Talk:Armenian Genocide/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Archive 1
| Archive 2 →

Contents

Comment

I really couldn't see any evidence in the archives section that can prove that this was a genocide. The pictures, the letter of the genocide scholars .. none of them can be accepted as an evidence to justify the title armenian genocide. All I read was sayings of military leaders' or government leaders' words which make me think Bush's claim about the Nuclear weapons of Iraq. But if sayings are important I must say as a Turkish from Harpoot that armenians and russians deported my grandmother's father's family and many others from Caucausia and as a 10 years old kid he lost all his family during the deportation. The main point most of you keep missing is that armenians and Turks died but it wasn't a genocide. Moreover I can't understand why the words of a figure like Hitler are given that importance.

Hitler's quote and Holocaust

If Hitler's quote was not a hoax, then why did the U.S. prosecutor refuse to use it in the Nuremberg trials? This unisgned, undated page bearing the Hitler quote stuck out like a sore thumb in the otherwise flawless documentation with sequential numbering system showing dates, signatures, and minutes all in keeping with German high precision. The fact of the matter is, the fabricator -- believed to be an Armenian nationalist or a sympathizer -- managed to slip his "work of art" among the court documents, but faile to convince the U.S. prosecutors, nor the impartial observers and scholars. Prof. Heath Lowry researched this matter well and exposed yet another Armenian fakery tainting the "alleged" genocide debate.

Please, don't try to again change the quote to imply,that Hitler was talking about Jewish Holocaust. Without trying to disregeard enormous suffering of people tied Jewish nation or religion, or both, "Who remember the Armenians" is about killing Poles, not Jews. Just try to read the quote for God's sake.

Please, let this stay on top, since this question was disputed here dozen times. Szopen 10:03, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The rest of discussion

To provide context and contrast to the term "Holocaust" and its association with the genocide against the Jewish people, I've created this entry. But I have to be honest and say that I know next to nothing about the actual history of the Armenian Holocaust. Please fill in the blanks! Thank you for your help. Modemac

Why was a lot of useful information deleted by User:H7asan? Actually, I think that was a POV-deletion, and warrants at least a merge if not a revert -- with all due respect to User:H7asan, but it has to be said --Kaihsu 13:34 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

No one answers? --Kaihsu

--- Kaihsu, I give respect to you, but you are wrong to suggest revert or merger. The information I present (in the first two paragraphs) is based on only extremely well regarded sources (e.g. EB), whereas the information for the previous article – I got the feeling – was mostly from webpages. In addition to inaccuracies, too much was only marginally or insignificantly affected the topic. I kept the Usenet spamming story because it was interesting and because of the importance it might have to some internetfanatics (a large percent of wikipedia). User:H7asan

ps - If you want to discuss the article in detail, I can.

Thank you for the clarification. I have no particular interest in this topic, and am not keen to extensively discuss this article. But I think the particular specialty of Wikipedia may be helped by the inclusion of the novel and film references (especially the recent film by Egoyan, which I read about recently in the Guardian of London). I think I have read the Hitler quote from a book by Norman Davies, a respectable historian. Certainly, you may want to check the accuracy of these citations, but the deletion of the last few paragraphs is a bit rash, I think. In general, please try to discuss here before substantially deleting anything and adding judgemental statements. Sorry for presuming this, but I feel that there may be emotional reasons for your modification, and may affect the NPOV-ness of Wikipedia. --Kaihsu 13:13 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

I've attempted to merge the old article text together with the new, editing it in a way so that they don't conflict with one another. Hope this helps. --Modemac 13:21 Apr 26, 2003 (UTC)

I ahve removed the following textL "The term Holocaust is seen in modern-day society as irrevocably linked with the Nazi regime's infamous act of genocide against the Jewish people; but other major human catastrophes have been largely ignored by historians, including the Armenian Genocide, the killing fields of the Pol Pot era of Cambodia, and the Soviet purges, where Stalin's government murdered over twenty million Russian citizens."

The reason I removed it is that it is totally false. I understand that some Armenians may be unhappy with the amount of publicity that this event has generated, but libels against American and European historians, professors and universities won't change anything. And libel this is; the indisuputable fact is that professors and historians in both America and Europe have done a huge amount of research, lecturing and writing on the Aremenian genocide, on the killing fields of the Pol Pot era, on Stalin's purges, etc. A trip to any good bookstore will uncover a large amount of books on these subjects. A trip to any colllge or universoty library will uncover a large amount of articles on these subjects in academic journals. I fear that these kind of grossly false comments will allow Armenian genocide deniars to come here and denounce the entire article as false. After all, if it contains some lies, isn't it all false? (No, but that is the argument they will use.) RK

--

Basically – the Hitler quote is from document USA-28 of the Nuremberg trials. The document is about the invasion of Poland (which was 10% Jewish), not about the Holocaust and it does not mention the Jews specifically. Either way the document is considered a semi-forgery. Apparently for this reason the prosecution never entered the document as evidence using it only for “indentification”. User:H7asan


H7asan, why are you removing the previous material about the history of the Aermenian Genocide? The information there is factual and (as far as I can tell) accurate. I see no reason to remove it. If you feel that it needs to be changed to make it more accurate, please do so. But I do not see justification in removing it completely. -- Modemac 23:26 Apr 28, 2003 (UTC)

Modemac, I support that you just go ahead and merge back whatever H7asan deleted, if you think it appropriate. --Kaihsu 13:55 May 3, 2003 (UTC)

I've restored the deleted text -- again -- on the grounds that the information is factual, NPOV, and useful. Existing edits have been maintained and not deleted. This restored text also includes links to external Web sites that deal with the Armenian Genocide. H7asan, I also dispute your statement that the information about the movie and the Hitler quote being only "marginal." They are still facts that are worth noting in an encyclopedia article such as this one. --Modemac 11:31 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

Once again, H7asan has removed a large chunk of text. This is getting tiresome. Danny

-

Look at the amount of repetition and contradiction in the article. Your reverts have been very stupid. User:H7asan

-

Modemac, fair enough about the movie and novel. But you obviously did not see my reason for removing the Hitler quote. Likewise for the hr-action link. User:H7asan

I redirected an imho NPOV Armenian massacres article and Armenian genocide article to this one. The European Union also seems to have taken a stand that Turkey should acknowledge the AG before admission talks can start (google gives a lot of links when searching for european union armenian genocide), but I have been unable to locate original documents on the offical site. If someone finds this, I think it might well be added to the paragraph on political attention. TeunSpaans 10:55, 7 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Why changing the sentence about Hitler? He was talking about specific actions against POLES, not jsut about actions taken during invasion of Poland. Why changing that? If there is no reaction, i will revert in two days. szopen

Where have you seen that Hitler was talking about the Poles? Please reply as this is the first time I am hearing this.

Well, it's well established fact for example you can find it here:

http://www.holocaust-trc.org/uniqueness.htm

On August 22, 1939, several days before Hitler launched his attack on Poland, he implored his military leaders to show no mercy toward those who stood in his way. I have placed my deathhead formations in readiness. .. with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space [Lebensraum] that we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Or full quote here:

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/statements/hitler.htm

sometimes the authenticity of the quote is doubted, especially by revisionists and Turks, but never ever none doubts that this is about killing Poles.
I tend to think that attributing the quote to Jews started when it became uneasy to write about Poles as victims too, not happy bystanders or collaborators, as it became tendency in recent years.

szopen

--

Szopen, thanks. You had a fair edit back on Nov. 4, where you said "Some also attribute this quote to talking about the 'Jewish Question'." How about a similar disclaimer be re-added?

Why not. Even although quote is clearly about Poles, it's also swhos attituted of Hitler which later was decisive in deciding fate of the Jews. Also, in popular belief quote is tied more in Jews and original context is usually forgotten. szopen

2003-12-15

600 000 death ?! What fucking number !! 1 500 000 !

Yes, an extremely intelligible statement. Read the "Statistics of the Second Massacre" statement, and tell me that those reliable sources are wrong and that someone who uses such language as "What fucking number !!" is more truthful. ugen64 02:26, Dec 17, 2003 (UTC)

I have reverted the edits by User:81.212.126.173: the entire article was deleted and replaced with what looks like a copy&paste job from a Turkish negationism website. To the anon with IP 81.212.126.173: you are more than welcome to edit the article if you feel it does not have an NPOV (Neutral Point Of View), but do not simply delete everything. Jor 20:14, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The stuff being used to replace the text of this article has been cut and pasted from http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/intro/ - which means that it is a copyright violation. Another reason not to let it remain here. --Modemac 17:18, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The section "Statistics of the second massacre" looks a lot like the entry in the Britannica (as far as I remember it). Is this a copyright violation?

Was the majority of Armenians Roman or Armenian Catholic?

Hi,

I want to comment on the 1.5 million part of this story. I will give some numbers and you can reach to some conclusions...

First number: Number of christians living in Asia Minor in 1907. This is taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907. It may not be exact but it gives an idea. Total population 9.235-10.750 million of whom about 1.5 million were Christian. This is not a pro-Turkish source as the name of the source suggests. [1]

Second: Number of Greeks deported from Asia Minor after Greek-Turkish War(1921-1922) as a result of the population exchange agreement between Turkey and Greece. 850 thousand... [2][3]

The math: Assume the 1.5 million number is small, add 500 thousand to it. Assume 850thousand is large, subtract 250 thousand... The maximum total number for Armenians is about 1.4 million... And this is a very high estimate. I don't know how people come to 1.5 million number...

Soli1978 15:36, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I can't find where the source you cite actually claims that there were 1.5 million Christians. Rather, it says...

"In the absence of a reliable census the population of Asia Minor is variously given. Larousse (1898) puts it at 9,235,000, of whom 7,179,000 are Moslems and 1,548,000 Christians."

...which is not quite the same thing! While you are right that the author has no obvious reason to underestimate the number of Christians, populations are notoriously hard to gauge, and honest mistakes can happen. It is quite possible that the estimate was made by somebody who only visited a few parts of Asia Minor, and attempted to extrapolate figures for the whole country, without having any real idea how demographics varied across the area. Such a study could easily have completely overlooked most of the Armenian population, if the areas where they predominated were not visited.

I think, to be honest, we will never be able to know the true figures, and in keeping with the NPOV principal, all we can do is try to explain the different points of view.

Cambyses 13:35, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

There are actual Ottoman census data about the population of the Armenians [1]. Given that I put a huge error margin to the data in the Catholic Encyclopedia for the Armenian population, it can be assumed that I am kind of taking honest mistakes into account (actually the honest mistake could have been to overstate the numbers as well). You are right, we will never know the true figures. But the sad thing is people act like they (and only they) know the true figures. This issue is highly politisized. I don't think it is upto MP's to decide if Turks commited genocide 90 years ago. Most of them only care about votes and unfortunately there are many Armenians in very influential positions in a lot of countries.

Soli1978 14:42, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

hi,

i have removed the reference to hellenic holocaust since (a) the exchange after the greco-turkish war does not take place at the same time, as was stated in the link (b) as the referred article explains, the so-called "hellenic holocaust" was not an action taken to exterminate greeks in turkey, it as much drove the turks from their homes in greece. any comments? User:Ato

maybe i did wrong, since the term hellenic holocaust seemingly does not refer to exchange after the greco-turkish war (see Talk:Greco-Turkish relations). however, the nature of two events is still looks very different. Ato 20:13, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Strong bias

This article as it is now is more like a propaganda article, rather than something that is based on facts. Varlik Vergisi is one example which has nothing to do with Armenian Genocide. It is simply an attempt to discredit the Turkish side (as if, look these guys are really bad people). Another bias emerges in the numbers. Usually, the numbers are exaggarated here and there. For example, is 1.5 million dead is really accepted? Who accepts that number, there is absolutely no clue. Also in France, it is mostly due to the Armenian lobbies that France signed a law about a historical event. Since this is a highly debated issue, it is wrong to state that everything here is a fact. Rick seem to be the main reason that leaves this article as it is. He is from California, thus probably sided with Armenian side (he accused me of being Serdar Argic and blocked me from editing claiming that I am vandalizing. Wikipedia clearly describes what vandalism is). I think Wikipedia should revoke his adminship if he continues to use his power to prevent people to bring more objectivity to these articles.

