patrick.net

Patrick,

there is a certain irony in Google loading an ad for Turkish Singles:Photos on my page view, at the bottom of this commentary.

tsusiat

Hmmm, maybe matchmaking between Armenians and Turks is the answer!

Patrick

Hi Truthout,
unfortunately the spam filter sometimes catches post that it should not.

Please mail the post to me and I'll post it for you.

Patrick
p@patrick.ent

Truthout,
you say:

"Armenians burnt more than half of VAN (a big Ottoman city of the time) and killed the defenseless of thousands."

Where are the records of this massacre in Van? Did no one see or write about it? A photo on a Turkish web site is weak proof. Were there no newspapers or diplomatic exchanges about this?

Also, your arguments are identical to those of the Turkish government, and your grammar is not quite right, so I must assume you are simply one more Turk who feels a lot of pain at the anger of the Armenians, and does not want to believe what happened, which is understandable.

Patrick

Attempt at repost for Truthout:

> Armenians lived side by side with Turks and other ethnic people of
> Ottoman Empire for about 600 years with little or no problems. They
> were not forced to convert to Islam nor oppressed because of their
> religion. Therefore the article's claim "The reasons for the killing
> were pretty simple to understand. First of all, the Armenians were
> Christian and consistently rejected assimilation into the Turkish
> Muslim majority" simply is not the truth. The truth is Armenians
> formed militia in Eastern Turkey during the years running up to
> WW I ,where majority of the Muslim men had gone to fight the enemy
> (i.e. British, Greece and others) in the West, and these Armenian
> terrorist groups started killing of innocent women and children,
> burning villages etc, which is well documented, in hopes to drive the
> Muslim population out of those lands to form a Free Armenian State.
> You will not hear about this from the Armenian lobby. In fact
> Armenians burnt more than half of VAN (a big Ottoman city of the
> time) and killed the defenseless of thousands. It is estimated
> Armenians with the help of Russians killed about 500,000 Muslims
> (Turks, Kurds etc) during WW I. This triggered a harsh response by
> the "Young Turks" in the army and government . This group of people
> who were called "Young Turks" were educated in Europe and their minds
> were infested with the nationalistic ideology of boiling Europe,
> though they wanted the best for their country how they executed their
> ideals is debatable. Ottoman Empire on the other hand for centuries
> had stood strong based on the "Ottoman" identity above all ethnic
> elements that made up the population, may be the first
> historical model similar to "American" identity. In this Ottoman
> model non-muslims prospered in a great way, they were never forced to
> convert (e.g. Greeks, Armenians and other christian populations lived
> under Ottoman rule for centuries and they are still Christian today)
> they had their own schools own courts and churches. The
> ethnic/nationalistic movement brought in by "Young Turks" was totally
> foreign to the prior Ottoman administrations. With little or no regard
> to religion these so called "modern" and "educated" "Young Turks"
> obviously ignored Islam's protection over Christians and Jews and its
> clear law that forbids harming of innocent. These Young Turks were
> the people who drove Armenians from Anatolia (Today's Turkey) and
> tragic events happened along the way. Mostly revenge of the people who
> were hurt by Armenian militia and abuse/neglect of some government and
> military personnel that resulted in Armenians dying due to diseases,
> malnutrition, cold, attacks of burglars, abuse of some soldiers and
> their supervisors. However there is no historical evidence that the
> tragedy and cruelty some Armenians endured was a genocide. There was
> no systematic/organized killing of Armenians as a government policy,
> unlike Hitler's Germany. Only some elements in the government and
> military misusing their power caused suffering of Armenians , mostly
> by driving them out of Anatolia and associated deaths of Armenians. A
> lot of those who were in neglect or involved in the abuse were tried
> and poisoned and some were actually executed later by the Ottoman
> government. But this was all happening in the midst of a great war
> and government's resources were not adequate to protect the moving
> Armenian population from the thieves, burglars or just some of
> the vengeful people whose relatives were killed by Armenian
> terrorists. None of the cruelty Armenians had to live through is
> justified by what the Armenians did to Turks or others. However all I
> am trying to say is there was no genocide, however by distorting what
> genocide actually means Armenian lobby wants you to believe those
> tragic events was part of a systematic genocide , which is unfounded.
> If you want to call it something, call it War casualties, tragedies of
> war or abuse of few, not genocide, that is just baseless. Many
> pictures of mass graves that is still advertised by the Armenian lobby
> turned out to be Turkish victims who were killed by Armenian militia
> see the link
> http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/turkce/katliamlar/subatan_01.html
> (these children and women are Turks killed by Armenian terrorist
> groups)
> .
> This is not to deny Armenian suffering but to expose that Armenian
> side is not snow white and often employs dirty tricks to prove an
> improvable falsehood. NEedless to say the numbers thrown out in terms
> of Armenian deaths is also exaggerated and is not based on any
> facts. Read more on http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/
>
> Thanks

So Patric, I have one question for you. Why do you write about this topic? Why not write about the way the American Indians were massacred? Or how about the French in Algeria? There are many more examples. I am no expert in any one of them. You do have the freedom of speach and write about whatever you like, but I am just wondering why this one in particular? How much do you really know about this topic?

