I attach for your members information correspondence between myself and the Federal Labor Party of Australia, their candidate has suggested that she will push for the recognition of the fallacious genocide claims if Labor wins.
I hope we can inform Turks around the world in order for them to write to the Australian Labor Party and set the record straight.
Regards
Ataman Atlas
From: Ataman Atlas
To: info at syd dot alp dot org dot au
CC: higgins at aph dot gov dot au; maldot washer dot mp at aph dot gov dot au; tonyabbott dot warringah at aph dot gov dot au; kevin dot rudd dot mp at aph dot gov dot au . .
Subject: RE: The Fallacious Armenian Genocide Claims
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2007
Dear Sir or Madam:
Before I address the issues raised in your reply, I must admit I am very disappointed in the fact that no individual is courteous enough to sign off on your reply. However,this does not surprise me in the least. It is just another example of how the Australian Labor Party treats Australians of Turkish ancestry and is indicative of the Australian Labor Party’s long held contemptuous view that Turks are nothing more than second or third class citizens in this country.
You state, “Labor recognises the legitimate grievances of the Armenian people, and their undisputable suffering during World War One.” However, you fail to mention anything about the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of Turks and other Muslims, Jews and Christians that suffered just as much if not more so than the Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire during the material times. Yet again another example indicative of the how the Australian Labor party views Australians of Turkish descent. Is it the case that the Australian Labor does not care about the millions of Turks and others that suffered and died in that part of the Ottoman Empire during the material times ? Further, still since it appears you recognise the “legitimate grievances” of the Armenian People can you please explain to me and other Australians what exactly are these “legitimate grievances”’ ?
You also state, “We also understand that this is a particularly sensitive debate within Turkey. Our hope is that Turkey can once again display the openness and progressive nature of its society by allowing that debate to take place in an uninhibited and informed manner.” Let me in assure you that this “debate”is particularly sensitive to Turks all over the world. Some one hundred to one hundred fifty thousand approximately here in Australia alone which are by and large Australian citizens. You do not need to “hope”for Turkey to “allow” this debate to take place in an “uninhibited and informed manner” because Turkey wants these issues of fact resolved more than any other third party nation in the world. To that end, I draw your attention to the numerous calls by the Turkish Government for the Republic of Armenia to jointly set up a Historical Commission in order to investigate these claims. Moreover, also to have any other third party nation that wishes to partake or be observer witness to the Commission and it’s work. The Republic of Armenia continues to ignore this open invitation. I will also point out that the Armenian archives remain closed as of this date. The Ottoman Archives have been open for many years to any Scholar wishing to study them.
The Turkish Government has also challenged any State or Nation that has recognised the fallacious Armenian Genocide claims to commence proceedings in any International Tribunal, which the Republic of Turkey is a signatory too, such as the European Court of Human Rights or the International Court of Justice. The Republic of Turkey has categorically stated that they will waive any defence in relation to standing and will stand in the place of the former Ottoman Empire as the Successor State. The Republic of Turkey has also stated that they will also waive any defence under the retrospective application of the international laws of “Genocide”just so that this serious and heinous criminal allegation can be resolved in a properly convened tribunal. It appears at this stage that none of the 22 Nations that have politically recognised thefallacious Armenian Genocide claims wishes to resolve this matter in a properly convened International Tribunal; they pay lip service to the hundreds of thousands of dead Armenians and even more dead Turks and other Muslims. This behaviour by politicians is deplorable and beneath any normal standards of morality.
You also state, “The high degree of passion that both peoples have for the issue makes it critical to resolve for the stability of the region and the future of relations between them. As such, it is Labor's strong desire for a calm, respectful and compassionate environment to be created, in which to discuss and resolve this issue.” If you truly believe that it is “critical to resolve these issues for the stability of the region and the future of relations between them,” then may I suggest that IF the Labor party wins the up coming elections it exerts pressure on the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora to co – operate with the Republic of Turkey in forming a joint Historical Commission which the Commonwealth can be witness or observer to. If Armenia refuses then will the Labor Party (again IF Labor is installed into Government) have the intestinal fortitude to commence action against the Republic of Turkey within the Jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice so that these lingering and damaging issues can be decided upon once and for all ? You see, I believe that the vast majority of Australians with Turkish ancestry can see Labor’s attempt at a grubby grab for votes in Mr Howard’s electorate by your standing Candidate Ms McKew, and Labor’s total disregard and contempt that it holds for Turks within Australia. After all, it was the Carr Labor Government that placed the fallacious “Armenian Genocide” plague with the NSW Parliament grounds without ever listening to the thousands of Turks living in NSW. Further,no mention was ever made about the hundreds of thousands of Turks and other Muslims murdered at the hands of the Armenian citizens of the former Ottoman Empire. Where is the plague to commemorate their murders and deaths ? Will Federal Labor place a commemorative plague on the grounds of Federal Parliament to remember and honour those deaths? What will it take to get Australian politicians to hear the cries of the Australian Turks, were the Armenian tactics of murdering the Turkish Consul General and his bodyguard in Sydney in 1980,and the attempted bombing of the Turkish Consulate in Melbourne in 1986effective ? Are those the sorts of tactics it takes to get Australian Politicians to really listen?
Let me remind you of their Honours comments from the Court of Criminal Appeal of Victoria in relation to one Mr Levon Demirian’s appeal and I quote;-
In a joint judgment, McGarvie and O'Bryan JJsaid:
“The type of activity engaged in by the applicant and others is rare in this country but terrorist acts are commonplace in the country from whence the applicant emigrated to Australia. Unless courts in this country are vigilant in imposing condign sentences for such conduct evil-minded persons might seek to emulate this conduct. The conduct of the applicant in conspiring with others to endanger life and cause serious injury to property by detonating an explosive substance beneath the Consulate BROUGHT SHAME TO THIS COUNTRY[my emphasis] this country when the bomb exploded. The Turkish nation is a friendly power and members of the Turkish community now assimilated into Australian society were affronted by this evil deed. The heinousness of the crime is accentuated by the fact that the applicant abused the sanctuary this country offered him.