I don't see the Varlik reference, so I guess it has been removed. It doesn't sound like a propaganda article though, it sounds like history, and it sounds like you don't like this particular history. Well you can rest assured that neither do Armenians - it happened to them. Numbers? Of course it is important to use the best available, but first of all many different sources are mentioned, including very pro-Turkish. Second, numbers are frankly irrelevant in whether it was a genocide, something you seem to be trying to cast doubt upon. So on that note let me just say that when the US Congress discusses Armenian Genocide bills, the pro-Turkey congressmen do NOT ever argue against it on the basis of whether it happened or not, everyone agrees it did happen. They argue solely based on whether it is worth damaging relations with the govt. of Turkey. In France I believe the passage was unanimous. So really if you think that if the resolutions are only about pleasing one side of the other, you should then realize that the substance of the matter is never in doubt. --RaffiKojian 02:29, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Events of Musa Mountain

I have some doubts about the date I quoted (September 22nd, 1915) since [2] gives dates inconsistent with this. Also, I am not sure about the number of ships involved in the rescue and transfer of Armenians from Musa Mountain to Port Said. [3] says there were five ships, but the reference I put into the article says two. I think five is a better number as the same article mentions five thousand people. Is there something like the memoirs of the captains of the ships? There must be a log book at least! Unfortunately I cannot read French. ato 18:22, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Should it be added into the article that Armenian genocide inspired Hitler to say: "Who nowadays mentions the extermination of Armenians" or something like that?

Well, there was the mentioning the quote previously. I don't know why it was removed. The full quote was something like "Exterminate all woman, men, and children of POLISH descent... Who, after all, remember the Armenians"? Note that the quote is about the fate of Poles. What suprises me, the quote was removed almost immedietely when i corrected original erroneus statement that it was about Jews (which it wasn;t) Szopen 08:47, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Musa Mountain

While I went ahead and cleaned up the text of this section, I have to say that the section comes off as being biased and I am not sure how to fix it. I would think it would be better to move discussion of the disputed events to a separate entry for the book and just put here that the book deals with the genocide and the veracity/factuality of the events in the book are at this point uncertain. Any ideas? I'm I wong here? - Mr d logan

Move Musa Dagh

I propose that the Musa Dagh section be moved to a seperate article. It was a well publicized event thanks to the bestselling book, but it seems to me to have outgrown this page. I also think that "some Armenian guy there told me there was no fighting" seems to go against everything ever said, written or recorded on this subject, and I would like to remove it. I was there in June and the villagers talked openly about the fighting during WWI. I have video of it. Perhaps there was a language barrier/misunderstanding? Maybe they were talking about the handover of Musa Dagh and the surrounding area from Syria to Turkey a few decades ago? I don't know, but I will see what others think before doing anything. --RaffiKojian 18:01, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Mr d logan and RaffiKojian. The whole section may or may not be factually accurate (as far as I know, Feigl is not an undisputed figure), but its inclusion in this article, claiming This book has been a central point in the Armenian Genocide campaign worldwide is definitely Turkish (or rather Ato's) POV. (I doubt that the book has been quoted as a historical source. Whenever I saw it mentioned it was only referred to as an artistic expression.)
The section should be moved to The Forty Days of Musa Dagh. regards, High on a tree 02:03, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Examining chiefly Turk-unsympathetic sources for the "Armenian Genocide" article

1) The "Definition of Armenian Genocide" article's neutrality earns a plus by taking the 50,000 Armenian mortality figure during the mid-1890s, instead of the more commonly accepted and Armenian provided 200,000 to 300,000 figures.

The counterpoint, from Kamuran Gurun's excellently researched "The Armenian File," using mostly western sources: "...Even if we are to include the Armenians killed by the bullets of the Armenian rebels as having been killed by Turks, the number of Armenians who died during the rebellions in the 1890s will hardly reach 20,000."

"There is a great difference between 20,000 and 300,000...it would be fair... to remember how many people lost their lives in rebellions or disorders in their own or other countries, and think how much right they have to use the term massacre."

Gurun estimates the number of Muslim dead during these rebellions in a two-year period is not less than 5,000. (Most were killed without provocation, so that the rest would be aroused to attack the Armenians.) "This is the real murder, the real massacre."

One main reason for this conclusion is because unlike what the article provides as the reasons ("harassment by the Kurds and an increase in taxes"), what really lay at the bottom of these activities was that Armenian revolutionary committees had begun forming in 1878. This is a critical development often neglected in this politicized discussion. The aim of the Dashnaks, Hunchaks and others was to massacre Turks, hoping to invite counter-massacres, and thus pleading to sympathetic imperialist powers to intervene... powers that were looking for any excuse by this time to meddle in the affairs of "The Sick Man of Europe."

2) In the "Second Armenian Massacre" section, we are told "Most of the Armenian recruits were later turned into road laborers and executed." No doubt crimes were committed against some of these soldiers, but there is no proof to verify this claim as occurring against "most." The fact of the matter is, the charters of the revolutionary groups (as recorded by Louise Nalbandian in her book, for one) specified revolt to take place against their homeland when the country was at its weakest: while at war. To the letter, this policy was followed; five days after Russia declared war (that is, on November 7, 1914), the pro-Armenian newspaper The New York Times reported "ARMENIANS FIGHTING TURKS -- Besieging Van; Others operating in Turkish Army's Rear."

"The (Turkish) Armenians everywhere welcomed the Russians... reports of armed conflicts arising from the refusal of Armenians to become Turkish conscripts and to surrender their arms. It is now rumored that the important city of Van is today besieged by Armenian guerrilla bands in great force. In Feltun the number of insurgents is said to exceed 20,000 and they are reported to have defeated all the Turkish troops sent against them, causing heavy losses to the Turks."

This was in late 1914, half a year before the "April 24" order to resettle the Armenians was issued, one that wasn't carried out until the following month. Another major Armenian rebellion took place in early April, triggering the issuance of this order.

The New York Times (often following war propaganda reports blindly... Wellington House illegally had a branch operating out of U.S. soil... today its articles are used as "proof" for the genocide) is not the only source that tells us Ottoman-Armenian troops behaved traitorously, many having deserted. What nation would not have disarmed troops that shared the same ethnicity of those who betrayed their country?

What we see here is the one and only reason why there was a relocation program: the Armenians rebelled at an agonizing "life or death" moment of their country, where they had been regarded as the "faithful nation" for centuries, allowed to rise in the highest ranks of society and government... thanks to the instigation of their fanatical leaders, following a period of terrorism that lasted some 35 years. There is no nation on the planet that would not have moved a dangerous population out of the way, given such dire circumstances... fighting a war on multiple fronts against world superpowers. The bankrupt nation did not have the manpower and resources to adequately handle such a huge task of transporting hundreds of thousands, and thus the innocent suffered with the guilty. This is a far cry from a planned extermination policy.

While fortunately Wikipedia's article examines various sources in its "statistics" section, the following statement is irresponsible: "Several hundred thousands more were massacred by Kurdish militia and Ottoman army, giving an estimated total of 1,500,000 Armenians dead."

We don't know if "Several hundred thousands more were massacred," especially by government agents. Massacres were perpetrated mainly by revengeful or opportunistic clans, and most Armenians who died did so from famine, disease, harsh weather and combat. Richard Hovannisian, for example, estimated some 150,000 Armenians died accompanying the Russian retreats (in his 1967 book); thousands died similarly accompanying the French at Marash. On the other side of the coin is the massive number of Turks dying under the same conditions; anti-Turkish Ambassador Morgenthau (in his book) figured thousands of Turks were dying daily of starvation, estimating a quarter of the empire's population was lost in this regard. (Because the men were all desperately needed at the fronts, and few were left to till the fields.) Even thousands of Turkish soldiers were dying of starvation! (According to Liman von Sanders, in the trial of Soghoman Tehlirian.)

As far as the 1,500,000 figure: Armenians from Boghos Nubar then to Peter Balakian today concede one million survived. In order for 1.5 million to have died, there would have needed to be 2.5 million Ottoman-Armenians before the war.

Yet, over a dozen western (almost always anti-Turkish) sources... including the Armenian Patriarch Ormanian... figured there were from one million to 1.6 million Armenians before the war.

3a) The "Statistics" section:

"Arnold J. Toynbee who served as an intelligence officer during World War I estimates there were 1,800,000 Armenians living in Anatolia in 1914. Arnold Toynbee's estimate is generally considered the most accurate of the ones given above. Encyclopaedia Britannica upon reviewing all available estimates took 1,750,000 Armenians living in Anatolia as their estimate."

I would rephrase "intelligence officer" to "propaganda minister"; Toynbee worked for Lord Bryce's Wellington House, whose chief purpose was to dehumanize the enemy. The British apologized to the Germans in the mid-1930s for the lies contained within their Blue Books, such as bayoneting Belgian babies.

In point of fact, before Toynbee joined Wellington House, he figured there were only around one million Ottoman-Armenians. ("Nationalism and the War," 1915.) In his notorious 1916 Blue Book report, "Treatment of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire," Toynbee took the median figure between the Ottoman census' 1,100,000 and the Armenian Patriarch's 2,100,000: 1,600,000. So I don't know where this report came up with the 1,800,000 figure. Not that it matters, as propagandists can change their facts and figures at will.

In fact, Toynbee was mistaken about the Ottoman census; a more recent census had the Armenians at 1,300,000. Ironically, even the older 1,100,000 figure was more than what Toynbee thought before he became a propagandist.

The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica had the Ottoman and Russian Armenian figures at 1.1 million each. If they later "revised" their figure to 1,750,000, they listened to the anti-Turkish propaganda that was omnipresent in the west.

On the "Talk:Armenian Genocide" page, a reader brought up yet another source not sympathetic to the Turks, the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907. ("Total population 9.235-10.750 million of whom about 1.5 million were Christian.") Another reader who may not have liked these figures reminded us "populations are notoriously hard to gauge." That is true. This is why in order to get closest to the truth, we have to examine a multitude of sources. And the multitude of sources -- even among Turk-haters like Lepsius -- tell us before the war, from 1 million to 1.6 million Armenians existed in the Ottoman Empire. Only Armenian sources tell us 2 million and over.

3b) "Talat Pasha, a prominent Young Turk and Grand Vizier from 1917-1918, claimed that 800,000 Armenians died."

Is that from http://www.cilicia.com/armo10a.html, where "Cemal" was confused for "Talat"? Many fraudulent quotes were put in the mouths of Ottoman officials, by immoral parties as Aram Andonian, who forged many documents for propaganda purposes... still unethically being passed off in propaganda sites today as factual. In point of fact, Talat Pasha estimated this figure at around 300.000, in a presentation at the last congress of the Union and Progress Party.

I don't understand why the "Definition of Armenian Genocide" page ventured to tell us about foreign governments recognizing this episode of history as a genocide, as the one from France... where half a million Armenians live and have plenty of francs to sway politicians with. Does anyone think these politicians made an objective study of this history? And of what relevance is our being told an Armenian rock band has politicized some of their songs, unfairly influencing the ignorant minds of their young fans?

It is time to examine the other, always neglected side of this story; the intentional ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Armenians (to justify the hoped for "Greater Armenia") when they gained control of eastern lands with and without the help of the Russians. (One of the main perpetrators, General Dro, would later become known as the "Jew Hunter," working for the Fuehrer in WWII.) It is hard to find "neutral" (that is western) sources documenting the Turkish losses, because these Muslim lives (Ottoman Jews were also targeted by the Armenians) were (and are) regarded as disposable and not as valuable... but I believe over one-half million Turks/Muslims were directly slaughtered. (Out of a total of 2.5 to 3 million who died from all causes combined.)

Some "neutral" sources include a British colonel reporting the Armenians massacred between 300,000 and 400,000 Kurdish Muslims in the Van and Bitlis districts. (12.9.1919, U.S. Archives 184.021/265). Gotchnak, an Armenian-American newspaper, May 24th, 1915 issue: "There are only 1500 Turks left in Van, the rest having been exterminated." (In the French "Yellow Book," Cuinet figured 250 000 Moslems in Van in 1892.) The Turks have registered 517,955 casualty figures. That would mean more Turks/Muslims were directly killed by Armenians than the other way around.

Well this is a very long post and all over the place, so I can only respond to parts of it, but here goes. Yes, numbers are important to report as accurately as possible, but really they are not relevant on the whole to the central question you seem to want to refute - whether this was a genocide. So I will not sit here and argue this source vs. that source since we seem to have the high/low numbers covered very well on the page, and that should be enough to satisfy all. However your out of thin air figure the "you believe" 1.5 million Turks and Jews (yes, Jews no less, not Kurds, but Jews) out of 2.5 million lost during the war. So the British and Russian troops were so ineffective? Sorry, but this figure is so incredibly large, with absolutely no scholarly backing. It is something even the biggest proponents of the Turkish Government have ever dared to claim. Your great respect for Gurun as a valuable scholar is also misplaced. Good scholarly books do not include judgemental quotes such as "This is the real murder, the real massacre."

