2066) Reflections On The House Of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Vote

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Respected Members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee,

Please find attached, a letter containing the expression of my personal opinions on the matter stated above.

Note that these comments are personal and, in no way, binding of the views of the Organization I represent.

I have taken the liberty of copying this communication to members of Turkish Committees fighting against Armenian defamation in the US and across the world, and to some members of American, Turkish and world Press; in hopes that, should they concur with the ideas express therein, they would pass it on to their own distribution lists and publish it in their medium.

In case you prove me wrong and actually express an unbiased academic interest in the ‘other side of the story’, you are most welcome to peruse the ‘History and Archives’ section of our website below.

One of us will always be at your disposition to discuss the available archival evidence.

Quoting the words of Jesus from John 8:32 -- "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" --

Most respectfully yours

Kamuran A. Kadipasaoglu, Ph.D.
Executive Secretary
Turkish American Heritage Political Action Committee (TurkishPAC)
2726 Bissonnet #240-133
Houston, TX 77005
secretary@turkishpac.org
(281) 733-1276
www.turkishpac.org

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REFLECTIONS on the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE VOTE
re: HR 106, October 11, 2007

Once again, it has become painfully obvious that neither the US Government nor the American public is inclined to lend an ear to the Turkish Diaspora. This is despite the fact that the latter’s position has never been that the world accept the Turkish thesis concerning the Armenian uprising of 1915. Its only plea to the world has been the upholding of the Openness Principle and the granting of a chance to tell its side of the story, because every story does have another side.

The Armenian Lobby is just too rich and too powerful; and it has been active in the Diaspora for much too long. It has become a huge industry driven by business magnates, multi-billion dollar companies, millions of dedicated citizens, etc.; feeding not only the Gregorian Church and the ANCA, but also researchers, research institutions, university programs, libraries, professors, lobbying groups, politicians, etc. around the world. What is worse, to achieve success, it doesn’t shy away from using whatever means necessary, including but not limited to continuous brainwashing of the younger generations, distortion of historical facts, international terrorism, and overt bribery. And why should it, when the opponent has wasted decades, nay, a whole century, wrapped in a comfortable post-imperial nonchalance and scientific apathy, only to shake it off when things started to get from bad to worse on the international scene. And now, just like in La Fontaine’s famous fable, although the Turkish hare is in the middle of an all-out sprint, the Armenian turtle is just too close to the finish line.

Thanks to the century-long Armenian propaganda, left inconceivably unchecked by Turks, the paradigm has now so shifted that, anyone who dares open the matter to academic debate is immediately branded a ‘Genocide Denier’. What is worse, these ‘Deniers’ are not only denied themselves sole access to the public stage to tell their side of the story but, should they attempt to invite a ‘balancing view’ to the platform, they invariably receive the standardized answer ‘I find it unethical to sit at the same table with Genocide Deniers’. By the same token, the ‘historians’, who support the Armenian thesis of genocide against the Turkish contention that it was a civil strife, in which both sides succumbed in great numbers to slaughter, starvation, disease, and the elements; well, those historians are awarded amply and immediately with ‘professorships’ and Nobel Prizes.

What really hurts, even more than this seemingly unbreakable vicious cycle, and for overwhelming archival material is available against the case of ‘one and a half million unarmed innocents’ having been ‘slaughtered for no other reason than being Armenians’; is that the question being put in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee by Chairman Lantos should still be whether ‘… to give in to the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian people and to condemn this historic nightmare through the use of the word genocide … against the risk that passage of this resolution … could endanger our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and damage efforts to promote reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey.’

Such political manipulation of an essentially historical question is injurious to the Turkish people because it blatantly ignores the hundreds of thousands of Turkish and Muslim lives that perished in the hands of ‘Haik” guerrillas, who were determined to create an Armenian majority in the Eastern Provinces of the weakened and disintegrating Ottoman Empire and, thus, to establish an independent state in the so-called ‘Historic Armenian Homeland’. It is also insulting, because it presumes Turkish culpability, a priori and unilaterally; giving the impression that a No vote should be contemplated solely to preserve the current US political interests, not to compare and uphold the veracity and abundance of the archival evidence supporting either thesis.

Strangely, though, the circulation of such rhetoric within one of the world’s most powerful legislative bodies, and the answer to it in the affirmative, which flies in the face of all scientific methodology and academic authority; feels neither injurious nor insulting to me as a Turkish-American citizen, who am otherwise deeply concerned about this issue and the unfairness surrounding it. Perhaps the reason lies in my keen understanding of, and resignation to, the fact that votes and campaign contributions are stronger evidence for politicians all over the world than are historical facts, with the painstaking study of which these gentle people are sadly disinterested no less for lack of academic training as for the afterthoughts of financial and political gain. Or, perhaps, it lies in a mental image formed collectively outside the US about the American people that they are not among the world’s savviest when it comes to geographic and historical matters; an image substantiated by the fact that most couldn’t even locate Turkey on the map, let alone know what happened there a century ago. Wouldn’t it be only normal then, I ask myself, that their representatives should not be any superior in that regard.

Otherwise, how would they have kept their silence as the most ruthless genocide of a truly innocent Middle Eastern nation was unrolling in front of their eyes for almost a decade? Or, how could they justify the recent vote they casted in favor of that same innocent nation’s military invasion under the pretext of ‘bringing civilization’ to a civilization, which is already 5-millenium old, by one that is her junior by at least a factor of 20.

I think Turkish-Americans should not take any of this fast-unfolding international political farce too seriously in their personal lives, yet continue their struggle to bring historical facts within reach of academic circles. My recommendation to them is just to smile cordially, understandingly, and caringly at their lay American and Armenian neighbors, friends and colleagues, who might tease them with comments, sometimes even with sarcasm. After all, two things are certain: Americans, as we know them, won’t keep asking for more than two days, or after the first NFL or MLB game, whichever comes first; and Armenians, as we know them, won’t push this to the ultimate end, i.e., they will shy away from spilling a single drop of their blood for a single square inch of the ‘Homeland’ they so ardently lay claims on from their comfortable position, i.e., hidden behind their Big Brother.

Respectfully

Kamuran A. Kadipasaoglu, Ph.D.
Executive Secretary
Turkish-American Heritage Political Action Committee
2726 Bissonnet St., #240-133
Houston, TX 77005
secretary@turkishpac.org
www.turkishpac.org