When a crime of such notoriety and heinousness is committed IN THE NAME OF A POLITICAL CAUSE [my emphasis] this Court is not required to fix a minimum term. The POLITICAL NATURE [my emphasis] of the offence and its seriousness render the fixing of such a term inappropriate.A sentence imposed in these circumstances should be exceptional to mark the seriousness with which the crime is viewed and therefore no minimum term should be fixed.” (1988 33 A CrimR at p 474)
58 Tadgell Jagreed, in relation to that aspect of the appeal (at p 481).
Please be advised that I will be forwarding on the contemptuous reply from the Australian Labor Party to all Turkish Media outlets within and external to Australia, and further I will make as many Australians of Turkish descent be aware that a vote for Labor is a VOTE to Recognise the fallacious Armenian Genocide the same as what Carr did inNSW. It is wrong and apprehensible to play politics with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people just purely for the grubby purpose of grabbing votes.
Regards
Ataman Atlas
Cc to
Mr Laurie Ferguson
Ms Maria Vamvakinou
higgins at aph dot gov dot au
mal dot washer dot mp at aph dot gov dot au
tonyabbott dot warringah at aph dot gov dot au
Kevin dot Rudd dot MP at aph dot gov dot au
_____
Subject: RE: The Fallacious Armenian Genocide Claims
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2007
From: Info at syd dot alp dot org dot au
To: atamanatlas
Dear Mr Atlas
Labor recognises the legitimate grievances of the Armenian people, and their undisputable suffering during World War One. We also understand that this is a particularly sensitive debate within Turkey. Our hope is that Turkey can once again display the openness and progressive nature of its society by allowing that debate to take place in an uninhibited and informed manner.
The high degree of passion that both peoples have for the issue makes it critical to resolve for the stability of the region and the future of relations between them.
As such, it is Labor's strong desire for a calm, respectful and compassionate environment to be created, in which to discuss and resolve this issue.
Yours sincerely
ALP Campaign Information Services
Disclaimer
This information is intended for the recipient only.
Every effort has been made to respond to your query in full. Please monitor the Australian Labor Party website (www.alp.org.au) for further information
_____
From: Ataman Atlas
Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2007
To: kevin dot rudd dot mp at aph dot gov dot au
Cc: Natsect Information; senator dot faulkner at aph dot gov dot au; sharon dot bird dot mp at aph dot gov dot au; maxine dot mckew at alp dot org dot au; laurie dot ferguson dot mp at aph dot gov v au
Subject: The Fallacious Armenian Genocide Claims.
Dear Ms McKew,
/
I could not believe my eyes when I read an article stating that you have promised the Armenians in your electorate of recognising the fallacious Armenian Genocide allegations.
As a former Reporter one whom would have suspected as having some sort of an inquiring mind and some intelligence to make such a big mistake is beyond belief.
As no doubt you are aware every story has two sides and to me it appears that the millions of dead Turks and muslims do not matter and are some how less human then the dead Armenians. There is a mountain of evidence against the fallacious Armenian Genocide allegation and yet you make no effort whatsoever to inquire into what that evidence may be.
If you like I can and will pass on mountains of evidence for your perusal. I will copy a recent article by a US Journalist about these issues for your consideration below.
However, I must mention that after hearing your support for the alleged Armenian Genocide I will strongly lobby all of the Turkish Community far and wide to vote Liberal and especially in the areas of safe Labor seats where the Turks are in majority. I truly hope with your comments you have landed Mr Howard another term in office.
Ataman Atlas
Before I forward on articles and evidence in relation to the fallacious Armenians Genocide Claims I would also like to remind you that the NSW Police and the Federal Authorities are yet to arrest or charge anybody with the Murder of the Turkish Consulate General Mr Sarik Arayak and his Body Guard Mr Engin Sever. Further still the comments made by the Honourable Justices of the Victorian Supreme Court in relation to the Demirian matter the man who blew up the Melbourne Consulate and I quote;-
R v Demirian [1989] VR 97 at 123-124
Demirian (1988) 33 A Crim R 441
In a joint judgment, McGarvie and O'Bryan JJ said:
'The type of activity engaged in by the applicant and others is rare in this country but terrorist acts are commonplace in the country from whence the applicant emigrated to Australia.. Unless courts in this country are vigilant in imposing condign sentences for such conduct evil-minded persons might seek to emulate this conduct. The conduct of the applicant in conspiring with others to endanger life and cause serious injury to property by detonating an explosive substance beneath the Consulate brought shame to this country when the bomb exploded. The Turkish nation is a friendly power and members of the Turkish community now assimilated into Australian society were affronted by this evil deed. The heinousness of the crime is accentuated by the fact that the applicant abused the sanctuary this country offered him.
When a crime of such notoriety and heinousness is committed in the name of a political cause this Court is not required to fix a minimum term. The political nature of the offence and its seriousness render the fixing of such a term inappropriate. A sentence imposed in these circumstances should be exceptional to mark the seriousness with which the crime is viewed and therefore no minimum term should be fixed.' (1988 33 A Crim R at p 474)
58 Tadgell J agreed, in relation to that aspect of the appeal (at p 481).
October 18, 2007 6:30 AM
History Speaks
The moral case against the Armenian Genocide resolution.