Interesting that this topic should come up here. I'm currently traveling in Turkey. There is little question in my mind that there was a massacre. The archives indicate clearly that Ataturk himself knew of it and helped organize the coverup as well. ("For state reasons, certain disagreeable things happened which, for state reasons, it would be best not made public knowledge, at least for the time being"--that sort of thing.) But massacres are commonplace, as is their coverup. We Americans know all about what the Germans did in WWII, for example, but Germans who grew up in the 1950's know very little. Oh yes, they know there was a war and much of pre-WWII Germany was lost to the Poles and this was all the fault of this madman Hitler who somehow took control of Germany and is to blame for everything. The deeper truth, especially about the holocaust, has been whitewashed from their history books. As for the Swiss and Poles, nothing has every been said in their school textbooks about their collaboration with the Nazis. Same story in Japan. The history books used in the Japanese schools reduce the Nanjing massacre to allegations that there was a massacre and several thousands people were killed (as opposed to close to a million). And mind you, the Japanese and Germans LOST WWII and so, at least to some extent, have to worry about public opinion in places like the US. Turkey didn't lose any wars recently and so it is not suprising that they say what they want to say.

The United States makes a huge deal of confessing its sins, but so what? We confess and then do the same thing over again. We say we are sorry for what we did to the American Indians (killing them to get their land), but be damned if we aren't going to more or less the same thing to the Arabs (killing them to get their oil) or to any other third world country which has something we want. The only differernce I can see between the Americans and the Turks is that we have mastered the arts of hypocrisy and public relations, while the Turks are still amateurs. It doesn't help that they don't speak English that well. Hypocrisy is difficult unless you are very competent in a language.

Anyway, what do you want the Turks to do? Say they are sorry, erect a big statue to the memory of all the dead Armenians, maybe make a holiday comemorating the massacre, lay down a wreath on this status, make some teary speeches? Supposedly, confession is good for the soul. So maybe after confessing to murdering the Armenians, the Turks might feel so cleansed in their soul that they'd be ready for another massacre, like against the Kurds. Then another confession, another statue, another memorial holiday, more wreathes and teary speeches, and eventually another atrocity. That's the American way, after all, and so I wouldn't be surprised if the Turks eventually come upon this solution, given how they ape everything else America does.

Again, I am not denying their is a massacre and I find the Turkish denials to be as ridiculous as the Japanese arguing that the Nanjing massacre was a minor affair. What I don't understand is why this particular coverup has become such a big deal recently? Islamophobia is the obvious answer, however the Turks who are most adamant at denying the massacre are the secular turks in the Ataturk tradition and hence non-Muslims. Mind you, I don't take sides for or against Turkey, but there is no denying that Turkey could be used by both America and Western Europe in order to oppose Russia, Iran and/or the Arabs (Turkey has always been an ally of Israel, did you know that). So why in God's or Allah's name is the west picking a fight with Turkey at this point in time?

Just because a genocide did not a plan like Hitler's does not mean that it is not a genocide. Actually, there was a pretty good plan. All of the Armenian intelligensia were killed within a few days. Shortly thereafter, the Turks struck at the military aged men. Most of the people left were women, children, and the elderly. These Armenians were forcibly removed from their homes. The Turks forced them to walk into the desert with little food or water. Caravans of marauding Turks would rape, kill, and steal from the Armenians. This happened because the Armenians were Christian. If the Armenians would have given up their Christianity, if they would have taken Turkish names, if they woudl have refrained from speaking their mother tongues, they might have been salvaged. They, however, did not, and they received the ultimate punishment.

If you put someone somewhere they can't eat, you and they die, it is called murder. You do this to an entire race, it is called Genocide. The reason why this is an issue is because the Turkish government denies the Genocide, and lobbies other governments to support its denial. If someone questions the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, they are an anti-semite. But in the case of the Armenians, the US government itself won't do what is morally correct, and recognize the genocide because the US has bases in Turkey. Ironically, Israel is one of the only other nations in the world that has the gaul to deny the Armenian genocide.

The world understands that Native Americans were killed. They have reserves. America does not deny that it enslaved Africans. This is why the Armenian Genocide needs to be discussed. One must wonder why the Turks fight so hard to deny the Genocide. To this day, speaking of the Armenian Genocide is a crime--it is called an "insult to Turkishness." Someone wrote a book that inferred that Armenian Genocide had occured, and he was murdered. Turkey is not a secular nation. They do not have freedom of speech.