The System of a Down and France recognition are certainly relevant to genocide discussion. The post-genocide campaign of denial by Turkey has been unparallelled in the history of genocides, so far as I can think of. The need for Armenians to remember and make sure the world remembers is a great driving force that you cannot underestimate - a direct result of an unacknowleged genocde. Even in the oppresive Soviet Republic of Armenia, a prominent genocide monument was built, and millions commemorated the genocide. The generation of survivors spent most of their lives rebuilding and starting new lives. The next generation, with no acknowlegement of what their people were subjected to, and now more comfortable in their new countries expressed themselves as System of a Down is today.

Your other miscellaneous attempts to make Armenians out to be anti-Semetic based on a reference to one general who I am guessing has only been called "Jew-hunter" by you... I have certainly never heard such a title given to him. I would be curious to know what his supposed work for the Nazis entailed, even though that is SO irrelevant to the genocide it probably shouldn't be discussed here. --RaffiKojian 01:44, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Response to Raffi Kojian

Thank you for your analysis, Raffi; I'll try to address some issues you've raised:

1) You misread my belief of over one-half million (0.5 million+) Turks/Muslims being slaughtered by Armenians as 1.5 million. Far from being from "out of thin air," I'm basing my belief mainly on this page: http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/massacres/lists.html. I realize because the world has perceived the Turks as the total villains in this equation, thanks to the near-unilaterally and relentlessly provided pro-Armenian perspective (added to western bias against the Turks since the Crusades), anything provided by Turkish sources would automatically be deemed suspect. However, since the Turks unavoidably represent one-half of this equation, and nobody really cared about Turkish losses to document them other than the Turks (accounting for the lack of "scholarly backing"), this list can't be dismissed automatically. For one thing, the incentive to lie was not there; whomever prepared these lists did not do so with an eye to fool future historians. Furthermore, the rare western reports dealing with this unpopular topic do back up that there was a massive loss of life during the time of Armenian occupation of Ottoman lands. Pro-Armenian Americans Niles and Sutherland significantly indicated as such in their 1919 report (which was suppressed), and here's another: "For each of the provinces which suffered from the Russian occupation and from the Armenian militias acts of vengeance, an important demographic deficit appears in the statistics of the post-war years adding up to several hundred thousands of souls due largely to the massacres committed by the enemy." ("Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman," supervised by Robert Mantran, Paris, 1989, page 624)

2) Regarding "Good scholarly books do not include judgemental quotes such as 'This is the real murder, the real massacre'," if the murders of Turks by Armenians of the mid-1890s have been and still are so monumentally ignored, even the most respected historian would be justified in making such a conclusion. Had Ottoman-Armenians remained loyal as they had been through the centuries, there would have been no massacres in either the mid-1890s, or "1915." I don't know if you have read "The Armenian File," but before you attempt to discredit it, be aware the references almost entirely derive from western sources. (Rare is the western source raised to be fond of the Turks.)

3) "The System of a Down and France recognition are certainly relevant to genocide discussion." Only among those who have made genocide conclusions. Here we are defining "genocide" in layman terms: a planned extermination of a people, a la how this episode is presented by pro-Armenians; what the Nazis did to the Jews. Even the 1948 U.N. Convention, which is broadly based, requires "intent" to be proven, and exempts political groups. (In this case, the Armenians who allied themselves with the enemy.)

There are those of us who feel this episode has been falsified and politicized; the tragedies that resulted occurred from the Sick Man's unpreparedness. For example, a genuine "1915" eyewitness, American war correspondent, George Abel Schreiner stated in The Craft Sinister, 1920:

"On a trip I made through Asia Minor in May, 1915, I accidentally encountered a large column of deported Armenians in the Cicilian Gates in the Taurus Mountains.... I saw none of the cruelties the Turks have later been charged with... The inquiries I made at the time and later have caused me to believe that Turkish ineptness, more than intentional brutality, was responsible for the hardships the Armenians were subjected to."

This is why pro-Armenians have been desperate to find hard evidence. For lack of any, some have been made up... like the Andonian forged Talat Pasha telegrams. Even Richard Hovannisian is reported to have said in the "Congress on the Problems of World Armenians" held in 1982: "The Armenian problem could not be proved. The genocide is not valid legally and it is exposed to prescription."

Moral people among us would not loosely make a charge of the highest crime against humanity, unless there was ironclad proof.

4) You are right; the Armenian-Nazi episode is irrelevant to our discussion. Since you asked, however, let's get into it a little. Maybe there is some relevance, as Dro organized wide-spread ethnic cleansing against Turkic populations in 1920-21, as documented by U.S. Naval officer Robert Steed Dunn in the book, "World Alive." (He was not alone, of course; others, such as Antranik, Garo, and the Hunchak Hamparsum "Muradyan" Boyaciyan joined in the fray from earlier years.) At the least, there is bitter irony.

I did not make up the "Jew Hunter" description for Dro. Perhaps wherever I read it from had made up this title, but to me it's apt enough to have been applied. Generally, the Armenian regiments in the Nazi forces were not good enough to be used at the front, and were better utilized for rounding up operations. There is an extremely loose indication that Armenian-Nazis might have even had a hand in collecting Anne Frank's family.

The famous Armenophile Christopher Walker wrote (in "Armenia The Survival of a Nation," page 357, para 2): "...(T)here remains the incontestable fact that relations between the Nazis and Daschnaks living in occupied areas were close and active. On 30 december 1941 an Armenian batallion was created by a decision of the Wehrmacht, known as the Armenian 812th Battalion. It was commanded by Dro... Early on the total number was 8000; this number later grew to 20,000."

Other information: "In fall 1942, the Armenian infantry battalions 808 and 809 were formed, to be followed by battalions 810, 812 and 813 in spring 1943. In the second half of 1943 infantry battalions 814, 815 and 816 were created. [Joachim Hoffmann, _Dies Ostlegionen 1941-1943, Turkotataren, Kaukasier und Wolgafinned im deutschen Heer_ (Verlag Rombach Freiburg 1976), p. 172.] Some Armenian regulars formed part of the general Nazi regiments, such as the 58th Panzer Corps, and the Ostlegion of the Wehrmacht's 19th Army. Ara J. Berkian broke a number of 30,000 Nazi Armenians down as: 14,000 in predominantly Armenian army units, 6,000 in German army units, 8,000 in various working units and 2,000 in the Waffen-SS.[Enno Meyer, A. J. Berkian, _Zwischen Rhein und Arax, 900 Jahre Deutsch-Armenische beziehungen_ (Heinz Holzberg Verlag-Oldenburg 1988), pp. 118/119.] The latter source also mentioned Dro as having worked closely with the German Secret Service, entering enemy territory with his own men and acquiring important intelligence about the Soviets.

When you write things like "There is an extremely loose indication that Armenian-Nazis might have even had a hand in collecting Anne Frank's family.", it is clear you are only interested in simply making Armenians look bad, and are willing to believe anything bad written about them by anyone. This is confirmed by all of your other references. Your martyr attitude about being the poor Turk that the world hates isn't believable, since the facts are there. This history is not being made up. The Ottoman Turkish government planned and executed genocide. Anyway, back to your quoting of anything that has a shred of anit-Armenian arguement, and ignoring the vast majority of proof.

  • "The Armenian File," is an absolutely atrocious hack job. It does not pretend even to be fair or scholarly, and is full of massive inaccuracies, and judgemental statements. Nobody can take this book seriously, and I would be amazed if the "normal" Turkish paid scholars like McCarthy ever refer to this material. Plus his typical "there was no genocide" followed by "if the Armenians had remained loyal the Turks wouldn't have had to kill them all" is just not as convincing as you may like to believe.
  • When you say, "Armenians who allied themselves with the enemy". Again. The vast majority of Armenians in Eastern Anatolia were peaceful, loyal citizens. You cannot show otherwise. If some Armenians preferred to take their chances with Russian rule, perhaps you should ask why.
  • If George Schreiner saw ONE group of Armenians being deported in one place, and said he did not see cruelties, this does not overule ALL of the photographs, memoirs, etc which say there were extremely bad conditions and horrible cruelty. Of course we don't know what the exact conditions of the group was, only that he thought the bad conditions were due to ineptness, more than intentional cruelty. This is not the kind of evidence you should be proudly posting.
  • How can you write "This is why pro-Armenians have been desperate to find hard evidence."??? The evidence is like an avalanche, and you sit here quoting one guy in one spot saying intentional cruelty probably wasn't as big a problem as ineptness, talking about one Armenian guy during WWII, and quoting "The Armenian File".

I don't know who reported Hovanissian saying "The genocide is not valid legally and it is exposed to prescription", since that would go against everything I have heard him say, but fortunately we know the answer to this question too. Go to the website of the International Center for Transitional Justice, and read the .pdf report on exactly this question. The report was commissioned by TARC (Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission) and before you try to jump all over it, you should know that the Turkish members of the commision were virtually all part of the highest level of recent Turkish government and a few were STRONGLY anti-genocide. Nevertheless they comissioned the report from this center and here is the conclusion:

"There are many accounts of the Events, and significant disagreement among them on many issues of fact. Notwithstanding these disagreements, the core facts common to all of the various accounts of the Events we reviewed establish that three of the elements listed above were met: (1) one or more persons were killed; (2) such persons belonged to a particular national, ethnical, racial or religious group; and (3) the conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group. For purposes of assessing whether the Events, viewed collectively, constituted genocide, the only relevant area of disagreement is on whether the Events were perpetrated with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such. While this legal memorandum is not intended to definitively resolve particular factual disputes, we believe that the most reasonable conclusion to draw from the various accounts of the Events is that at least some of the perpetrators of the Events knew that the consequence of their actions would be the destruction, in whole or in part, of the Armenians of eastern Anatolia, as such, or acted purposively towards this goal, and, therefore, possessed the requisite genocidal intent. Because the other three elements identified above have been definitively established, the Events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention, and legal scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe them."

So I hope you stop seeking out any sliver of any document that you can find that simply makes Armenians look bad, and move to the big picture. You are fighting the truth here, whether you have realized it yet or not. If you are open minded, and interested in genuine scholarship, you'd read Dadrian, you'd read the Miller book "Survivors", and the report above and see what you think. Not just post a knee-jerk response with more of the same.

Continuing our Discussion

You are mistaken. I am not looking to believe everything bad about the Armenians. I consider every claim on its own merit. Can you say the same about yourself?

This is why my jury is very much out on the Anne Frank possibility, and the reason why I added the extra-fair disclaimer, "extremely loose." Nobody in Anne Frank's family would have dared asked the background of the soldiers or Gestapo agents who carted them away. So we will never know for sure. What raised my eyebrow was a description I came across referring to these Nazis as "dark-skinned," which didn't sound typically Aryan.

If we are to examine the reverse side of the coin you raised, I wonder if you are not looking to believe everything bad about the Turks. Note this comment of yours: "Turkish paid scholars like McCarthy." The reason why neutral academicians don't dare enter this fray is because the pro-Armenians don't hesitate to focus on the messenger instead of the message, and start their age-old smear campaign tactics. Vahan Cardashian was a master at this, when the Rev. James Barton, who dutifully vilified Turks for over a generation in missionary fashion, bitterly complained to Adm. Mark Bristol that he has now been targeted with a smear campaign by the Armenian lawyer and propagandist. Peter Balakian helped spearhead a smear campaign against Heath Lowry in recent years. The sinister motive is to stifle honest academic debate.

What is your proof the Turks have been paying McCarthy? I've read in pro-Armenian literature -- the kind that too often bends the truth -- the Turks financed a chair. Whether that's true or not, Prof. McCarthy was earning a paycheck at the University of Louisville for years beforehand, and that is how he is making his money today... and that would have been the case with or without this chair. I've read he makes sure not to have any semblance of getting paid by the Turks, simply to avoid accusations like the one you put forth. But that doesn't stop people from making accusations.

To address other issues:

1) "The Armenian File" is "an absolutely atrocious hack job," you wrote. I heartily disagree. It's an impressive work that makes its case mainly derived from western sources, which are primarily anti-Turkish. Is "if the Armenians had remained loyal the Turks wouldn't have had to kill them all" a direct quote from the book? The word "all" makes me think you might have paraphrased, because far from "all" the Armenians were killed. As far as the core truth behind that statement, the Armenians were faithful for centuries. You had better believe the Armenians would not have experienced their hardship had they not fired the first shot and betrayed their country, in their country's darkest hour. Check out what happened (or didn't happen) to the loyal Ottoman Jews, if you don't believe me.

2) When I wrote "Armenians who allied themselves with the enemy," that does not mean all Armenians betrayed their country. Of course, there were many who were enjoying prosperous lives, and wished their crazy leaders hadn't muddied the waters. Unfortunately, even those who did not willingly comply were coerced. Targets of Armenians terrorism were not only Turks. For example, remarkably, in the three year period of 1904-06, two out of three victims of Armenian terrorism were fellow Armenians.

