statements, because people... such as his lazy-thinking "Three Monkeys" interviewer (in fairness, Mr. Lawless might have posed questions in written format and did not have the chance to "debate" Papazian. The writer was behind a very fair article about Turkey in 2005. The fact remains, however, that "Three Monkeys" allowed Papazian free reign to spread his poison)... have been conditioned to believe in the cruelty of the Turks, and have been exposed almost exclusively to the omnipresent Armenian propaganda. The fact is, the Ottomans were known for their great tolerance, and the merchant classes referred to rose to the top of Ottoman society, prospering greatly. (For example, Leslie Davis wrote, referring to Armenians: "Most of the business of the region was in their hands. 95% of the deposits in the banks belonged to them.") Armenians themselves are on record for contesting Papazian's simplistic and hateful remarks.

Secondly, the Russian government was more progressive than the Ottoman government and gave Armenians more civil rights and protection of life and property. Not surprisingly, the Armenians in the Russian Empire were loyal and patriotic.

Papazian himself, from his "What Every Armenian Should Know," Ques. 17: "Russia under the Tsars never offered the Armenians or any other subject peoples their freedom... Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky, foreign minister of Russia in 1895, summed it all up by saying, 'Yes, Russia wants Armenia, but without the Armenians'." Isn't that just like a deceitful propagandist? When it serves his purposes, say one thing. When the time comes to say the reverse, why not?

William Saroyan said it best, when he concluded (in "Antranik of Armenia") that the real enemy of the Armenians was not the Turks, but the Russians. Did the Armenians really have it better under the Russians than they did the Turks? Or did "big brother" Russia simply serve a convenient purpose, once fanatical and greedy Armenian revolutionary leaders got it into their heads to stir trouble?

Armenians in Turkey would be loyal to Turkey and Armenians in the Russian empire would be loyal to Russia. As a matter of fact, a few prominent Armenians went over to the other side, but they were insignificant in number and certainly posed no real threat to the Ottoman government.

(One of these "insignificant" prominent Armenians was the Parliamentarian, Armen Garo, who "passed over with almost all the Armenian troops and officers of the Third Army to the Russians; to return with them soon after, burning hamlets and mercilessly putting to the knife all of the peaceful Mussulman villagers that fell into their hands." Source.)

Dennis Papazian knows fully well that Ottoman-Armenians were disloyal as a whole to their Ottoman nation. Leon Surmelian spelled out this level of disloyalty in his book, for example. Richard Hovannisian correctly pointed out in his "Armenia On the Road to Independence" that Armenian promises of loyalty were insincere. So why is Papazian trying to make it seem like the reverse was true? It is because he is deceptively trying to make it appear as though there were no Armenian revolt.

Furthermore, Armenians were not only expelled from the eastern provinces but from all of Anatolia, east, west, north, and south. The Turks depend on the absolute ignorance of Westerners of Anatolian geography to carry on that ruse.

Putting aside the Patriarch's own disagreement regarding expulsion from the west, as we have seen above, let's pose this question: If Armenians were so expelled, how could 644,900 of them have remained in what was left in the Ottoman Empire by 1921, as the Armenian Patriarch himself has stated? And how could hundreds of thousands (e.g., 500,000 to Transcaucasia according to Hovannisian, and 50,000 to Iran, many thousands elsewhere, such as Greece) have gone off on their own accord (since the Ottomans did not control the lands the Armenians left for), if they were being "expelled"? And where were they being "expelled" to, exactly? Were the Armenians being truly deported, that is, banished outside their nation's borders as Russia had been doing with their innocent Muslims? No. They were temporarily moved to another part of the country. That is not being "expelled." There is a ruse going on, all right, but the Turks aren't the ones behind it.

Armenian youths and middle aged men had been drafted into the army, and when the decision for genocide was made, they were disarmed, placed in labor battalions, forced to dig their own graves, and then were either butchered or shot.

(He neglects to add the ones who were drafted into the army were Ottomans of every stripe, and not just Armenians. The nation was preparing, after all, for a war that would determine the nation's life or death, a war that ultimately resulted in the nation's death. Every man was needed for this terrible struggle.)