Actually, the term genocide was deliberately coined to describe what happened to the Armenians. So the Armenian genocide is the archetypal genocide of our times. In justifying the Jewish genocide, Hitler was quoted as saying, "Who now remembers the slaying of the Armenians." So it was the forgetting of the horrors of the Armenian genocide by the entire world that directly enabled Hitler to carry out his unspeakable madness.

In Israel, muslims are forced to speacial ID's to identify them as muslims and pay a special tax.

I am a proud 2nd generation American-Armenian. My uncle saw his mother murderd by the Turks. They raped her and then they cut her unborn child out of her. My uncle hated the Turks with good reason. Luckily he survived and came to the US. I don't understand why the Turkish people today won't admit that there was a Genocide. I take great offense when people say that there was no Genocide. I heard it from my family. The US is afraid to call what happened a Genocide because we don't want to offend them. My question is why would they be offended? The people who were the murderers are mostly dead. I no longer have respect for the politions who are too afraid to do the right thing and acknowlegde the Genocide. The Armenian people have always been hated, feared, or whatever you wish to call it. Where I live Armenian people werent even allowed to eat in certain restaurants, join the Country Club until about 40 years ago. I was teased at school because of my heritage. I wish to thank El Hombre for telling it like it is I want to say a hole lot of things, but I know it wouldnt be printed. I have so much empathy for the Jewish people, the Rwandas, theSomailies, the Africans,. There are many more human beings who have been almost wiped out, and that breaks my heart. How can human beings be so cruel?? There is only one God, no matter if you call him Allah,Jehova,or Budda.Then why do people kill other people over whoever they choose to call their God??The Armenians were the first Christians, who do you think the people were in the Lion's cage? The Ark is on Mt Ararak..And Jesus was a Jew. I will leave with, we must never forget. if we do we are doomed to repeat the horrible things like Holocosts.

PHodoyan

I believe the hysteria around the Armenian genocide in the US and European media is a smoke screen designed to turn the world's attention away from what the Armenian government is doing in Azerbaijan. Azeris are mostly turks and speak a turkish language similar to the Turkish spoken in Turkey. In 1988, as the USSR collapsed, Russian forces were evicted from Azeribaijan once the people declared independence from Moscow. This left the Azeris with no standing army. Later that year, Armenia, with Russian assistance, invaded 20% of Azerbaijan's territory. The excuse to wage the war was the Armenian enclave of Karabagh within Azeri borders. One million Azeris(in a country with only 10 million) were displaced, while 30k lost their lives and an untold number injured. Hundreds of thousands are still internally displaced according human rights watch.

Later it became apparent that Armenia and Azerbaijan were stuck in a tug of war between Moscow and Washington. Plans by western companies to exploit Azeri oil was seen as a threat to Russian hegemony in the region. A massive pipeline plan was designed to run from the Azeri capital Baku through Armenia and Karabagh to Turkey's Mediterranean coast city Cayhan. The Karabagh war was designed to halt this project, but the pipeline was simply built around Armenia and Karabagh through the republic of Georgia much to Russian dismay. Georgia instead of Armenia will collect billions in pipeline revenue in the next decade.

Also, keep in mind that Armenia and Azerbaijan both have extremely corrupt governments.

I'm still appalled at the fact that an event as recent as this gets absolutely no play in the media, but an event which occurred almost 100 years ago dominates head lines for weeks and prompts congress to write bogus, non-binding resolutions. In the early ninties, congress went as far as to put economic sanctions on Azebaijan yielding to pressure from the Armenian/American lobby.

I've seen a few posts here that generalize about "Turks" and blame all "turks" for what the ottomans did in during WWI. I must remind the less educated that there are roughly 160 million Turks in the world scattered from Alaska to Istanbul.

We know for a fact that between 300k(ottoman numbers) and 800k(russian sources) of Armenians died during the fierce battle over Eastern anatolia, northern iraq, northwestern iran and the caucasus. Nearly 20 million people died during WWI, including millions of turks in Iran, Turkey, Southern Russia, eastern anatolia, etc..
The well organized and Russian funded Armenian militias massacred a lot of turks, kurds and Jews in areas where Russia had infiltrated the old ottoman borders.

Take the plight of the 300,000 Meskhetian turks who were forced off their ancesteral homes in Georgia by Stallin and forced to cross the caspian sea into Uzbekistan. Armenians were allowed to occupy the Meskheti lands since then. They lived in Uzbekistan until the collapse of the USSR. They were then ethnically cleansed by the Uzbeks and 20% were resettled in southern Russia. Due to horrible treatment from their hosts, international humanitarian organizations have started to resettle the Meskhetian turks in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Europe and the US. I believe almost 1000 of these survivors call Portland home.