3) I don't know why Armenians preferred to take their chances with Russian rule, as you suggested I ask myself why. Since Peter the Great, Russians have always used the Armenians as pawns, breaking all of their promises. I got a picture of Armenian life under Russian rule in "Men are Like That" (1926), and it sounds pretty disgusting. The average Ottoman-Armenian enjoyed a much better quality life, being among the upper, wealthier classes. I guess the "Christian" connection had a part to play with some Armenians' zeal, but mostly their fanatical leaders saw a chance to form their own state (encouraged by what was happening in the Balkans), and they needed a European power to help them on their way. (Little realizing the Russians would absorb them at the first opportunity. No wonder William Saroyan wrote the real enemy of the Armenians was not the Turks, but the Russians... in "Antranik of Armenia.")

4) Photographs? Plenty of Armenian sites show photographs, the origin of which are suspicious. Even the rare "legitimate" photos, as Armin Wegner's, show mostly suffering people with a few corpses... and that's not genocidal proof. The entire Ottoman Empire was a catastrophe area... with "thousands of Turks dying daily," as Morgenthau reported.

Memoirs? Missionary stories don't count. In their prayers, they believed it was their godly duty to demonize the Turk. Most of these bigoted westerners only listened to the Armenians, for whom they felt a great sympathy, and they rarely (if ever) witnessed any atrocity firsthand. (And singular atrocities, even if witnessed, don't prove systematic government sponsorhip. Unless you believe the My Lai Massacre demonstrated American intentions to wipe out every single Vietnamese.)

Hearsay does not constitute as evidence. That goes double for much of Armenian "oral history," where it's common to hear they were "told" of what happened. (For if they witnessed events firsthand, how could they have survived? The entire idea of genocide was to kill them all off.)

And George Schreiner did not base his opinion on the one example cited. He was all over the empire in most of 1915. "This is not the kind of evidence you should be proudly posting"?? It is extremely valuable evidence from a western eyewitness who truly eyewitnessed, coming from the rare honorable man who kept his bigotry in check.

5) I agree; "avalanche" is an appropriate word for all the "evidence" presented. Unfortunately, hearsay and fabrications... as, for example, all of those New York Times articles, the gobbledygook made up by foreign consuls motivated by religious and racial prejudice (and spurred by those as Morgenthau who had a propagandistic agenda, hoping to get the USA into the war), along with all the war propaganda created by Lord Bryce and Arnold Toynbee's Wellington House... does not constitute actual evidence. Maybe that's why Richard Hovannisian said what he said, in a rare fit of honesty... that the genocide cannot be proven.

The Nuremberg of WWI should make anyone stop and wonder. The Malta Tribunal lasted from 1919-1921. For over two years, the British -- anxious to justify their hysterical propaganda from the war years -- attempted to find actual judicial evidence for this so-called genocide. Despite appointing an Armenian to head the Ottoman archives in Allied-occupied Istanbul, and despite having that whole "avalanche" of evidence at their disposal... every single one of the initially held 144 Turks was released.

So when you make damning statements like, "the facts are there. This history is not being made up. The Ottoman Turkish government planned and executed genocide," what makes you think you can find the actual evidence that even the British could not? What are these facts? (What you need is the kind of proof Aram Andonian offered, making Talat Pasha say something to the tune of "every Armenian man, woman and child needs to be exterminated." Unfortunately for you, such proof needs to be genuine.) And don't think I haven't read Dadrian, who mainly resorts to the 1919 Ottoman kangaroo courts as his evidence. Dadrian is a prosecutor, not a professor; he only selects damning claims, to further his unscholarly mission.

6) Lastly, I'm already aware of the International Center for Transitional Justice report. That body was manned by lawyers, not historians, who almost exclusively referred to the omnipresent pro-Armenian references. Their definition of genocide: only ONE person needs to be killed. In that context, yes, the Armenian tragedy can definitely be called a "genocide." But so can the murders in the O.J. Simpson affair, as well as just about any other conflict where a fatality is involved. .

Wow - again I just don't know what the point is of writing to someone who says they are not looking to believe everything bad about Armenians, then says he suspects the Nazis who arrested Ann Frank were Armenian because they were described as "dark skinned".

Please don't make me laugh with consipiracy theories. I am telling you, I know this subject VERY well. McCarthy has gotten grants from both the "Turkish Studies Institute", in Washington D.C., whose honorary chairman is the Turkish Ambassador to the U.S., and from American Research Institute in Turkey. Both funded by Rep of Turkey. Heath Lowry's (who recieved a couple of grants from the latter) embarrasing closeness to the Turkish government, including penning letters for the Turkish Ambassador is well documented online at: http://users.ids.net/~gregan/pac.html I suggest you read every page in there, including the parts where the Turkish Ambassador and Heath Lowry freely discuss the Armenian Genocide as just that. Not as "alleged".

For your other points:

1) I have nothing to add. "The Armenian File" is "an absolutely atrocious hack job," and no scholar would ever put it in their footnotes. Whoever can appreciate that book wants to believe any evil rumor about Armenians possible. That seems to be your thing though. And if you want to know why Armenians were especially targetted, read up on Pan-Turkism, and think about what some Turkish generals were fighting for in Central Asia after WWI.

2) Oh, so there were still good, obedient Armenians. Yes, yes, too bad they were deported/murdered too, huh? And too bad none of them were allowed to reclaim their homes or move back by Ataturk. Oh well, huh?

3) Oh brother. No comment needed.

4) Alright, then the complete absense of Armenians in Anatolia and the stories of all of the survivors will just have to be my proof. Have you read Survivors by Miller? You ought to. If you claim that nobody's words are relevant because they were either biased or should have been dead, then you have no business reading ANY history. It's all peoples words.

5) Yes, it is unfortunate that the Ottomans were not as good a record keepers as the Nazis, and too bad the Republic of Turkey kept the Ottoman Archive closed for 60 years of "sanitizing" and still do not allow free access. Convenient too, eh? What was being hidden in there do you think?

6) Thank you for admitting it was a genocide by the "definition" of genocide. I like to stick to the definition, personally. If you read carefully it was the intent of the murders that are important, and the intent they say, was elimination of the Armenians of Anatolia.

Anyway, I don't see really where you want to go with this discussion, or the point. So I am finished with this conversation.

--RaffiKojian 04:08, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Reference and link titles

I have removed that reference because it is used only for Musa Mountain events which are not in the article any more. Please do not introduce it. Also, please do not change the titles of links to give impression that Wikipedia endorses Armenian point of view. If you want you can write neutral titles like "Sources that support one point of view" and "Sources that support other point of view" and let readers discover what opposing PoVs defend, rather than stamping them one way or other. at0 20:11, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is Raffi Responding Roughly?

Raffi, I don't know if you're being fair with the Anne Frank point. 1) Armenian-Nazis were used to round up the Jews 2) "dark-skinned" was a description for at least some of the captors of Anne Frank's family 3) It's the rare German who would be placed in that category, except in those old Italian-produced WWII movies. The possibility of these Nazis being Armenians is valid speculation. And that's what "extremely loose indication" means: speculation.

I can see you "know this subject VERY well," but you are only knowledgeable about this subject subjectively; you only listen to Armenian sources, and your aim is to discredit anything that does not support your exclusive point-of-view.

Dr. Leon Picon once wrote: "The (Armenian) mythology that has been developed around the events of 1915 has been repeated so often that large segments of even educated people have come to to accept the mythology as History."

This is what we are dealing with. The "avalanche" of your Armenian evidence has been so near-unilaterally presented in the west, it has become the commonly accepted wisdom. Once a lot of people also believed the earth was flat. Let's not look at the quantity of the evidence, but its quality. Sources without conflicts of interest earn the most points.

Armenians are so obsessed with this "genocide," they support the curricula of many western schools and universities (Let's focus on America's). The multitude of Armenian studies are financed by Armenians, whereas non-obsessed Turks twiddle their thumbs. The way to balance this overly lopsided scale is for someone to step up to the financial plate to create Turkish studies, and the only institution with the monetary muscle to do so becomes the Turkish government. This invites charges of corruption (as with the page you offered), since the "avalanche" of propaganda has done its dirty work all too well through the years.

It is common practice for professors to get grants from various sources, and if Prof. McCarthy received grants from the two Turkish institutions you mentioned, your conclusion that McCarthy has become a paid propaganda tool is absurd and defamatory. If McCarthy is getting his salary from the American University of Louisville, he doesn't need grants to compromise his integrity.

By your standards, Richard Hovannisian's Armenian Educational Foundation (AEF) Chair in Armenian History at UCLA (since 1986) and his belonging to the Academic Council of ANI that openly declares its historical partisanship are better indications of playing propagandist. And Vahakn Dadrian's having drawn his salary from the Zoryan Institute far from indicates Dadrian's being on the level as an objective scholar.

It's the quality of the research we should be considering, not the source of financing. Trying to defame professors like Justin McCarthy and Heath Lowry (http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/lowry.htm offers the other side of your coin) is yet another example of the time-honored Armenian smear campaign tactic.

1) We got your opinion that "The Armenian File" is "an absolutely atrocious hack job," while I believe the book was thoroughly researched, offering a slew of original sources that were unknown at the time of its release (belying the definition of "hack," which means lacking talent or ability); so let's allow the reader to decide. Here is an online version: http://www.eraren.org/eng/armfile.htm

Pan-Turkism is just another phony theory concocted to provide a motive as to why there was a "genocide." It makes no sense, as if the idea was to get rid of the non-Turkic races in the greatly heterogeneous empire, why would the others have been untouched? I already gave the Jews as an example, but the Arabs may be a more fitting one. They, too, traitorously rebelled, like the Armenians; yet I don't know of an Ottoman extermination plan against the Arabs.

2) Boghos Nubar stated that 280,000 Armenians remained in the Ottoman Empire after the war (and some 700,000 emigrated elsewhere). A good portion of the Armenians who were relocated to Arab lands (Morgenthau and Toynbee both on record for 500,000 being alive by 1916) remained. The USA had an open door policy for the people there was such great sympathy toward, and the bulk of Ottoman-Armenians chose these greener pastures. And for one who professes to know this subject "VERY" well, I guess you haven't read the Treaty of Gumru between Armenia and Turkey, where Ataturk did allow Armenians to return to their homes for a limited time after the treaty's signing.

3) The Russians, the great friend of the Armenians, were not as generous... according to Dennis Papazian's "What Every Armenian Should Know": "Russia even forbade Armenian refugees, who had managed to flee the Genocide, from returning to their lands, which the Russian armies had overr(u)n during the war." Brother!

4) As far as "the complete absence of Armenians in Anatolia," refer to (2). The aim of Armenian propaganda is to make it seem the Armenians were all "murdered," when in fact the bulk survived. Let's keep in mind that many of the Armenians travelled to "Greater Armenia" and "Cicilia" when Armenians held the top cards (with the help of the Russians and the French, respectively). Once the Turks regained their strength, many Armenians ran away for fear of repercussions for their treachery.

5) Ah, the standard charge proclaiming the Turks "purged" their evidence from the Ottoman archives. However, in preparation for the "Nuremberg" of WWI, the Malta Tribunal... where your genocide simply could not be proven, even by the British... as soon as the ink was dry on the armistice signed on October 30, 1918, the Allies occupied Istanbul -- and the British High Commission immediately confiscated all the official documents, including the Ottoman State archives; an Armenian (Haigazn K. Khazarian) was appointed its head, and for all the time until 1921, not a single incriminating shred of evidence could be found. This was all before the Turks had a chance to perform their "sanitizing." (And you are wrong: the archives are open to all but the handful who proved themselves to abuse the system, as reportedly with the cases of Hilmar Kaiser and Ara Sarafian.)

6) The main reason why the decision by the non-historians of the ICTJ is meaningless boils down to their definition of genocide... where only one person needs to be killed; such does not conform to most people's definition. "Intent" is what is necessary to prove, and that is exactly what the pro-Armenians lack. Even one of the many hypocritical genocide scholars, Henry R. Huttenbach, has proclaimed: "There is no crime without evidence. A genocide cannot be written about in the absence of factual proof."

Since you write you have "finished," thank you for your participation in this discussion.


,

And thank you, too Mr/Ms. Anonymous. You do as good a job discrediting yourself as I can. And as for "Armenians are so obsessed with this "genocide,", I dare you to switch Armenian with Jewish and put that message on the Jewish Holocaust page. It is apparently normal to "obsess" after a genocide. --RaffiKojian 14:12, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Let us recap the foregoing discussion

Ladies and gentleman, the response you see above is common when Armenians get exasperated. What do we have? A reference to my anonymity, as if revealing my name, address and social security number would make my message any less or more valid. Shooting the messenger when the message can't be dealt with is the time-honored response... this is why Armenians excel in the art of the smear campaign. And when traditionally pro-Armenian sources are given that can't be argued with... that is, sources that turn the mythical genocide on its ear, what do we get? "You do as good a job discrediting yourself as I can." In other words: "liar, liar, pants on fire."