By Barbara Lerner
Prudential arguments against the Armenian genocide resolution pending in Congress are gaining traction; odds for passage in November that looked overwhelming last month look more like a toss-up today. But in the court of public opinion, genocide proponents are still winning. Most Europeans and transcultural multinationals have already proclaimed it an indisputable historical fact that the Armenian tragedy in Turkey in World War I was a genocide, perpetrated by the Turks — a deliberate government attempt to wipe out all Armenians — and growing numbers of Americans think we have a moral duty to join them. The problem, in this arena, is that prudential arguments have nothing like the emotional power and widespread popular appeal of the moral case for condemning the Turks.
We must do it, Armenian genocide proponents tell us, because the Armenian tragedy was the original Holocaust: Armenians in World War I were like the Jews in World War II; Turks in 1915 were like the Germans in the 1940s. Thus, the only moral choice is to condemn the Turks, as we condemned the Nazis. The logic here is inescapable: it is the only moral choice, if the charge is true, if Armenians really were helpless scapegoats like the Jews, and if Turks really were deliberate, genocidal monsters like the Nazis. But an analogy is only an emotional appeal, not a rational argument — let alone a moral one — — unless it actually fits the historical facts. To judge whether the Holocaust analogy does, we can’t just look at Jews and Germans in World War II, then at dead Armenians in World War I, and extrapolate the rest. We have to look at live Armenians and Turks in 1915; at the desperate, multi-front war Turkey was submerged in, in that bloody year; and at how ordinary people and government leaders reacted.
We know what life was like for ordinary people and government leaders in Germany in 1942-43, when the mass killing of Jews reached industrial scale. It was orderly and safe; the Nazis were still mostly winning abroad, and in full, unchallenged control at home. Jews aside, no one starved to death in Germany then, and no German civilians were massacred or raped by enemy forces. There were no enemy forces on German soil in those years. The only enemies at home were the Jews, and they were never a real threat. They were scapegoats, not objective enemies, and they were being methodically eliminated, without exception, in all German-controlled territory. Life in Turkey in 1915 was very different, but, genocide accusations aside, most Americans know nothing of it. Here, to remedy that lack, a little history. First, the backdrop to 1915 — a one-paragraph review of how Turkey got to where she was in that critical year. Then, the foreground — what was happening in Turkey in 1915, and how Turks and Armenians responded.
Turkey wasn’t a country in 1915; it was an empire in dissolution, reaching the climactic endpoint of a century-long decline in wealth, power, and control over territory. The Ottomans tried many reforms to halt the slide; all proved too little, too late. By 1915 they had already lost great swathes of territory in Crimea and the Caucasus, in a series of losing wars with their giant rival to the east, Imperial Russia. In the west, they lost most of their European territories in another series of losing wars against a rising tide of nationalist uprisings in Greece and the Balkans.
In all these lost lands, Turks and other Muslims had been at least a substantial minority; in many, a clear majority, and everywhere, they were driven from their homes in large numbers, and often brutalized. Massacres and rapes were especially common on the eastern front. Czarist troops and their local allies were no less brutal to conquered Muslim civilians than their Communist successors were to Christian civilians in the Ukraine and Eastern Europe, a few decades later. All this sent millions of Muslim refugees flooding into the Ottoman core we now know as Turkey in the years before World War I, overwhelming the Ottoman’s waning power to provide even minimal assistance to many, and seriously eroding their ability to maintain order in areas farthest from the government in Istanbul. Then, on November 2, 1914, Imperial Russia declared war on the Ottomans again, and this time, Imperial Britain and Imperial France followed suit, three days later.
That’s the backdrop to 1915. Here’s the foreground. In January, the French, the British, and Britain’s colonial troops — Australians and New Zealanders—mounted a major attack on Turkey’s western front at Gallipoli, the gateway to Istanbul. Fighting there was fierce, and continued until January 1916, but, on this front, there were relatively few civilian casualties, and no massacres.
On the eastern front, the situation was grimmer. The czar’s army had broken through the Ottoman defense lines in the Caucasus, and was laying waste to cities and villages in Anatolia, sending old refugees fleeing in terror once more, and adding millions of new refugees to the mounting toll. Once again, the invading Russians and their local allies often treated conquered Turkish civilians with great brutality; massacres and rapes were not rare events. In much of Anatolia, death and destruction was omnipresent, and for millions of homeless survivors, clean water and food was scarce to nonexistent. Starvation killed many; raging epidemics of dysentery, typhus, and cholera killed more. In refugee-flooded areas behind the ever-changing front lines and on the roads leading to them, chaos ruled. There was no one to keep order: all available men were needed at the fronts
That’s what the Turks were struggling with in 1915, and some Armenians struggled with them, serving in the Ottoman government, and fighting side-by-side with Turks in the Ottoman army. Most Armenians who demonstrated this kind of loyalty to the Ottoman state came from Istanbul, Izmir, and Aleppo; the wives, children, and elderly they left behind when they went off to war were not driven from their homes or subjected to massacres. After the war, these men collected their veteran’s pensions, just as other veterans did; some of their descendants live there still.
But Armenians were hardly immune to the fierce currents of nationalism sweeping the region in the late 19th and early 20th century. In eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus, especially, many Armenians on both sides of the border saw the Russian invasion as their great chance to recreate their ancient Christian kingdom in Anatolia, with the aid of the Czar’s mighty Christian army. Armed Armenian nationalist groups — the Dashnaks, the Hunchaks, and others — saw Armenians who fought for the Turks as traitors to the Armenian cause; many still do. Nationalist Armenians were at war with the Turks in 1915, and the Armenian generals and guerilla leaders who commanded them are still honored as Armenian heroes today. Military leaders like Generals Andranik Oznanian, Garegin Nzhdeh, Drastamat Kanahyan (“General Dro”), and Garo Pasdirmaijan (“Armen Garo”) are largely unknown to Americans whose knowledge of Armenian history is limited to the orthodox genocide literature, but well-known by Armenians. Here, again, the analogy to the Jews of the Holocaust simply does not fit. There are no statues to the Jewish generals who fought the Nazis in Germany in 1942-43, because there were none.
