Dr. Dennis Papazian released a couple of early April 2008 communications warning the world that there is evil afoot... and the name of this demon incarnate was Hilmar Kaiser. Perhaps a motivation for the professor in charge of the University of Michigan-Dearborn's Armenian Research Center was guilt, as he, like the similarly unleashing Pandora, was responsible for giving Kaiser his first big break to spread Armenian propaganda, as Papazian also did with Taner Akcam. However, unlike the well-compensated Akcam (through the Zoryan Institute and the Cafesjian Foundation), a man who will gladly wag his tail in whatever fashion Akcam's benefactors require, Hilmar Kaiser has proved to be a bit of a loose cannon. Kaiser, for example, has called Vahakn Dadrian, the "foremost authority on the Armenian genocide," on Dadrian's dishonesty. There can be no greater sacrilege than that!

Any move that is seen to be out of step of Hai Tahd, or the Armenian Cause, even in the slightest way, provides grounds for ostracism and worse, by the Dashnak-minded extremists governing the genocide industry. If you are a part of this industry, you are not allowed to deviate from the Biblically established propaganda (or as Kaiser nicely worded it in an interview cited below: "All these concepts about the Armenian genocide are developed on generalization of a very narrow source basis. We have developed a lot of Holy Grail items that we hear over and over again"), and you are certainly not allowed to criticize a fellow propagandist in any shape, manner, or form. For example, when Vincent Lima found fault with Richard Hovannisian's intolerance, even though this criticism was expressed in a tiny little footnote, Levon Marashlian was all over poor Mr. Lima, with the implication that Lima actually might be a secret agent for the Turkish government. ("Vincent Lima's less than professional tactics include destructive manipulation—apparently driven by irresponsible arrogance and some unannounced agenda which appears to have little to do with defending the truth ...")

When Ara Sarafian, Lima's former co-editor of Armenian Forum, dared to challenge the Blue Book propaganda of the drownings in Trabzon, as well as the familiar "genocide map," Dr. Rouben Adalian of the Armenian National Institute (ANI) angrily accused Mr. Sarafian of having "ulterior motives," which implies Sarafian actually might be a secret agent for the Turkish government.

Dr, Dennis Papazian

In his message entitled, "Hilmar Kaiser Warning!!! From Dr. Dennis Papazian" (likely by the one who posted this message, without Dr. Papazian's permission, at a Yahoo group) and "sub"titled (probably by Papazian himself), "Danger of Hilmar Kaiser: A Warrning!", we learn that Adrienne McOmber (whom Dr. Papazian would identify in a later communication as "an Armenian woman," "active in the community," and "a very successful lawyer") phoned Dr. Papazian with the news that she and her husband, Richard, attended a Rutgers University talk with Kaiser, reporting that Kaiser "badmouthed and denigrated just about all Armenian genocide scholars in the US and Europe, including Vahakn Dadrian and Taner Akcam, and put into question the very reality of a genocide sponsored by the Young Turk government against the Armenians in 1915-1923."

(Note that line comes from someone who calls himself a "professor" versed in "1915" history, and he still appears unaware that the "Young Turk government" basically ceased to exist as an independent entity by 1918's end, once the British occupied the devastated empire, initially with one million soldiers, as accounted for by Peter Balakian in The Burning Tigris. It would be very difficult to conduct a state-sponsored genocide campaign, particularly for five long years until 1923, when there is no real state.)

Papazian believed there were "apparently high-ranking Turks who smiled and nodded throughout the lecture." The report clamed that Kaiser was invited to dinner by these nasty Turks, speaking to Kaiser in Turkish, but there was a Turkish speaking spy (who was there thanks to "we," as Papazian put it) "who understood what was going on."

Cloak and ARF Dagger

Did this spy trail our villains to the restaurant? This sounds like a real cloak-and-dagger adventure. The information Papazian received led him to conclude that Kaiser is "attempting to put into question all the valuable scholarship produced by Armenians and their cohorts regarding the Armenian genocide and thus deny that the genocide was sponsored by the Turkish central authorities, making it only a series of massacres carried out on the local level. This is subversive activity at its worse."

Can it be? Can Kaiser actually have been recruited by the Turks, and is now an "agent for the Turkish government"?