Nobody is saying the Armenians did not suffer. Some were treated most atrociously. The whole point is whether the Armenians were targeted for extermination as a whole (and it would have to be as a whole, since the main phony motive provided is that the Turks were following a policy of pan-Turkism/Turanism, that is, trying to do away with all non-Turkish elements) by the Ottoman government. However, "intent" needs to be proven, and that's what the Armenians have never been able to come up... genuine proof. Certainly, Vahakn Dadrian and associates have done a marvelous job contributing to the "avalanche" of "evidence," including opinions of individual Turks and Germans... but this does not translate to actual evidence. Many people could be saying Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but opinions do not count. What is required is real, hard proof.

What happened is that the Armenians rebelled. They posed a serious threat behind-the-lines to the desperate Ottoman army, fighting against superpowers on multiple fronts. The life and death situation required the Armenians be moved out of the way, something the Americans did with their Japanese during WWII (for much less justifiable reasons, as Japanese-Americans were not disloyal and the United States of America was not in immediate danger)... something that any country would have done. Yes, the innocent Armenians suffered along with the guilty, as the "Sick Man" was in no shape to carry on such a colossal task adequately. (Although the bankrupt government set aside today's equivalent of millions of dollars to finance the operation, money that could have been used elsewhere in their extremely desperate situation. Murdering on or near the spot, as Armenians did with the Turks, would have been a much cheaper alternative... if murder was the real idea.) However, such are the ugly consequences of war.

Armenians need to be "man" enough to blame the real parties for their disaster: their fanatical leaders, and the Allies who used the Armenians as their pawns. If there was no Armenian uprising, none of this would have taken place.

It is immoral to be pointing fingers and accusing others of committing high crimes if there simply is no legitimate proof.

Among other reasons, there is no "intent" because:

1) 200,000 Armenians were exempt from the relocation policy in the west. In addition, the law provided for other Armenians to be exempt, including Catholics and Protestants, the disabled, soldiers and their families, and certain workers. (These rules weren't always followed to a tee, thanks to Ottoman corruption and incompetence, but they prove the government's heart was in the right place.) If the relocation was a guise to kill off the Armenians, there is no conceivable reason for any Armenian to have been exempted. Since Raffi helpfully suggested we think of the role of "Jews" for "Armenians," let's do so for a better reason: Hitler did not exempt any Jews.

2) Never mind the nearly 1,400 who were found guilty at the 1919 Ottoman kangaroo courts, anxious to punish members of the former administration. Some Turks who committed crimes against Armenians were punished DURING the war, at times to the point of execution. Hitler did not punish any SS man for harming the Jews.

3) The British were desperate to convict the Turks held at the Malta Tribunal, the "Nuremberg" of WWI. For one thing, the British desired to give credence to their propaganda hokum partly intended to justify the Ottoman land grab scheme of the Allies, set up through secret treaties... laid out by the King-Craine Commission. The tribunal process lasted nearly two-and-a-half-years, and the British searched under every rock, even the archives of the United States, in order to find REAL evidence. Every single Turk had to be released at the end. (In line with typically deceptive Armenian strategy, you will encounter the pro-Armenian smoke and mirrors for this chapter: it was all about British POWs. However, all one needs to do is read the British archives; their main concern was the Armenian massacres.)

4) How could there have been so many Armenian survivors... one million, according to the Armenians, out of a pre-war population of from 1 to 1.6 million... if the idea was to get rid of them? Yes famine and disease claimed many of the relocated, just as thousands of Turks were dying daily from the same causes, according to the racist Ambassador Morgenthau. The same Morgenthau revealed in his private diary (but not his propagandistic book) that 500,000 resettled Armenians were doing well, and getting on with the business of their lives. If these Armenians were in the hands of the Turks, and the idea was to exterminate them, not one Armenian would have survived.

5) Even Arnold Toynbee -- master propagandist against the Turks during the war years -- later wrote (after he paid attention to the other side of the story, mostly salvaging his reputation as historian): "The Ottoman institution came perhaps as near as anything in real life could to realizing the ideal of Plato's Republic." I'd doubt the idea of extermination would have had any place in Plato's Republic.

As Raffi told us, there is an "avalanche" of "evidence" for the Armenian genocide, almost all presented by parties with conflicts-of-interest.... like missionaries, war propaganda offices, prejudiced newspapers that mindlessly printed their claims, religious and racist bigots like western consuls (including those from the Central Powers, the Germans and Austrians, who also grew up with tales of the Terrible Turk), and the Armenians themselves. This is why those in my position have to constantly defend. After debunking one of the countless claims, there is always another to take its place.

But if we are people of honor, it is time to see what is going on here. The Muslim Turks have a stain through centuries of prejudice in the west, and those like the Armenians have been exploiting this disadvantage to a tee. Thus the Turks are presented as the barbarians, and the Armenians are the persecuted innocents. The west likes these roles, as they have been conditioned for so long to believe them. (Check out the other definition of "Turk" in English dictionaries.)

However, as "The Jewish Times" wrote in June 21, 1990: "An appropriate analogy with the Jewish Holocaust might be the systematic extermination of the entire Muslim population of the independent republic of Armenia which consisted of at least 30-40 percent of the population of that republic."

The Dashnaks were driven by their bloodlust to do away with non-Armenians (Muslims and Jews) when they heartlessly slaughtered all those they could get their hands on to "purify" their "Greater Armenia," Turkish lands they were briefly in control of. (In Armenia proper today, never mind the Muslims -- how many Jews are left?)

This is why we even have Armenians on record, confessing to their strategies. Those such as Sahak Melkonian, who wrote in "Preserving the Armenian Purity" (1920): "In Soviet Armenia today there no longer exists a single Turkish soul."

It is time to consider this much neglected side of the story; the over 500,000 Turks/Muslims the Armenians did away with. Did so many people lose their lives because of coincidence, or was there a Dashnak-directed policy to clean them all out? In other words, was there "intent" on the part of the Armenians?

Why don't the genocide scholars... the modern day counterparts of the dishonest missionaries, duty-bound to vilify the infidel Turks... ever explore what the Armenians have done? Is it because deep-pocketed Armenians help to finance their institutions, riding the coattails of Holocaust sympathy? And as Raffi implied regarding the obsession factor for some Jews, could it be because some of these so-called scholars are so Holocaust obsessed, they irrationally fear devaluing the established "Armenian Genocide" could somehow harm belief in the very proven Holocaust?

Ottoman bureaucrats documented the crimes committed by Armenians. Are they lies? By WWI, the Turks had given up on the west giving the Turks a fair shake. So papers as these that were prepared were to be used among the Turks only... they were not prepared with an eye to fool future historians.

The deadly details may be read at http://www.turkses.com/issues/ermeni/documents_of_the_massacres_by_armenians.htm. Let's reproduce #31 ("Massacre perpetrated by retreating Russian and Armenian forces"):

While retreating before the advance of the Ottoman army, Armenian bandits, first of all general Antranik’s bandits had attacked the villages of Bedrevans, Kalender, İslâmsor, Ahalik-i Ulya, Hoşu, Zanzak, Sıçankala, Ağviran, Zivin, Menevürt, Zars, Gerek and Azab and killed or captured 10.000 persons; those taken prisoners had been either killed or unheard of; the murdered prisoners were first crowded into houses and stables, in rivers' bed and shot and bayoneted, then cut into pieces; some of them were drenched with gasoline and set fire on; children's ears and noses cut off, some nailed down in their chests and bayoneted or had the throats slit; women tortured and their breasts amputated only few people had narrowly escaped death and saved their honors.

The Armenian bandits had pillaged the entire goods, chattels and provisions of the said villages looting and destroying and burning thousands of houses, shops and mosques, robbing and taking away hundred thousands of oxes, calves, cows, buffalos, horses, mares, donkeys, lambs, goats and provisions of hundred thousands bushels of wheat and barley; money by ten thousands, thousands of gold coins, women's jewelries, hundreds of mattresses, honeycombs, copper wares; seventy carpets had been also stolen from the mosque of the town of Ağviran. 22 L. 1337 (21. VII. 1919)

The above is only one small chapter documenting the crimes of the Armenians. Old habits die hard; the western media reported similar brutalities some twelve years ago, when Armenians chased away around one million Azeris from their homes. Interesting parallel, is it not, when the world doesn't even care about the Karabakh episode? That's what happens when the victims are disposable Turkic folk.

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/ (Armenian National Institute) http://www.cilicia.com/armo10.html (various materials at cilicia.com) http://www.armenian-genocide.org/ (educational resources and genocide research) http://www.theforgotten.org/ (multimedia resources, survivor accounts) http://www.hyeetch.nareg.com.au/genocide/ (detailed description of events and background) http://www.genocide1915.info/ http://www.armenocide.am/ (Armenian Genocide Institute-Museum) http://users.ids.net/~gregan/pac.html (Details of Turkish Government activities in genocide denial which raised ethical concerns) http://imia.cc.duth.gr/turkey/index.e.html (Resources about Turkish war crimes in the 20th century, warning of possible bias)

I am not going to sit and recap what is a well known and false Turkish Government line. Just read the resources above. You wouldn't sit and write a multi-page defense of my one line if you weren't hiding the truth, but the fact that you either know you discredit yourself, or suspect you do has inspired your anonymousness to response as such. --RaffiKojian 02:18, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Raffi, I thought you were "finished"!

Well, I suppose Raffi was "finished" in another sense; he could not counter the evidence provided by his own traditional sources that demonstrates how concocted this "genocide" really is, and in desperation, he offers a sampling of the countless hatefully propagandistic sites that have little or no bearing on historic truth. In other words, the "avalanche" of these sites is so overwhelming, as much as the Wikipedia article... for example... attempts to maintain a neutral tone, it can't help but wind up with a pro-Armenian slant. This nonsense is everywhere, and everyone has come to believe in its truth.

It is really sad that those like Raffi are so ingrained in this topic they seem totally incapable of weighing the evidence objectively. It's "my people, right or wrong," all the way. We have brought up enough facts and figures for the moment; I'd like to now touch on the psychology that enables this kind of outlook. Why can't Armenians be "MAN" enough to accept responsibility for what happened in this religiously held, century-old account of history? Perhaps Hovhannes Katchaznouni, Armenia's first Prime Minister, said it best in 1923:

"[One of the main aspects of Armenian] "national psychology... [is] to seek external causes for [Armenian ] misfortune."

In their perception of themselves as eternal victims, it's always: Blame the other guy. Why can't they do the right thing?

I'd like to offer revealing insight to help us understand this mentality, by referring to Sir Mark Sykes' "The Caliph’s Last Heritage," London, 1915 (This British gentleman would do his patriotic duty when Wellington House -- his country's WWI propaganda division -- recruited him to come up with an image-tarnishing report against the enemy, "The Clean-fighting Turk, a Spurious Claim."):

"The Armenians will willingly harbor revolutionaries, arrange for their entertainment and the furthering of their ends. 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."

"That the Armenians are doomed to be forever unhappy as a nation, seems to me unavoidable, for one-half of their miseries arises not from the stupid, rangy, ill-managed despotism under which they live, but from their own dealings with each other. In a time of famine at Van, Armenian merchants tried to corner the valuable grain; the Armenian Revolutionaries prefer to plunder their coreligionists to giving battle to their enemies; the anarchists of Constantinople threw bombs with the intention of provoking a massacre of their fellow countrymen. The Armenian villagers are divided against themselves; the revolutionary societies are leagued against one another, the priests connive at the murder of a bishop; the church is divided at its very foundation."

"Never were a people so fully prepared for the hand of a tyrant; never were a people so easy to be preyed upon by revolutionary societies; never was there a people so difficult to lead or to reform. That these characteristics are the result of Muslim oppression I do not for one moment believe."

I am finished, thanks :-) --RaffiKojian 02:54, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

80.177.169.33

Thank you for your edits, 80.177.169.33. Please consider registering since it helps us identify the useful editors. Also, please consider consolidating multiple edits into a smaller number. It helps keep the page history list managable. Hu 21:02, 2004 Nov 19 (UTC)

Do these people have scruples?

It's infuriating that some creep has come in and altered the entire article. The following has been submitted to the Request for Mediation Department of Wikipedia.

Obviously this is one controversial, hot-button topic, and this is not a request for a user vs. user sort of mediation process but for the idea of someone to honestly and neutrally step in, do away with possible prejudices and look at arguments from both sides to determine a page of true even-handedness. Once determined, this is a page that needs to be locked, as there can be fanatics from both sides.