In 1915, Armenian generals were in the forefront of the Russian invasion: some led Russian troops; others led special Armenian battalions, made up of Armenian volunteers from both sides of the border; still others organized Turkish-Armenian military units be-hind the lines, capturing Anatolian cities like Van, even before the Russians arrived, joining the Russians in capturing Bitlis, Mus, and many other Turkish towns and villages, massacring Turks in a number of those places, before Ottoman reinforcements recaptured them in a long, bloody series of seesaw battles that raged throughout eastern Anatolia in 1915. Some Turkish civilians responded by massacring Armenians, and wild, outlaw tribes of Circassians and Kurds preyed on hapless civilians in both groups.
Of course, nothing justifies any of these massacres, but the claim that Ottoman government leaders ordered any of them is belied by the frequency with which, when they could, they tried and punished men responsible for them: not just Armenians, but many Turks, too, including government officials and military men found guilty of failing to protect civilians. But the Ottoman government in 1915 was no fount of wisdom. It was the product of a series of mutinies, coups, and counter coups that began in 1908, deposing one Sultan and installing another, most of whose rapidly eroding powers were seized in 1913 by three rebel leaders, Talat, Cemal and Enver. And in 1915, that triumvirate made a decision that resulted in many civilian deaths. They decided to deal with the civil war in eastern Anatolia by ordering Ottoman soldiers to march all Armenians out of the area, and resettle them in the Ottoman city of Aleppo, in what is now Syria.
Orders were given to distribute food and water as needed, and to protect the marchers. But, due to the chaos of war, the dearth of supplies, the critical shortage of troops needed at the fronts, and the competing tragedies playing out all around them, there was no chance that the transfer plan could be carried out humanely. It turned into a death march, comparable to the one our soldiers endured on Bataan in World War II, but made worse in the Armenian case by the fact that many of the marchers were the women, children, and old people left behind. Many did not survive the horrors of the trip. Still, we don’t call the Bataan death march a genocide, and there is even less reason to claim the Armenian death march was intended as such. If the Ottomans wanted to kill all Armenians, they would not have exempted Armenians from Istanbul, Izmir, and Aleppo from the transfer order, along with others serving in government and the military. Mustafa Kemal, the hero of Gallipoli who founded the modern Turkish Republic in 1923, had a more cogent view: he saw the triumvirate as incompetent, and Enver, especially, as a dangerously unrealistic commander whose poorly conceived plans resulted in the slaughter of many Ottoman soldiers; and he saw the Armenian transfer plan as more of the same.
The bottom line here is that in actual historical fact, Turks were not like Nazis; Armenians were not like Jews; and attempts to convince Americans that they were are propaganda, not history. The Armenian tragedy was real and terrible, but it was not the only terrible tragedy in Turkey in 1915 and it wasn’t genocide; it was that in the midst of a wider war that brought death and destruction to millions on all sides, nationalist Armenians fought a war to claim a piece of Turkey for a country of their own, and lost. Later, they got a state of their own, but its development has been stunted from that day to this by high levels of poverty, corruption and political violence. If Armenians would accept their share of responsibility for the tragedies of 1915, trade with their increasingly prosperous Turkish neighbors could do much to alleviate that poverty. Some in Armenia have long wanted to do that, but most government leaders — and the powerful Armenian diaspora community those leaders rely on — have always insisted, instead, on demonizing Turks and whitewashing all Armenian actions in World War I. And, although they proved incompetent at governing, they achieved great success as propagandists. In this, Armenians are very similar to Palestinians; very different from both Jews and Turks.
And the urgent questions that these facts raise for us are these: How did a narrative so far from the facts gain such wide currency and power in contemporary America? What can we do to make ourselves less vulnerable to specious narratives, promoted by other groups who fail at governing, but excel at propaganda?
— Barbara Lerner is a frequent NRO contributor.
September 7, 2007 7:00 AM
Judgment Time
Should America recognize an Armenian Genocide?
By Barbara Lerner
Calls for America to recognize the Armenian tragedy of 1915 as genocide, and to condemn the Turks for it, grow louder, more insistent, and more varied by the week.
The Armenian lobby, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), and a handful of other longtime congressional supporters are no longer the only people calling for this recognition. They are joined not just by the usual old secular human-rights crusaders of the Left like Noam Chomsky and Robert Fisk, but also by new voices from the Right — including some I respect. Should we do it? Is it really beyond dispute that the Ottoman Turks were guilty of genocide in World War I?
Most Europeans have already decided that Turkey is guilty as charged. In France, arguing that the Turks might be guilty of anything less inhuman than a deliberate, calculated, genocide is considered a hate crime; Princeton historian Bernard Lewis was convicted of it and fined a nominal sum. Here in America and in Britain, other historians and scholars who argue that the facts don’t justify the genocide label — men like Guenter Lewy, Edward J. Erickson, Andrew Mango, Justin McCarthy, Stanford Shaw, Norman Stone, and Michael Gunter — are regularly compared to Holocaust deniers like David Irving and Ernst Zundel, and dismissed as “genocide deniers.”
On many blogs and websites, Armenians often accuse these scholars of being part of a Jewish and/or Zionist conspiracy, because Israel has always steadfastly rejected the genocide charge, as Turkey’s own Jewish citizens do. In America, all of the existing long-established Jewish organizations also reject it (that is, until last month when one major American Jewish organization capitulated under mounting pressure).