"[A]n important Armenian patriotic organization," continued Dr. Papazian, "had unwittingly sent Hilmar on a speaking tour around the United State[s] a couple of year[s] ago," where Kaiser was similarly not sticking with the program. Papazian then "asked people to record his 'lectures'" (Dr. Papazian curiously chose to put the word "lectures" in quotation marks; if the content changed from what Dr. Papazian preferred to hear, does that make a lecture any less of a lecture?) in order to have proof of Kaiser's deviltries.

Papazian wrote that he finally had to contact some "higher ups" who made sure Kaiser got the warning that if Armenian genocide scholars should be criticized (such a transgression, as we know, cannot be permitted), that would spell the end of Kaiser's tour.

This would be akin to the scene in the original "Frankenstein" movie, where the doctor brings his creation to life, and when the creature develops a mind of his own, the doctor has to find a way to control the creature. (Will it be through fire? Dissection? Will Kaiser be chased atop a windmill, by Dr. Papazian's huge network of "people" wielding torches and pitchforks?)

The bulk of "A Shameful Act" relied on research already performed, primarily Dadrian's research. The original version of this book, in Turkish, was published in 1999, and it's doubtful Akcam paid many visits to the Turkish archives before that year, if at all. "Researchers are allowed to make xerox copies of the documents they receive," Dr. Papazian tells us, in his defense of Akcam. Actually, that is not true in all of the departments. If memory serves, Michael A. Reynolds pointed out in his late 2003 dissertation (an excerpt), different departments of the archives have different rules. One forbids the making of copies entirely, meaning the researcher must make notes then and there. Since Akcam's knowledge of the complex Ottoman language is nearly nil (probably no different than Hilmar Kaiser's), of course Akcam could not be relied upon to make reliable translations — even if conditions were not as demanding. "It is not the business of you, Hilmar, or the Turkish government as to how Taner gets his materials," Papazian fumes to the one he was addressing, perhaps in desperation to cover the fact that Taner Akcam has the muscle of the Zoryan Institute, if not the formidable forces of the genocide industry, supporting their paid-off front man with ready research.

The great scholar, Dennis Papazian, condemns Kaiser because Kaiser, in the aforementioned Armenian Weekly interview, had the gall to refer to the researching wherewithal of Yusuf Halacoglu, the head of the Turkish Historical Society (THS), in a positive manner. Papazian dismissed Halacoglu as "an implacable enemy of the Armenian people who publishes tendentious and corrupt materials." That is a terribly libelous thing to say; Halacoglu is no more an "enemy of the Armenian people" than the French historians Gaston Gaillard, Gilles Veinstein or any other contra-genocide scholar who supports his or her findings with reliable and non-propagandistic facts. (Guenter Lewy conducted excellent research and found no evidence implicating the U.S. government on genocide against the Indians. Only a fool, or a hopelessly dishonest party, would label Lewy as an "implacable enemy of the Indian people.")

(As a backdrop, Kaiser was generous with his appraisal of Halacoglu in the interview. When the interviewer, Khatchig Mouradian, tried to bait Kaiser with Kaiser's opinion on the scholarship of Halacoglu, whom Mouradian described as "a notorious genocide denier," Kaiser surprised Mouradian by saying it would not be "productive" to criticize Halacoglu on "past weak scholarship or political fanaticism," and that Halacoglu should not be underestimated. Kaiser added that he disagreed with him "emphatically," but that he respected him, calling Halacoglu an "extremely smart guy, very professional" and that "in some regards," he was "ahead" of Kaiser [as an example, material regarding Ottoman prosecution of Turkish criminals during the war]; furthermore, Kaiser praised Halacoglu for being friendly, and for his willingness to talk to those from the opposite camp. Kaiser also made two highly impressive statements, "First of all, the description of deniers as a group is false" being one. The other: "Respectable scholarship has nothing to do with the name of the person who has written it—it is assessed on its own merit.")

Is Papazian telling us everything Halacoglu has put on the table is "tendentious and corrupt"? So Ottoman archival sources, largely based on internal reports never meant to be publicized (kind of like Papazian's revealing communications being examined here), as well as the foreign archival material that Halacoglu also relies on (the valuable information on this page, regarding an explosive Armenian Patriarch report, among others, came from, I believe, a THS publication) can be summed up as "tendentious and corrupt"? These are sources largely lacking conflict-of-interest; how could they possibly be termed "tendentious and corrupt"? Meanwhile, the sources Papazian usually prefers to point to, sources such as Ambassador Morgenthau and the missionaries (here is how the desperate Dr. Papazian once supported the latter: "...Did the American missionaries tell the truth? One would think so. We certainly will not ... call these God-fearing men and women liars without seeing strong evidence to support that contention. ... We must accept the missionary reports as dependable evidence"), were totally conflicted, the kind of evidence that was often corrupt to the core.