I'm new at Wikipedia, and I've been clicking around in an effort to learn how the fairness of this page may be resolved. I hope posting here is the right way to go about it. The story is: I hopped aboard on the Discussion section of this genocide page and took issue with many of the points raised within the clearly pro-Armenian article. I traded opinions with one whom I later discovered was the operator of an "Armenian Genocide" web site, and after the dust cleared I felt justified in making changes for points that appeared fairly solid. 10 Nov 2004

The one thing I liked about this page was that at least an effort was made for some fair play. For example, helpful links at bottom were labeled in impartial fashion, e.g., "one point of view," and "another point of view." Since this is such an emotional arena for many Armenians and their sympathizers (who have mainly been exposed to their fairly omnipresent view), I kept fairness in mind and did not perform major edits; I let everything stand, and simply added explanations for the other side of the story.

I had reason after learning of the shocking overhaul (on Nov. 26, 2004) that prompted this request (described below) to check the page's history, and noticed people on both sides went somewhat out of control. For example, a pro-Turk felt free to add a long list of American academicians who signed a statement in 1985; that opened the door to a pro-Armenian's putting up a 1998 statement signed by writers and scholars. There's too much material on both sides to arbitrarily put up dizzying documentation in such a manner, and the purpose of this page should be to present genuine historical facts in an even-handed manner. (Since a genocide devotee evidently wrote and titled this page to begin with, already the rules of fairness had been compromised, as the word "genocide" itself is in dispute.)

Today I noticed some fanatical partisan 68.40.117.214 has stepped in and has done away with this carefully cultivated article almost entirely; furthermore, even the links section has been altered to be completely one-sided. It's difficult to imagine anyone would have the audacity to intrude and totally wipe out a page's history in such a matter. When such zealots enter the fray, there is no point in civilized discussion; a genuinely neutral party needs to step in, restore the former page so that both sides of these events are in place, and lock things up to prevent such unethically dogmatic actions in the future. So where to go from here? : Torque, Nov. 30, 2004

The original article is back

In the free-for-all that is Wikipedia, when it comes to potentially faith and not reality based topics, it seems the "official" checks and balances in place are largely ineffective. I figured when some fanatic comes in and completely does away with what everyone has worked on and installs a singular propagandistic view, some veteran with integrity would come in and restore the carefully cultivated page that came into being. Disappointingly, nobody cared. So before the new one-sided page became firmly established, I restored what was there before.

I don't believe there was a genocide, but I respect the other view enough to leave their points alone. That's why I came on this talk page to air my views, mainly supported by sources that could hardly be called "Turkish propaganda." Then and only then did I make my contributions, based on my conversation with Raffi, who is an expert on the Armenian perspective. But when I did so, I left every pro-Armenian statement alone, and didn't touch many sections I have strong disagreements with.

With fairness in mind, I even left some of the claims made by the unknown interloper alone. But the old page "evenly" exploring both sides is back.

I've learned Wikipedia desires for its articles to be of a certain length, 32 kbs. I caution future contributors from bombarding the article with endless lists of petitions and the names of the many people who signed them. It's an article, and an article should be readable; facts supported by sources should succinctly be stated. : Torque, Dec. 3, 2004

Armenian Genocide

According to the rules of this website sources must be given for comments. I provided the source of Ambassador Henry Morganthau for the Armenian Genocide. This is a fact. Someone added that Morganthau was biased without providing any legitimate or authoritative source for this nonsense. I think this is very serious to deny the Armenian Genocide and find pretexts to deny it. Armenians themselves have written books about the genocide, however, Ambassador Morganthau is an unimpeachable source because he was in Turkey and witnessed the atrocities himself. If people can dimiss a man like Morganthau alter this website in such a manner, it only devalues this entire website. Also I see profanity on some of the comments, this also devalues this website. I will not keep returning to this website to correct those who do not follow basic logic: find legimate sources for denying the Armenian Genocide or do not write nonsense. Calling Ambassador Morganthau's eyewitness observations biased is ridiculous! Overall this site is disappointing that changes can be made without providing valid sources. The evidence of the Armenian Genocide is a mountain made of graves of at least 1.5 Armenians in Turkey. My father was a witness to the barbarity and he relayed to me what occurred in his village during the period of WWI. He was 10 years old. Driven into the desert with women and children with no food or water. Various pretexts, such as announcements of being drafted into the Turkish Army, were used to get the Armenian men out of villages prior to going in and moving the people to remote desert areas. Many died on the trek. When they reached a desolate area they camped living on the ground with no cover or tents. My father's job for several years was to bury the dead in a ditch. After burying his grandmother he escaped in the night at about the time the British entered Turkey and he was saved. The International Red Cross helped him to leave Turkey for the United States. He is listed in the Ellis Island website as a 16 year old Armenian from Turkey: Karikin Pilavian

The Vandal Speaks

I presume you are the one who came in and did away with the cumulative efforts of a lot of people in one fell swoop, replacing what had evolved into a fairly even-handed article into one with your exclusively biased views. You ought to be ashamed, and hope you will keep fairness in mind, in the future.

I understand how passionate you are about this topic. But if you enter someone's house, you must follow their rules. Wikipedia's Site Policies clearly state "Wikipedia is committed to making its articles as unbiased as possible... The aim is... to fairly present all views on an issue, attributed to their adherents in a neutral way. However, establishing a consensus on what views should be thus attributed can require much heated discussion and debate..."

That's what I did. I discussed and debated on this page, and when my sources appeared objective enough, then I went in there and added the counter-view. Even then, I did not touch what was said before, because I understand and respect that there are people like you who treat this "Armenian Genocide" issue as a religion, and have gargantuan trouble tolerating views other than their own. I don't believe "consensus" on this emotional topic will be easily possible, so the next best thing in a neutral arena is to present both sides of the issue.

That said, let's address your concerns. From what you have written above, it's obvious you have made little effort to look at this issue scientifically. For example: "The evidence of the Armenian Genocide is a mountain made of graves of at least 1.5 (million) Armenians in Turkey." Actually, the absence of these graves in itself should give any reasonable person cause for doubt. (There have been many excavated graves in Turkey, but the corpses from this period come from the victims of Armenians; the lands where the Armenians were resettled into do not comprise today's Turkey, and I'm not aware of mass graves bearing evidence for the hundreds of thousands you believe were murdered.) Regardless, had you taken the trouble to read what was already said above:

"As far as the 1,500,000 figure: Armenians ... concede one million survived. In order for 1.5 million to have died, there would have needed to be 2.5 million Ottoman-Armenians before the war. Yet, over a dozen western (almost always anti-Turkish) sources... including the Armenian Patriarch Ormanian... figured there were from one million to 1.6 million Armenians before the war."

Only Armenians say nearly 2 million and above of their people existed before the war. The patriarchs ballooned up their figures for obvious reasons I hope I don't need to explain. For example, prior to the "1915" period, Patriarch Nerses Varjabedyan estimated an Armenian population of 1,150,000. That sounds reasonable, but we get a clue as to how he came up with that figure in a letter he wrote to the British Ambassador on June 24, 1880; he counted "12 to 60 in Armenian house..."!!

(Revealingly, he ends his letter with "I realize how much your excellency is already inclined in favour of the Armenian Cause.")

Which leads us directly to your insistence on what "an unimpeachable source" Ambassador Morganthau was. It's likely you have no idea how seriously you have damaged your credibility with such a foolish claim. Morgenthau was the epitome of being "inclined in favor of the Armenian Cause." He desperately wanted to get the USA into the war. (Among other reasons, Rabbi Stephen Wise told the ambassador-to-be that he could "help foster a Zionist future." [The Burning Tigris]) He gave his Armenian assistants permission to write his letters. He was never an eyewitness to any serious sufferings of Armenians, having never left Istanbul. Yet he went out of his way to portray the Turks as less-than-human creatures in his ghostwritten book filled with fabricated quotes (unethically formed around quotation marks), describing events that were often not backed up in his private diaries and letters. (See "The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.") The source you brag about having provided -- "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" -- is not a work any serious scholar can accept as true history, given the underhanded motivations of the man.

You write: "Someone added that Morganthau was biased without providing any legitimate or authoritative source for this nonsense." That someone was I, and you ought to read more carefully. Look again, and observe the source was indeed provided, coming from your very own "unimpeachable source": Morgenthau's book. Here are the page numbers for the disgusting ways in which the racist ambassador described the Turks, as referred to in the article.

When pro-Armenians get frustrated and can't provide actual facts to prove their so-called genocide (The British desperately tried to find such facts in Malta, but could not. There is no factual evidence, if you don't count Aram Andonian's forgeries, which Vahakn Dadrian actually tries to pass off as genuine), they resort to "oral history," as you have done. Nobody is arguing many Armenians did not suffer dreadfully. But what happened to your father does not provide proof there was a systematic plan for extermination. If there were, it would have been impossible for as many as one million Armenians to have survived, out of a pre-war population of around 1.5 million. The Armenians prospered for centuries in the empire where they were known as "The Faithful Nation," but when most decided to follow their fanatical leaders, a tragedy befell them; a tragedy that was not shared by, say, Ottoman Jews, who did not betray their country. These were ugly times where all suffered horribly (Your "unimpeachable source" had (ghost)written Thousands of Turks were dying daily of famine), not excluding the forgotten one-half million Turks/Muslims who were victims of an ethnic cleansing policy of your forefathers, in an effort to justify a "Greater Armenia," when they and the Russians occupied eastern Anatolia. To take these tragic events and accuse another of a crime without evidence is unconscionable.: Torque, Dec. 4, 2004

Professional Denier Speaks

Facts can always be denied by anyone at anytime. The references cited to denigrate Ambassador Morgenthau are specious and unreliable. A mountain of truth cannot be wiped away by verbiage. The End.

Denying is a Two-Way Street

When the facts and common sense become too much to bear, the pro-Armenians must focus on the messenger instead of the message. The character-slamming charge becomes that one is a "denialist" or a "denier"; it means the Armenian "Genocide" is so obviously a done deal, such as the Holocaust, anyone who says otherwise must assume the same driving force as a loony neo-Nazi type who denies the obvious.

Unfortunately, the only way to prove whether there was a state-sponsored extermination plan is to look at the genuine historical facts beneath the easy surface, and common sense... and to look at the political and/or bigoted motivations of people who offer their genocide dogma.

Professor John Dewey wrote in The New Republic on Nov. 1928 ("The Turkish Tragedy"): "It is... time that Americans ceased to be deceived by (Armenian) propaganda..." Here we are, three-quarters of a century later, and the world is still conned by this propaganda.

We have been told I'm not only a "denier" but a "professional" denier. What does that mean? Do I do this for a living? Am I being paid, as Prof. Justin McCarthy was unjustly accused of being a paid tool of the Turks, in the discussion above? Where does one get a job, in order to be such a denier? Raffi must know, because I subsequently discovered in the (Oct. 13) history of this page that he labeled me as a "pro-Turkish govt positionee." (!)

Our vandalizing friend doesn't realize he's also a denier; he denies his genocide does not exist. I'm sure he's not a "professional," in the sense that he makes a living at this. It's simply that he has subjectively chosen to look at tainted sources he passionately desires to believe in, and closes his mind to all else. It can be said more accurately that he is "in denial."

Let's take a look at his current offering, to prove how hopelessly this person is in denial; he tells us, "The references cited to denigrate Ambassador Morgenthau are specious and unreliable." The irony, of course, is that the references cited to denigrate Ambassador Morgenthau are... Ambassador Morgenthau himself. Torque, Dec. 5, 2004

Jewish lobby groups

I've heard of Jewish lobbying groups lobbying against official recognition of the Armenian genocide - either to maintain US/Israeli relations with Turkey or to maintain the uniqueness of the genocide of the Jews in WWII. Anything to these?

Another Partisan at work

Yet another (if not the same) obsessed fanatic, 69.169.84.41, has come in and completely altered a section with his propaganda. He has completely disregarded the pre-existing discussion of these issues, and the hard facts contained within; once again, do these people have scruples?

Here is a telling example of his addition: "One and a half million Armenians were killed, out of a total of two million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. Most Armenians in America are children or grandchildren of the survivors, although there are still many survivors amongst us."

"Us"? Does this foolish pharisee think the article is a page written by Armenians, for Armenians? Respect for the neutral point of view that Wikipedia requires is not a matter concerning such fanatics, nor is respect for the facts. For example, as has already been discussed, the typically propagandistic figure of "One and a half million Armenians... killed" is an impossible number, given that was around the total pre-war Armenian population, and Armenians concede one million survived. Moreover, the bulk of the Armenians died from the same reasons all Ottoman civilians died, not from outright murder as this poor soul so passionately believes. Much of this has been explained, frequently backed up by pro-Armenian sources, in the section that the fellow unethically and improperly replaced.