Not all Turks reject the genocide charge. A few transnationally acclaimed Turks, like Nobel prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, pride themselves on accepting the judgment that Turkey was guilty of genocide in World War I, butthe vast majority of Turks reject that label. They don’t deny the fact that hellish things were done to Armenians in their country in the hellish World War I years, when much of Anatolia became a bloody battleground and mass graveyard for everyone caught up in it, civilians no less than soldiers. No honest Turk or legitimate scholar denies that. The fight is about whether genocide is an accurate or fair characterization of the Turkish response to the situation that confronted them in 1915.
Turks say it’s neither fair nor accurate, and feel they are the victims of a well-orchestrated, one-sided, Western smear campaign. They see the accusation of genocide as an attempt to resurrect old stereotypes about “the terrible Turk,” to demonize their early 20th-century Ottoman forbears, and to pin a badge of inferiority on Turks today. Turkey’s newly reelected AKP government has long been committed to meeting Europe’s standards for Turkey’s admission to the European Union.. It has already accepted many other allegedly superior European standards and judgments, some gladly, others reluctantly. So far, it has refused to bow on this one.
In the United States, the Bush adminstration has also refused to bow to the European judgment, but support for Senate and House Resolutions recognizing the Armenian genocide is building. The growing numbers of Americans who campaign for genocide recognition claim that if we are to retain any moral credibility in the world, it is past time for us to join the international moral consensus against Turkey; shameful of us to hold back for prudential reasons. They argue with great passion, that a fundamental moral principle is at stake here because the Turks in World War I were, in all essential respects, comparable to Germans in World War II; and that Armenians then were comparable to the Jews of the Holocaust, a quarter of a century later. The inescapable conclusion, they insist, is that common decency requires us to condemn the Turks as we condemned the Nazis.
Americans who take a public stand against the increasingly popular genocide recognition movement, arguing that it would be a serious mistake for us to endorse it, generally prefer to sidestep the moral question altogether. Their focus is on the geo-strategic significance of such a move, and its implications for our national security. In fact, there is a strong moral case to be made against the genocide resolution, because there are major differences — between Nazis and Turks, and between Armenians and Jews — that any fair-minded judge would feel honor-bound to take into account before passing moral judgment on the Turks.
First, though, I want to present at least a brief, partial summary of the geostrategic argument, because genocide zealots who indignantly refuse to even consider the geostrategic argument are not displaying a higher morality. Rather, they are being irresponsible There are times when we should give moral considerations precedence over prudential ones, but there is never a time when we should do so blindly, without estimating the cost and deciding if we are honestly willing to pay it The risk here is that endorsing the genocide resolution will turn what is already a growing rift between America and Turkey, into a historic parting of the ways between our two nations.
To make even a rough estimate of the cost — to our position in the world and our national security — of such a radical realignment, Americans need to know more than many zealots seem to know about Turkey today: about her geostrategic position, and about what the longtime alliance between our two countries has meant, to us, to the Turks, and to the world.
Turkey today is an 84-year-old republic with a population of some 75 million, and a rapidly expanding modern economy; an economy based on the growing education, skills, and know-how of its people, not the luck of oil.
Turkey has one of the biggest, best-trained militaries in the world. It is a long-time NATO ally — the only NATO ally with a population that is 99-percent Muslim. Geographically, it sits atop a strategic-ally, vital world crossroads. For half of a century, it has held the line with us against both Communist and Islamist aggression, sending its soldiers to fight and die alongside ours, on battlefields from Korea to Afghanistan. Unlike our other NATO allies, Turkey did all this with the Soviet Union, as well as a number of Islamist states, sitting right on her borders.
For many decades, Turkey’s alliance with America was an especially close one, not just in NATO but in areas far beyond it, to our mutual benefit, in the Middle East and elsewhere. Today, that alliance is seriously strained and in danger of breaking apart altogether. Many Americans know that part of the tension between us stems from the fact that Turkey opposed our invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many Americans feel that we have as much reason to be angry about that split as they do.
Many fewer Americans understand that ordinary Turks aren’t simply nursing a grievance over past disagreements about Iraq. Their anger and pain is a response to what is going on in their own country today — to the reality that members from the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group that finds sanctuary in Northern Iraq, keep sneaking across the border, blowing up innocent civilians in Turkish cities and killing Turkish soldiers on Turkish soil.
Turks are angry that our Kurdish allies in Iraq refuse to restrain the PKK and sometimes even threaten to unleash further PKK violence if Turkey balks at Kurdish government demands. They are angry and hurt that we refuse to seriously pressure the Kurds, even when the weapons the PKK uses to kill Turks are American weapons. They are angry and frustrated that our diplomats repeatedly warn the Turkish military against taking any cross-border military action to put an end to the aggression themselves.
Popular grief and anger builds as the Turkish death toll rises, week after week, feeding into a growing Islamist trend in Turkey, as witnessed by the fact that Turkey is no longer governed by any of its old secular parties. It is now instead governed by what the EU and trans-nationals everywhere are pleased to call “a moderate Islamic party.” This party not only embraces the EU, but also has much closer relations with the Arab world than any previous government of the Turkish Republic Ataturk founded in 1923.
All this leaves our traditional, longtime Turkish friends — pro-American, Ataturk-style, secular Republican nationalists — between a rock and a hard place. They strongly oppose the growing power of Islam in Turkey, as well as Turkey’s increasing turn to the East, but they are as dismayed as other Turks at our unwillingness to do what needs to be done to stop PKK attacks, or to allow the Turkish military to stop them.