The man is such a shameless propagandist, it becomes tiresome to correct these terribly false statements that we see everywhere else. Now note how we can catch Papazian at his own deception. He had stated previously:

Armenian young men of fighting age in the Turkish army performed heroically in the two Balkan Wars and also on the Turkish Eastern front just before the beginning of the genocide.

So he's telling us the Ottoman Empire went through the trouble of training and arming the Armenians at the beginning of World War I. Now, remember: the Ottoman Empire was bankrupt, and was being or would become attacked on all sides by super-powered enemies. Every man was needed. Would the Ottomans be that dimwitted to suddenly cut off this great resource, the Armenians in their army who fought so "heroically," as Papazian just told us, because the Ottomans suddenly, for no good reason, decided to spend resources they did not have on a massive extermination program? It is as though Papazian is addressing kindergarteners, with such embarrassing and unscholarly logic.

Naturally, the truth and the logic points to many Armenian men refusing to be conscripted. Instead, they went over to the other side in large numbers, either by crossing the border to join the Russians or by staying behind to conduct guerilla operations. (While some Armenians did fight loyally, the Sarikamish example Papazian cites displayed enough Armenian treachery to force the Ottomans into their disarming decision.) Those who were drafted deserted in large numbers. Many who remained fired blanks at the enemy, displayed many other forms of treachery, and generally proved they could not be trusted. That is the only reason why they were disarmed. Once disarmed, they still needed to serve. That is why they were put into labor battalions. Even if there was a genocide and the idea was to kill the Armenians, the shortage of manpower was so acute, of course they would have been "used" first, and then killed. The fact of the matter is, there is no proof that Armenian soldiers were systematically killed off. (There is one example of a terrible massacre of Armenian soldiers that Dadrian cites, and even Dadrian could not turn a blind eye to the fact that a couple of the perpetrators were tried and hanged by Vehip Pasha during the war, providing evidence against a "genocide.")

Nagorno-Karabakh has historically been an Armenian province...

Dennis Papazian is such a first-rate propagandist, it's really stupefying. Let's quote William Schaap, from the Institute for Media Analysis:

While the majority of Nagorno-Karabakh’s inhabitants have been ethnic Armenians — at least since the end of the last Russian-Persian War in 1828 — the territory has been part of Azerbaijan for hundreds of years. It remained part of Azerbaijan after each Russian-Persian War in the 18th and 19th centurIes. It remained so during the 1918 British occupation, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 (at which the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh signed an agreement accepting Azeri jurisdictIon) and when the two nations became Soviet Republics in 1920.

To the Armenians, the de-Armenianizing of Nagorno-Karabakh was tantamount to a continuation of the genocide that began in 1915... While I have sympathy for the Azeris that were driven out of their homes, it was more the fault of their government than of the Armenians. Had the government in Baku not denied the Armenians their civil and human rights, the question of independence would not have arisen.

Do you really believe Dennis Papazian has "sympathy" for the Azeris that were driven out of their homes? He's just paying lip service here, in order to seem "fair."

Note his excuse, that the poor, innocent Armenians, the victims of "genocide," were not going to stand for a "continuation of the genocide." It is nothing short of repulsive. Armenia, aided in one billion dollars worth of material (along with some manpower) by the Russians,in addition to millions of dollars courtesy of American taxpayers, was the aggressor. It's plain and simple. As Schaap went on to write: "...it is indisputable that Armenia has violated the prohibition of the United Nations Charter against 'the use of force — against the territorial integrity... of any state,' for which the Security Council has condemned Armenia numerous times." Papazian is a propagandist and will try to cover up Armenia's crimes, but that will not stop him from playing "humanitarian."

And this statement of his brings us full circle. You'll remember a primary motivation of his, for affirming his genocide:

I personally would like to get my hands on some of that money.

And how did he justify the above assertion?

It is not wrong for a victim to seek restitution.

But Dennis Papazian is not a victim. He is a victimizer. Just as Armenia was in its sneak, cowardly "Pearl Harbor" style attack in 1992 Karabakh, while pursuing the Armenians' never-ending greed for more land.

Naturally, if Papazian really believed in what he was saying, he would do anything in his power to help the Azeri victims to seek restitution. But that would only happen if we had the good fortune of dealing with an honorable man.



(Thanks to reader Cihan.)

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© Holdwater

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