The carefully cultivated section exploring both sides has been put back in. Major deviations need to be addressed in this discussion page, first. Torque, Dec. 29, 2004

As a first time reader of this article, I was struck by the sincere efforts of most contributors to come to agreement. But I wonder if the article doesn't suffer from a consensus at any price approach that sacrifices a measure of truth for in pursuit "balance." Does a neutral point of view really mean giving equal weight to all viewpoints -- as though all were equally grounded in fact?
I refer specifically to the second paragraph of the article:
The Armenian Genocide is not agreed to by everyone; the term "genocide" generally defines a state-sponsored extermination plan but it is the position of Turkey and some academics that the majority of losses were a result of clashes between the two-sides, and causes such as famine and disease claiming the lives of all Ottomans. Armenians and other academics state at least 1.5 million Armenians perished in Turkey. France


The Bold textexistence of Bold text 'the Armenian Genocide is not a'Bold textuniversally accepted.
The term "genocide" generally defines a state-sponsored extermination plan. It is the position of Turkey and some academics that the majority of losses were a result of clashes between the two-sides, and causes such as famine and disease claiming the lives of all Ottomans. But Armenians and Bold textthe preponderance of scholarly opinionBold text is that at least 1.5 million Armenians perished in Turkey. France is among a growing number of countries that now officially recognized the Armenian Genocide.

What does it mean when a nation recognizes the "genocide"?

The above writer is concerned that truth might be sacrificed in pursuit of balance. This is a valid concern. In our politically correct times, truth can frequently take a back seat to currently prevailing forces that insist a particular viewpoint is correct.

All viewpoints naturally cannot be equally grounded in fact. This is why those who don't believe in this so-called genocide are forced to be on the defensive; since this story has been told nearly without opposition for around a century, and is now the commonly accepted wisdom.

Therefore, those who are genocide advocates but are not unreasonable fanatics, as I suspect the above writer leans toward, must examine the real history and the pro-Armenian and even Armenian sources that expose the gigantic holes of this story. They must examine that there was a "Nuremberg" conducted by the one party -- the British -- anxious to convict the Turks after the war, but they could not. Why? Because there was no evidence. The only "evidence" is composed of hearsay, canards and fabrications (like Aram Andonian's Talat Pasha forgeries that the unethical Vahakn Dadrians of the world still persist in presenting, as authentic).

What happened is the Armenians rebelled. Even loyal Ottoman-Armenians (who were in no mood to forsake their relatively greater prosperity than the average Turk's) were involved, because the terror groups like the Dashnaks made fatal examples of those who would not comply. The whole treacherous network had to be moved to another part of the country in a life-and-death wartime situation. The bankrupt "Sick Man" was in no position to perform the gargantuan task adequately, and Armenians suffered terribly. Some were vindictively killed on purpose, as would have happened in any other country, under the same circumstances. Does that equal a Nazi-like state-sponsored "Final Solution" plan? Not by any stretch of the imagination, if one considers the actual facts.

Truth happens to be sacrificed in the article, because there was no genocide. Yet, the article is actually called "Armenian Genocide." Too much of the world believes in the alleged genocide. Because of respect for Wikipedia's neutrality policy, that and the other pro-genocide nonsense remains.

Taking the last sentence of the above, "France is among a growing number of countries that now officially recognized the Armenian Genocide"... is this supposed to count as evidence? (1) Christian Europe and America have a centuries-long imprinting of Turks as barbarians, since the Crusades (2) The pro-Armenians, with their obsession and wealth, have fortified this brainwashing with their genocide tale (3) Politicians the world over woo the wealth of the diaspora Armenians (4) It's the politicians who vote on these meaningless genocide resolutions (5) History is the last consideration for the actions of most politicians.

Many of France's half-million Armenians reinforce their obsession to an already brainwashed French public, with the aid of the hypocritical "genocide scholars" they have on their side. (And it is these non-scholars, along with those who mindlessly accept their unilateral view -- for those of us who like to define a scholar as one who dispassionately examines all sides -- which constitute that "preponderance of scholarly opinion." It is a preponderance made more preponderous since opposing academicians have been intimidated to touch the subject, thanks to effective smear campaigns by Armenians and these "genocide scholars") Most of the French Parliament stayed home the day the Armenian Genocide issue came to a vote. Funny that with all the historical examples of inhuman acts, including French action in Algeria resulting in some 200,000 deaths, it is the political "Armenian Genocide" that gets the attention.

The irony is, France, along with Britain and Russia (another genocide recognizer), had secret WWI treaties between themselves to pilfer Ottoman land. It was these nations that encouraged the Armenians to rebel, to increase their chances in making off with the loot, thus bearing indirect responsibility for the tragedy that befell the Armenians. France, in fact, organized an Armenian legion responsible for committing unspeakable atrocities against the Ottoman population. When France's fortunes turned, and they were forced to retreat from cities like Marash, the fearful Armenians had no choice but to accompany them. In this particular example, some 5,000 Armenians died from starvation and disease, with the Turks nowhere in sight. These Armenians are no doubt counted as among "genocide victims." The level of deception in this story is nothing short of despicable.

A request has been made on Wikipedia for this article to be deleted in accordance with the deletion policy.

This request is being discussed to form a consensus whether this is, or could be, an article appropriate for Wikipedia. Please see this page's entry on the votes for deletion page for details. Also see possible outlets for removed articles. If you feel deletion is not justified by Wikipedia deletion policy you may vote against its deletion. Please do not remove this notice or blank this page while the question is being considered. However, you are welcome to continue editing this article and improve it, especially if you can address the concerns of those who believe the article should be deleted.

Category:Pages on votes for deletion, Jan. 4, 2005

Need Link

Hello, I am a German newbie trying to improve the German wiki article about the armenian genocide subject. Maybe you can help me. In the article under "Later assessments" there is written something very interesting: "Recently Sweden has changed its official position quoting the historical accuracy, and currently does not recognize Armenian genocide." I tried my best to find further information about that but was unsuccessfull. Maybe you can give me a link to that? TIA Nitec 11:30, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)


The probelms with this article are so pronounced that I have taken the extreme step of requesting its deletion. In essence, a vigalante has poisoned the well. He pays lip service to Wikipedia's NPOV policy while subverting Wikipedia's very mission. He writes:

"Truth happens to be sacrificed in the article, because there was no genocide. Yet, the article is actually called "Armenian Genocide."


This is not a matter on which reasonable people can disagree....or can be addressed by piecemeal revisions to the article. It simply flies in the facres of the overwhelming weight of scholarly evidence. Of course, the vigalante who has worn down and intimidated well-meaning revisers has an answer for that:

" Many of France's half-million Armenians reinforce their obsession to an already brainwashed French public, with the aid of the hypocritical "genocide scholars" they have on their side. (And it is these non-scholars, along with those who mindlessly accept their unilateral view -- for those of us who like to define a scholar as one who dispassionately examines all sides -- which constitute that "preponderance of scholarly opinion." It is a preponderance made more preponderous since opposing academicians have been intimidated to touch the subject, thanks to effective smear campaigns by Armenians and these "genocide scholars"ToTpuque

So scholarly opinion means nothing. They have been corrrupted. Our vigilante knows better. He is a lonely man in sole possesion of the truth. He must not be allowed to prevail.

The vigalante has made a few token concessions to opponents. A special notice at the top of the page discoutrages revision. The result is a poorly written article that is the enemy of the truth.

A more balanced article is required. Normal procedures have failed....and will continue to fail. We need to start over.


Well, I disagree. I found the article very good and very neutral. Greetings from Germany. Nitec 08:47, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The "Vigilante" has a name

I suppose it was user 69.158.32.127 making the above complaints. A "vigilante," dear 69, is one who takes the law into (his) own hands without concern for the views of others. You are exposing your own zealotry when you resort to such unfair labeling, and by refusing to acknowledge the name I've been using to identify myself. If I possessed a true vigilante mentality, I would have done what so many pro-genocide fanatics have already demonstrated: clean out everything to impose their singularly propagandistic view. Quite the contrary, I have done most of my communicating within this talk page, and the few contributions I have made to the article resulted only after airing my views and evidence on the talk page, with one who mentioned he knows this subject "VERY well." You can read what has been happening, above.

"He must not be allowed to prevail"? Sounds like there is a vigilante around here, but it's not me.

I see you have replaced the box that was on the top of the page reminding us the article was the result of many contributors over a long period of time (that is, carefully cultivated by all parties), reaching an imperfect sort of "consensus," well before I came in. Now you have put in a box saying the contents are "disputed." Definitely, I dispute many of the contents, myself; but I can see what is getting your goat are the sources from genocide-friendly sources that are turning this so-called genocide on its ear.

So your solution is to throw out the article, and to start from scratch. Do you feel that will succeed in getting your partisan view across, more exclusively as you would desire? Is this how you convey your devotion to the truth, as you attempt to make us believe your best interest is in "A more balanced article"?

Since you have taken this rash, "godlike" step (indicating your displeasure with an article that doesn't go far enough to advocate your genocide, thus proclaiming its "disputed" status for us all), why don't you dispute it here? To avoid repeating what has been already discussed, please keep in mind the arguments that have already been presented... from Turk-unfriendly sources. Tell us why these sources would have been dishonest. Since you are accusing a party of a crime (the greatest crime), the burden of proof is upon you.

Yes, there are quite a few factors in the article that are "the enemy of the truth," as you wrote. Just giving the article a quick eye, I see there is the statement, "Armenians in Musa Dagh and Van organized their self defense." The evidence points strongly toward the Armenians going on the attack, rather than "self defense." Now the "scholarly opinion" you are quick to defend will disagree; that is why these genocide zealots are not true scholars, since they have an agenda and look at only one side of the story. (That is not my definition of "scholarly"; why is it yours? Do you know of any of these "scholars" who acknowledge the deaths of 518,000 Ottoman Turks/Muslims and Jews whom the Armenians ruthlessly slaughtered, with some Russian help?) This is why we look at the testimony of pro-Armenian sources to get at where the truth really lies.

So I'll try and make a point of checking in more often to hear your arguments; remember, all we are interested in are the facts, not the typically propagandistic hearsay. And as far as the rest of us (of more "reasonable" persuasion) who are keeping track, please do not forget our only motivation needs to be the adherence to the truth. As Raffi stated above, yes, there is an "avalanche" of "evidence" out there, because the pro-Armenians are obsessed, and few care to speak for Turks. However, as Goebbels teaches us, simply because a point-of-view has been repeated often does not make it true. I partly repeat a quote from above, by Dr. Leon Picon: "...large segments of even educated people have come to to accept the (Armenian) mythology as History." Torque, Jan. 24, 2005

History is written by winners

History is never accurate of based on just the facts. History is written by winners who use their power to make the winers look like barbarians. If Germans had won WW2, we would be talking about the camps where America put its Japanese citizens(This is real, America DID put Japanese living on its borders in camps). But because Ottomans lost the war, the so-called Armenian genocide became an issue while the Algerian Genocide is not. So why don't anyone accept the Algerian genocide while it was much greater in magnitude. Edited by: Deniz

The Armenians were not, in any way, shape or form, "winners". --RaffiKojian 14:49, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Absolutely correct. The Armenians suffered terribly. The "winners" in this case are the Allies. The Allies in question (the British, Americans, French, Russians and Italians), thanks to their centuries-long indoctrination against the Terrible Turk, preferred to give attention only to the Armenians' telling of the tale, rarely described honestly, from the Patriarchs on down. This is why even today the Armenians are perceived as the exclusive victims, neglecting the fact that the Armenian terrorist leaders are ultimately responsible for the hardship the Armenians endured; if they were loyal, nothing would have happened to the Armenians, as in the case of the Ottoman Jews. And this is also why today the 518,000 Turks/Muslims and Jews the Armenians slaughtered, with a little Russian help, is tragically still not acknowledged. In short, the Armenians have had the luxury of owning and thus manipulating the willing ear of the Allies, or the "winners." Torque, Feb. 7, 2005

Disputing the Article

Over a month ago, I put in the following in a box to dissuade fanatical partisans from coming in and making wholesale changes, as has taken place several times:

"This page is the result of careful cultivation by all parties. Wikipedia requires for contributors to use a neutral point of view, and to cite your sources so others can check and extend your work. Any major disagreements should first be resolved in the talk page."

Now this has been removed and replaced with "The factual accuracy of this article is disputed."

I asked the one I believe made this change (69.158.32.127) to go over the "disputes" on our talk page. So far, not a peep.