They are equally dismayed by the growing western attempt to brand Turkey as a genocidal nation. Still reeling from the AKP’s latest electoral victory, the enthusiastic embrace of the AKP government by the EU and much of the American press, and by widespread western attempts to portray the AKP’s Turkish opponents as anti-democratic elitists, they feel betrayed abroad and on the defensive at home All things considered, this doesn’t look like a propitious moment for America to take a stand on the Armenian genocide question.
This is a serious argument that deserves to be taken seriously, but the moral argument is equally serious and deserves to be addressed in an equally serious way To do that, we cannot focus only on the main similarity between Jews in Germany and Armenians in Turkey: the terrible tragedies both groups endured at the hands of their countrymen. We must take an honest look at the main differences as well.
— Barbara Lerner is a frequent NRO contributor
FURTHER STILL HERE IS SOME SOURCE MATERIAL FOR YOU TO PERUSE SOME OF WHICH IS HELD IN THE US CONGRESS LIBRARY WRITTEN BY ADMIRAL MARK BRISTOL.
“The acts of the Armenian army at Kars absolutely disgusted our Americans…I am sure that the mass of people at home believe the Armenians are Christians in action and morals, and that they are able to govern themselves. You and I, and others that know them, know that this is not the case…… We have already loaned Armenia over 50 million and that money is lost……. Armenia turned Bolshevik and repudiated all her debts; and one of these debts was for the flour we had furnished on their word of honor to repay, because they certainly had no security to offer. It was a sentimental loan .. and they have gone back on us…… The charge made by the Armenians in their papers that our relief organization was using 80% of all the receipts for work with the Turks and Kurds, is, I am sure you will admit, in keeping with the accuracy of the statements that the Armenians are given to making….. Cardashian came out with a pamphlet in which he charged the Near East Relief and the American missionaries as being the greatest enemies Armenia has ever had, claiming that they, in cooperation with President Wilson, had crucified Armenia... Cardashian... is constantly reporting atrocities which never occurred and giving endless misinformation with regard to the situation in Armenia and in Turkey….. (Armenians) are a peculiar people. They have a great faculty of making themselves disliked wherever they go...”
'The pride of race brings about many singularities and prompts the Armenians to prey on missionaries, Jesuits, consuls and European traveler with rapacity and ingratitude. The poor Armenians will demand assistance in a loud tone, yet will seldom give thanks for a donation. Abuse of Consular officers and missionaries is only a part of the stock-in-trade of the extra-Armenian press.' —Mark Sykes, 'The Caliph’s Last Heritage' (London, 1915)
“The acts of the Armenian army at Kars absolutely disgusted our Americans…I am sure that the mass of people at home believe the Armenians are Christians in action and morals, and that they are able to govern themselves. You and I, and others that know them, know that this is not the case…CARDASHIAN IS CONSTANLY REPORTING ATROCITIES WHICH NEVER NEVER OCCURRED and giving endless MISINFORMATION with regard to the situation in Armenia and in Turkey….. (Armenians) are a peculiar people. They have a great faculty of making themselves disliked wherever they go...” 'All the Americans in Kars are well, and the Turkish Army is full of concern for us and accords us all considerations. We have been given permission to continue our activities as before. The Turkish soldiers are well disciplined and there have been no massacres.'
Edward Fox, District Commander N.E.R. Kars
'The Turks marched into Kars and the Armenians ran away without firing a shot except from two or three places on the hill in the beginning, and this firing soon ceased. Many of the Armenians threw away their guns, stripped off their uniforms and hid in the houses, especially in the Near East Relief orphanages and hospitals with the children.'
'...The Turkish forces were far inferior to the Armenians, but the latter put up no fight and ran away in the most cowardly manner. The soldiers threw away their guns, stripped off their equipment, and hid in the hospitals and orphanages belonging to the Near East Relief Committee when the Turks entered Kars. There was hardly a shot fired from the Kars fortifications and there were no troops to withstand the advance of the Turks, who marched in as if on parade The Armenian soldiers in many cases hid in the beds with sick children The Turks in their advance into Armenia did not do any massacring...'
'The great Turk is governing in peace twenty nations from different religions. Turks have taught the Christians how to be moderate in peace and gentle in victory'
Voltaire
“One should be blind to history not to understand the Turks. The dignified silence of the Turks against the mounting unjustified attacks and mean slanders can only be explained by their pity for the blind. How beautifully this attitude of theirs answers the undignified calumnies.”
Pierre Loti, French writer and traveller, “Fantome d’Orient” (1928)
(Loti added: 'The Turk is the noblest of the nobles. This high nobility is not artificial or showy-- it is the gift of nature. The only people that can create simplicity out of magnificence, eloquence from silence, a sensitive vitality from a graceful calmness...are the Turks. The Orient is the land of dreams and legends. The Turk is the eye, the tongue, the light and the truth of that magic land.')
How many people in the US know what the NEW YORK TIMES wrote about the Armenian Genocide during the relevant time ?
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/08/1886-nyt-18-oct-1915-dangerous-rebel.html
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/08/1884-nyt-22-nov-1915-rebel-turk-djemal.html
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/08/1883-nyt-14-nov-1920-armenians-complain.html
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/08/1882-nyt-13-nov-1914-turkish-armenians.html
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/08/1881-nyt-2-may-1928-huncak-agitates.html
http://armenians-1915blogspot.com/2007/08/1880-nyt-15-dec-1903-armenian-revolt.html
http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2007/08/1878-nyt-22-jun-1935-armenian-patriot.html
http://armenians-1915.blogspotcom/2007/08/1877-nyt-8-jan-1915-armenians-from.html
The Ottoman Empire Took Any Measure to Protect the Armenians
Document: The Ottoman Empire Took Any Measure to Protect the Armenians
Source: Felizx Guse –“1915 Armenian Uprisings and Their Results”
The General Staff of the Third Army
Date: 1925
Felix Guse’s book, titled “1915 Armenian Uprisings and Their Results” published in Berlin/Germany in 1925 is benefited from in this document.