Papazian supports his denunciation of Halacoglu by pointing to Taner Akcam's articles showing how the THS, in the person of Halacoglu, has misrepresented archival materials. Well, two can play at that game, and Taner Akcam is a master at it. Here is a study of how Akcam has misrepresented the misrepresentation of said archival materials.

Dennis Papazian reveals that his original communication was never meant to be made public, as it was in the form of an e-mail, and someone (likely one of his own "people," since the professor was not going to share such thoughts with those in what he regards as the "implacable" enemy camp) posted it at the Yahoo Armenian groups. He is absolutely right about that; even the privacy of a propagandist like Dr. Papazian must be respected. Since the cat was out of the bag, I felt free to quote from his messages, much as I would have preferred to reproduce them in their entirety.

Now let's get to the crux of the matter. Was Dr. Dennis Papazian's flying fit justified? Has Hilmar Kaiser, possibly to get back at those representing his former employer, Dennis Papazian, because Dr. Dennis Papazian "fired" Kaiser, defected to the other side? Did Kaiser, in other words, decide to ditch his life's work simply because he took the immortal words of Sarkis Atamanian to heart? ("Without retribution, justice is merely a word," The Armenian Review, Nov. 1960; music to the ears of revenge-minded Dashnaks, as well as too many dogmatic genocide scholars.)

We don't have to travel far to prove how extensive the Armenians' rebellion was, having been in the works for years with the Dashnaks' "Instructions for Self-Defense" distributed in Armenian villages since 1910, with nearly half of the pamphlet focusing on how to "attack" Muslim villages.There is a plethora of Western and Armenian sources that gives us the clear idea of what the Armenians were up to; since the A.R.F. had forced Armenian males over the age of 13 in a good many of the provinces to join their movement, either as soldiers or functionaries, based on confessions by captured Armenians, the treason was widespread. (In 1910, there were 100,000 Dashnaks in Bitlis alone, according to the Russian consul.) In other words, an Ottoman-Armenian did not have to brandish a weapon in order take part in this rebellion; the Armenian community as a whole, including the women and children, provided the support system for the rebels. (Not to say there weren't loyal ones around. But unfortunately, they were stuck between a rock and a hard place.)

Of course, in any nation, if there is a treacherous community that fights against the nation's army and that commits massacres upon fellow citizens (there is an example of a February 1915 account below) who don't fit into the required racial and religious mold, particularly during a life-and-death war, it would be the duty of any nation to protect itself. The Soviet-Armenian historian Borian himself pointed out this would be the duty of a nation, not that we need him to tell us the obvious. During World War I, Britain and Russia deported or interned or relocated elements that were not even disloyal, as did the USA and Canada during WWII. Imagine what these nations would have done if these elements had behaved in the ways of the Ottoman-Armenians! But what the Ottomans did was resettle the Armenians, in what Dr. Lewy termed a "relatively humane" process (at least insofar as the intentions of the central government; things obviously sometimes went wrong at the local level, much as the majority of Armenians clearly survived), until the danger was past. The Armenians lost their war gamble, and then decided to make a "genocide" out of their belligerence.

A dramatic way to prove the extent of the Armenian rebellion is to point to what Boghos Nubar is on record for admitting, that "the Armenians have been belligerents de facto, since they indignantly refused to side with Turkey." That says it, in a nutshell.

Now this is Boghos Nubar we're talking about here, one of the most dynamic leaders of the Armenian Cause of the period. His is not the only voice confirming the Armenians' treachery — we can also point to other leaders who are on record for demonstrating evidence, such as Hovhannes Katchaznouni, "Armen Garo" Pasdermadjian, and Vahan "The Doctor" Papazian — but, again, this is Boghos Nubar himself! He is clearly someone the Armenians can respect, much more so than the creepier heroes of Armenian mythology, as the mass murderers Dro and Antranik.

So if Turks in this audience pointed to this rebellion, they would not be the "revisionists"; the Armenians were shouting from the rooftops after the end of the war, as to how loyal they were to the Allies. It's the Armenians who revised their story, because it didn't suit their image as poor, unarmed, innocent victims of genocide to admit their own treachery, and their own great crimes of ethnic cleansing against hundreds of thousands of defenseless villagers. It is the Armenians who are the real "revisionists."