I'm considering putting back my original box. Is there reason to not do so? In the history page of the article, I noticed the following argument:

"It is surely a result of 'careful cultivation' but definitely not 'by all parties' as alleged. Label 'Disputed' should be retained."

I invite anyone who believes this article has been altered unfairly by myself (or others who think this genocide story is based on myth) to check the "history" section of this page. You will see that while the article (mostly preserved) had a pro-Armenian propagandistic slant before I came in, it was fairly balanced, and the page was truly a result of 'careful cultivation' 'by all parties.'

Because this genocide myth is based on faith instead of reality, I'm aware of the faithful's feathers being ruffled. This is why whenever I've countered the pro-genocide claims, I have used only pro-genocide sources or inarguable common sense. Those who can't stand their belief systems to be challenged should not simply cry "Disputed!" Tell us why these Turk-unfriendly sources would have lied, or have been in error.

Let me take this occasion to offer my own disputes. I've already provided one above, regarding the statement, "In desperate attempts at survival, upon hearing of massacres of nearby villages, Armenians in Musa Dagh and Van organized their self defense." (In the "The Armenian Genocide" section.)

(Notice I haven't touched this, or ANY of the pro-genocide claims the article had. I've only added rebuttals. This is what we call striving for a neutral point of view, as Wikipedia requires.)

Now we know from the New York Times article from November 1914 the Armenians were ready to rebel the moment their nation went to war ("ARMENIANS FIGHTING TURKS -- Besieging Van — Others operating in Turkish Army's Rear"), following the Hunchak program instructions ("The most opportune time to institute the general rebellion for carrying out the immediate objectives was when Turkey was engaged in war"; Louise Nalbandian, "Armenian Revolutionary Movement," 1963) ... along with other sources. Armenians rebelled several times at Van in early 1915, and the one that precipitated the relocation orders occurred in April of that year. And anyone who uses Franz Werfel's "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" as a historical source has another thing coming.

For another viewpoint, Rabbi Albert Amateau, who was in the Ottoman Empire and who had the confidence of young Armenians (thinking he was a Frenchman and fellow Christian), and also a personal friend of Franz Werfel, wrote in a sworn testimony: "Moussa Dagh... if the truth be known, is the best evidence of the Armenian duplicity and rebellion. Fifty thousand Armenians, all armed, ascended the summit of that mountain after provisioning it to stand siege. Daily sallies from that summit of armed bands attacked the rear of the Ottoman armies, and disappeared into the mountain. When the Ottomans finally discovered the fortification the Armenians had prepared, they could not assault and invade it. It stood siege for 40 days, which is a good indication of the preparations the Armenians had made surreptitiously under the very nose of the Ottoman Government. Nor was it ever explained that the rebellion of the Armenians had been fostered, organized, financed, and supplied with arms and munitions by the Russians."

Neither Van nor Musa Dagh are examples of "self defense."

Dispute #2: Under "First Armenian Massacres," we have the statement, "Mobs mostly of Muslim Turks are then alleged by some to have killed 50,000 Armenians." (In the aftermath of the 1896 Ottoman Bank takeover.)

The saving grace is the word "alleged," but this statement relies on the vicious propaganda of the period. It's revolting that such poppycock is still allowed to pass for fact, in light of the mind-numbing destruction these terrorists (led by Garo, who took part in the ethnic cleansing of innocents during the war) accomplished, with their deadly rain of bullets and 200 bombs that they flung indiscriminately at the crowds below.

Prof. Erich Feigl, "The Myth of Terror": "...it was now possible to dream up tales of '4000-6000 Armenians killed in the rioting'. Not the least bit of evidence could be found to support these figures in the secret report of the British Embassy (F. 0. 424/188, Nos. 149 and 169). But what difference did that make?"

What difference did that make. Exactly. The European powers and Armenian propaganda sources of the period had only one purpose in mind: to make the Turks into devils.

(And how did we get from 4000-6000 Armenians to the 50,000 Armenians in our article?)

True believers: Now is your chance to prove your story. Where did you get this 50,000 Armenians story from?

If you can't prove it, somebody march in there, and change this ridiculous assertion. Here is the real truth, according to British author C. F. Dixon-Johnson (whose country was at war and who had no reason to lie), from his 1916 work, The Armenians:

"A cry went through the city that the Armenians had risen in revolt and were massacring the other citizens. Many persons armed themselves with cudgels and, joined by a cosmopolitan mob from Pera and Galata, many of whom were Greek anxious to pay off old scores on their hated commercial rivals, wreaked vengeance on the Armenian population. The soldiers and police took no part in the killing. It is estimated that about 1,000 persons perished, including those killed by the bombs and revolvers of the conspirators. What happened in London and Liverpool after the sinking of the Lusitania affords an idea of how the East End people of London, who claim to be far more highly educated... would have behaved if German desperadoes, after murdering twelve of the sentinels on guard at the Bank of England, had been allowed to escape free in deference to the representations of the American and Spanish Ambassadors, especially after the fears and passions of the mob had been aroused by German aliens shooting and bombing from the roofs of the houses..."

I have one more "Dispute." In the links section, someone had the poor taste to include the hate site, http://imia.cc.duth.gr/turkey/index.e.html. A fair minded individual (from the history section of the page, a few days ago, Feb. 3) changed from the original description: "(...warning of extreme bias, false information and over-exaggerated numbers)."

This is a disgusting site originating from Greece, lost in an orgy of making the Turks out to be monsters. From their Armenian Genocide page, we have words sure to warm the hearts of the faitful whose feathers are being ruffled here: "One can sunmarise the genocide of the Armenian nation by giving the figure of 300.000 dead during the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid and 1.500.000 killed during World War I."

Now that (and the rest) is exactly "extreme bias, false information and over-exaggerated numbers."

Yet Malcolm Farmer stealthily changed this back to "possible bias." Malcolm Farmer: if you're listening, defend your partisan stance. Support the above wildly exaggerated figures, and why you feel this hateful site should be taken so seriously.

This is the problem, ladies and gentlemen. We have very prejudiced people in this world. I hope those who are following this page will let truth and fairness be their guide, and not allow the prejudiced to have their way. Especially since these prejudiced have had their way for so long, allowing for these prejudiced views to be accepted as the common wisdom. Torque, Feb. 7, 2005

When you write something inflammatory like "Because this genocide myth is based on faith instead of reality, I'm aware of the faithful's feathers being ruffled." All I can say is to look in the mirror, since you are actually talking about yourself but you just can't see it. The whole world - and many Turks know that the genocide, like the holocaust, is a fact. Your government disputes it for obvious reasons. You dispute it out of either belief in your government, or a misplaced sense of honor.
Then you write: "This is why whenever I've countered the pro-genocide claims, I have used only pro-genocide sources or inarguable common sense. Those who can't stand their belief systems to be challenged should not simply cry "Disputed!" Tell us why these Turk-unfriendly sources would have lied, or have been in error." No, it is not about any beliefs being challenged. It is about being drowned in misinformation, irrelevant texts, non-sensicle arguements, and incredibly unreliable sources. You did add all kinds of sources, and a few of them were even valid, but some were pretty much as valuable as "my friend Joe told me so". Rabbi Albert Amateau is a great example of this. Whether he existed, how a Rabbi supposedly convinced "young Armenians" he was not Jewish, and they (whoever these Young Armenians were) TOLD him something we are sure must be true, and that he related correctly, and all of this in direct conflict with what his friend Werfel saw and every other testimony says is just a big confusing mess. But then I believe that is the point of this sort of quote. Confuse. Give the impression that there are other sides to the story. And all this when Musa Dagh was a massive exception to the normal Armenian obedience to deportation and massacre anyways.
You write: "Erich Feigl, "The Myth of Terror". You use Feigl - as a SOURCE?? That book, like the racist and disgusting material on Tall Armenian Tale and that other lame book that came out a couple of years ago by an American guy (certainly not a scholar) married to a Turkish woman who died about the time of publication (I forget the name of the book now) are full of so many lies, mistakes, racist comments and more that any time you quote them you lose major credibility. Responding to that drivel is pointless.
I can go on and on (as I'm sure you can guess), but I am sure there is little point. There was a genocide. There have been studies to prove it and I am SURE you know of them and have read them. The one by the International Center for Transitional Justice, which was commissioned by higher up retirees from the Turkish government, who were very anti-genocide is a perfect example. It is online if you'd like a link. My point is there is room for discussion, fine points, etc, but there is one truth, one conclusion. The genocide is a fact. How many Armenians died is irrelevant. How many Armenians would have preferred Russian rule is irrelevant. What matters is that it happened, that the Turkey of today must come to terms with it, and then let life go on.
I hope we can work together to come to an article we can both agree is strictly correct and relevant - though past experience tells me odds are slim. We have to stick to good, reputable sources, not add random extraneous quotes and materials, and see where we can get. I am willing to work with you and to get rid of bad links, etc as well. But seriously - the genocide is only disputed by one party - and that is the party that is the direct linear replacement of the perpetrator, the government of the Republic of Turkey. It is a fact, and that needs to be faced.
--RaffiKojian 17:59, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Fresh Overhaul

This article has gone WAY off course. Errors, hugely biased statements and the like have been inserted all over. I am extremely busy - but I will slowly find the time to go through and fix the blatant stuff. I doubt my good deed will go unpunished, but I will do what needs to be done. --RaffiKojian 17:17, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Raffi, for offering yourself as the knight in shining armor to right your perceived wrongs. I suggest, however, that if you are of the mind to fix anything, first bring it up in this discussion page.
Allow me to respond to the points you've raised.
Regarding your suggestion to look at myself in the mirror, this is what I see: one who is aware of the wrongs your fanatical side has committed, and at the same time, one who always allows the truth to take precedence; even if it hurts.
I do not believe you are capable of the same. You've exposed your character time and again, in our earlier rounds of discussion, as may be read above. You are the author of www.cilicia.com. You are responsible for the deviations from reality that you've allowed on your site, with no remorse... such as your quotes page, where you've actually taken the quotations from "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," and from Andonian's forgeries, and put them up as actually having emanated from the mouths of the speakers. Totally irresponsible.
Obviously, you are so emotionally married to this issue, you are incapable of objectivity. Unfortunately, you fit the pattern of the "Armenian genocide partisan" to a tee. This includes freely making statements that has no basis in fact. For example, when you write, "Your government." Whether I tell you the truth, that I am not a Turkish citizen and know little of that country firsthand, is not as relevant as how you can allow your conscience to make a statement that we all know you have no possible way of knowing is true. Similarly, when you felt free in the (Oct. 13) history of this page to label me as a "pro-Turkish govt positionee."
You are obliterating your credibility when you display your lack of concern for the truth.
"The whole world - and many Turks know that the genocide, like the holocaust, is a fact." In order to accept this myth as a fact, we have to have evidence. This is what even the British failed to come up with at the Malta Tribunal, as desperate as they were to railroad the Turks in the beginning of that "Nuremberg" trial process. The fact that this genocide lie has been repeated over and over again with nobody speaking for the Turks does not make it a fact.
If you think you have the evidence, come up with the goods. Prove the Ottomans had "intent." Unfortunately for you, and very ironically, everything you can come up with is on the order of -- as you've written -- "my friend Joe told me so."
"Rabbi Albert Amateau is a great example of this. Whether he existed, how a Rabbi supposedly convinced 'young Armenians' he was not Jewish..." Whether he ... "existed"?? Why don't you educate yourself before making irresponsible statements like that? You know how to run an Internet search, don't you? Amateau was not a rabbi when he was a youth in the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians among his fellow students took him into his confidence because of his French-sounding name. Are you saying because he happened to be Jewish, the Armenians should have been able to identify him as a Jew? Perhaps you are mistaking these Armenians with your General Dro, who worked for the Fuehrer in later years.
"... All of this in direct conflict with what his friend Werfel saw..." With each statement, you proceed to shoot yourself in the foot. Do you know anything about how Franz Werfel came to write his "40 Days" book? It had nothing to do with his being an eyewitness... Werfel was an Austrian Jew and was not in the Ottoman Empire. He relied on Andonian's forged telegrams. Werfel later discovered he had been duped, but kept quiet for fear of the fanatics among your kind.
" And all this when Musa Dagh was a massive exception to the normal Armenian obedience to deportation and massacre anyways." Get the truth into your head: The Armenians rebelled, and the relocation policy was the end result of that treachery. The Musa Dagh you know is a MYTH, just like your genocide; Musa Dagh was the perfect example of the Armenians' stabbing their nation in the back.
Here is a passage corroborating Amateau's assertion of Armenians "firing the first shot" at Musa Dagh; from "Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War," by Edward J. Erickson (2001):
Compounding the implementation of these policies was the continuing Armenian Rebellion, which included bombings, assassinations, and the wholesale slaughter of Muslim Turkish villages. In some places the rebels