“Armenians naturally encountered some hardships and harshness in their temporary deportation. But the Ottoman Empire took unusual security measures against any potential challenges during the deportation. Doubtlessly, many lost their lives while on migration despite the measures taken, which was undesired.
But today, due to the Armenian continuous complaints and grievances, the Western public opinion assumes that Armenians were subjected to oppression and mass cruelty on the migration routes. The Armenian reports were written rather for the purpose of propaganda. Events are always exaggerated and the same things are mentioned in these reports. Besides, believing in everything that Armenians say and accept them as true in advance is wrong.
In this issue, the difference between personally witnessing the events and hearing about them from others should be grasped. As a matter of fact, the report of someone who had never been to Trabzon in his life includes much more depressing and bad news than that of the one who resided there.
It is only a claim that Turks ordered the annihilation of the Armenians. But there is not any concrete evidence regarding this issue. Although such pronunciations were presented to the court as so-called evidences during the trial of Talat Pasha, they were some “made-up evidences” which had been written by Armenians for propaganda purposes and were unfounded. To tell it in brief, not any plausible evidences were presented to the court on this issue.
The really odd aspect of the issue is that the larger part of the German public opinion is not working for our ally but for the Armenians, the enemy of it. The opinion that Armenians were subjected to more unjust treatment than Turks was widespread – as it is today- in Germany. In fact, Turks were in a more miserable situation, because they had neither German nor American missionaries to cease their pains, to remove their distress and to make the unfairness they were exposed known to the Western public opinion.
The Armenians have managed well to arouse pity for themselves and carried out such propaganda for years.”
Talat Pasha did not Give Any Instructions Against Armenians
Document: Talat Pasha did not Give Any Instructions Against Armenians
Source: Tehlerian Lawsuit – Hearing Proceedings
Date: 1921
The below text is the statement by the German General, Liman von Sandres, who commanded the Ottoman forces in Canakkale and Palestine in the World War I, during Soghomon Tehlerian, the murderer of Talat Pasha.
“In my opinion, Juvenile-Turkish government had an order for the Armenian deportation. The Juvenile-Turkish government can be blame for this, i.e. the issuing of this order, but it is partly responsible for its consequences. On the other hand, the conflicts took place firstly because Armenians did not want to abide by the order of the Turkish government for the “submission of the arms” and secondly, some of them assumed a pro-Russian attitude and resisted Turks. Of course, they were sent to war field and got offended as ordinary losers do… The government put the deportation (temporary migration) decision into practice due to completely military purposes.
Again it must be emphasized regarding this issue that Turkish gendarmerie forces had been in a good position before the war. In fact it was distinguished force comprising of 85 thousand. As this force was spread within the army later, a reserve gendarmerie force, which did not include good elements, was created. …The discipline among those men was very poor. While the events the Armenians had experienced are mentioned about, those conditions have to be taken into consideration. The ones who committed those were not the Turkish soldiers but the bad gendarmerie units that had been created due to need the war required. This aspect should also be taken into account: There was so much misery on the roads that not only the Armenians but also numerous the Turkish soldiers lost their lives because of the lack of victuals in the Turkish Empire, disasters and disorganization. Thousands of Turkish soldiers died there; thousands of soldiers only in the Army I was commanding in the Gallipoli died of hunger… On the other hand, it was previously touched that Kurds were perpetual enemy to Armenians and had murdered them.
I have never received even a single order signed by Talat (Talat Pasha) regarding the Armenians any time! The orders I received were signed by Enver Pasha and were of soft nature. Sometimes those orders were too meaningless to be executed. For instance, once I received the order to send away the Armenians from the staff under my control. But such an order was not executable, because those were needed as translators in the army. One gets numerous senseless orders in those places.
I did not see any orders or measures by Talat against the Armenians during the period of five years I was in war and did not witness them to executed.
Statements, stands and testimonies of foreigners about the Armenian question…
Preface
During decades, the Armenians have forgotten with stubbornness, denied fiercely, and even hidden carefully to the public opinion a whole part of historiography that questions their vision their vision of the dramatic events that took place in 1915-1916.
Shut in a logic that consider their memory to be sacred, the Armenians do not see anymore, do not listen anymore, and do not hear anymore.
They proclaim as truth a selection of facts among others. This provides them the role of heroes and victims, hiding by this way another memory, which of the crimes committed on the Moslem populations.
1 300 000 people have been exterminated by the Armenians, who have joined massively the ranks of the Russian army since the beginning of the First World War, thus making themselves responsible of betrayal towards their homeland, the Ottoman Empire, which these people held on together for centuries.
The negation of these atrocities and the refusal to recognize their responsibilities in the cataclysm of 1915 take the fanatic Armenian racism to a deadlock and prevent an expected peaceful reconciliation. At this point, putting an end to the “Armenian amnesia” is today an absolute necessity of humanity.
Through this study, we hope that we’ll finally help modestly the Armenians find their memory.
The reason behind today’s Armenians historically baseless complaints conflicts with the fact that the Armenians have been entitled with the identity of being a “citizen” of the Ottoman community. These Armenian citizens of Ottomans were the milestones of development of the Ottoman State. The Armenians maintained their presence in every way of life as a printer, doctor, senior official, teacher, author, poet, theater player, jurist, merchant, painter, etc.
The Ottoman history records 29 pashas, 22 ministers, 33 deputies, 7 ambassadors, 11 consuls general and consuls, 11 academicians and 41 senior officials. Some of these Armenians also held the crucial and key positions in the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance and Commerce and Posts.
All these deny the pronouncements of today’s Armenian fanaticism. Because, although there was not a distinction between these Armenians and the other citizens of the Ottomans as for prosperity and life standards, the Armenian community was protected for centuries and saved their identity and freedom.
The followings show the reflections of unfounded and groundless bases of hatred of a deceived structure on today.
“To the inhabitants of Zeytun
O! Tenderly and lovely mother, who do you wish to see?
Come here, don’t be afraid, come close
And without weeping any tear, look courageously
At your beloved child whose wound is bleeding
Let the Turkish mothers cry
And go to Zeytun to give the joyful news
The sun rose, O inhabitants of Zeytun! Quick on horseback!
Arms up, and ahead! Let’s walk ahead!
The ones fear and lethargy holds back are not one of us.
Enough slavery, enough serfdom.
Let us try to enjoy a little the bitterness of the Turks!!”
Verse of the Armenian poet Bechiktachlian (September 1862)
“During a meeting of the Armenian National Assembly, in the last autumn, Mr. Sdépan Papazian, the author presumed the statistical figures presented to the Berlin Conference, took on violently to the patriarch to have communicated to the Embassies of the statistical figures without having consulted first the National Assembly, what consequentially drew the attention of the opinion to the enormous differences between the figures of Berlin and those supplied more recently by the patriarchy and to provoke remarks on the doubtful character of these two series of figures (…)
In the list of Berlin, by an apparently dishonest manipulation of the official figures, looked for purpose was to prove that, according to these figures, the Armenian population of Erzurum and Van (including Erzurum and Hakkari) amounted to in 1 150 000 souls. I demonstrated afterward that the real number did not exceed doubtlessly 450 000. As for the figures supplied by the Patriarch in the embassy in 1880, they indicated a population of 373 500 Armenians.” (Report of the commander Trotter, specialist of demographic questions in the Embassy of England in the Ottoman Empire, on February 15, 1882)
The aim of the Armenian committees was to foment outbreaks and to do terrorist acts; the foreign powers would come to help after appropriate conditions were established, and it happened as that…
“The aim of the Armenian revolutionaries is to foment outbreaks, to induce first the Ottomans to react to their violence and to encourage next the foreign powers to intervene.
The aims of the revolutionary committees are to arouse a general discontent and to force the Turkish government and the population to react violently, that would draw the attention of the foreign nations to the Armenians’ imaginary suffering and encourage them to intervene to right the situation.” (Letter of the British ambassador Currie to the Foreign Office, on March 28 of 1894)
“The members of Dachnak and Hintchak parties have terrorized their own compatriots, they have irritated the Moslem populations with robberies and wild actions; they have incapacitated all the efforts to implement reforms; all the events in Anatolia find their origins in the crimes committed by Armenian revolutionary committees.” (Note written on March the 4th of 1896 by the British vice-consul in Van)
The strategic calculations centered on the Russian and British axis and then turned into a rivalry, gave the Armenian issue an international character. The Armenians, encouraged with the situation and in deed with the aim to establish their promised state, built up “the Armenian revolt movements and terrorism” on two main Armenian terrorist organizations’ axle namely Hintchak and Dachnak in the second half of 1800s.
“In 1895 and 1896, the Armenian revolutionary committees have created such a suspicion between local and Armenian populations that it has become impossible to apply the slightest reform in those regions. The Armenian priests preferred to spread nationalist ideas, sticking them on the walls of the monasteries rather than apply themselves to religious education, and to set the Christians against the Moslems rather than carry out their religious tasks. The revolts that took place in 1895 and 1896 in several Turkish provinces have not been induced by some extreme poverty of the Armenian countrymen, nor by the Moslem attacks. Actually, these countrymen were considerably richer and more prosperous then their neighbors.” (General Mayewski, Russian consul general in Bitlis and Van, “Statistics of the provinces of Van and Bitlis”, 1897, pages 11-13)
“Governed by their patriarch, seconded by an ecclesiastical committee, an administrator and an Audit Office, things that the Turks, who used to be their friends, acknowledge, the Armenians would be far from being miserable if, basing their arguments on religious differences or on old historical memories, they dreamed too about the independence conquered by the Greeks, the Bulgarians, the Serbs; if in 1827 first, in 1896 and in 1897 next, unhappy to still be raias (Moslem or Catholic countryman recorded in the Ottoman census register as a farmer), they had not refused to submit to the military service or to pay the tax that exempt the Christians and the Jews from doing it; at last, if they had not shown ideas in which socialist and even anarchist tendencies were thought to be found. The Turks are tolerant, they are the most indifferent masters the world have ever known, and, may be, the Christian religion is nowhere freer than in their country. Public worship is free; churches and convents stand on here, they are self governing, they prosper here without inhibition, as we’ve seen it in the Mount Athos. In the streets of their cities, they have the priests, carrying ostentatiously the last sacrament to the ones about to die, escorted and protected by soldiers in arms; at last, concerned about the mystery of their private life, they respect the others’ ones, whoever they are, Latins or Orthodox, Armenians or Jews. The oppression they are accused of is no more than a legend as old as the crusades and it would always be easy to find, if not an excuse, at least an explanation for the violent events, it’s true they are, of what is called their ‘Fanaticism’.” (“Around the Mediterranean: European and Asian Turkey – From Salonica to Jerusalem”, Marius Bernard, H. Laurens, Paris, 1899, page 82)
I THINK YOU GET MY GIST.