Now let's get back to the point in question, Khatchig Mouradian, and why he chose to dismiss and defame the Turks in the audience as "denialist and revisionist." Surely Khatchig Mouradian is not a man who blindly falls victim to the "Lemming Effect" of too many Armenians trained by their parents, teachers and churches to become genocide-obsessed, and who lose the capacity for independent thought regarding such an emotional topic; that is, the Armenians whom K.S. Papazian described as "The rank and file [who] have continually been kept under the spell of their invisible rulers." (Although sadly, even some of these rulers, not always invisible, such as Dennis Papazian, appear to fall under the spell of their own propaganda.) Khatchig Mouradian is a man who can distance himself, and who can distinguish between fact and fiction. So why does he engage in such propagandistic terminology?

(It is very likely that as intelligent as Mr. Mouradian is, and as "fair" as he appears to be, his emotions run too deep to bear a careful study of the ways in which those who disbelieve in genocide have backed up their position. All he needs are industry leaders — like Dadrian, Hovannisian, Balakian — to say, for example, that there was no Armenian rebellion, and that would be enough. Of course, that would be more than enough for the immature-minded rank-and-file in the Armenian community, but this is an "intellectual" we're talking about. In his interview with Kaiser, Mr. Mouradian gives away his naive faith, when Kaiser brings up the notion of Turks and others who had committed crimes against Armenians during the war being taken to court by the Ottomans. It's simple logic that a genocide-committing state would not take their own perpetrators to court. The idea that the Ottoman Turks punished people who committed crimes against Armenians, dozens via execution, should set off alarm bells in the mind of an intellectual; at this point, a true intellectual would try to go beyond his belief system, unpleasant a process though that might be, and say: "I've got to look at that! Is it possible I've been wrong?" We can see Mouradian was struggling with his deep faith, in the way he posed his question to Kaiser: "But they aren’t punishing them for stealing from the Armenians, are they?" [In other words: "Please! Please don't let it be so, I've got too much at stake, emotionally."] Fortunately for Mr. Mouradian, Kaiser's own genocide belief system prevented him from bursting Mouradian's bubble, and Kaiser replied that more research would be necessary. All the way back in 1985, with Kamuran Gurun's English version of The Armenian File, we learned that 1,397 were taken to trial for crimes against Armenians, and [although aside from the locales, Gurun did not itemize, and we could only suspect] the crimes were not just for "stealing." New Turkish research has upped the ante to 1,673, with details on how many got punished, and in what manner. [67 got the death penalty.] If Hitler had taken one SS man to trial for harming Jews, many would find it difficult to understand the colossal incongruity. Even if only 16, instead of 1,673, Ottomans were taken to court for harming Armenians, that should serve as a huge eye-opener — but according to Kaiser, we still need more research. Perhaps Kaiser was influenced by his "Shameful Liar" rival, Taner Akcam, who has called these punishments a "tall story.")

We're fully aware if Khatchig Mouradian were to allow himself to speak more truthfully, mincemeat would be made of him, by the fanatics among his own. For that, we can't judge him too harshly, as no one would enjoy coming under the hammer-blows of the terrroristic Dashnak mentality, of whom K.S. Papazian further commented, acts "true to its traditional method of blackening the character of their victims." (If not blackening their eyes, or committing even more serious forms of harm.) But wouldn't an honorable person, too prudent to speak publicly, at least choose the alternative of not getting involved with such a vicious program of dishonesty and hatred? Why doesn't such an obviously smart and otherwise honorable person as Khatchig Mouradian disallow his "patriotism" to take command of his life? After all, didn't Tony Soprano himself say from his hospital bed, that "every man is judged on his own merit"?

It is heartbreaking. The good Armenian people can only salvage their reputation once the honorable ones among them choose to separate themselves from destructive Dashnak ideology that has so "disgraced our people before the civilized world," as the true Armenian patriot, K.S. Papazian, wrote. (Of course, the civilized world has closed their eyes to the terroristic ideology that has gripped the Armenian people, at least those who have allowed themselves to be genocide-centric, mainly because the terrorists who rule them are masters of propaganda — and the civilized world thinks of Turks as a lesser people, which Dashnak propaganda has made sure to reinforce. But the day will come when the world will awaken, and it is the duty of the good and honorable Armenians, the genuine "patriots" to do what they can to distance their people from the horrid ways of the Dashnaks — whose "veracity" those as Dr. Dennis Papazian does "not doubt.")

The next thing Hilmar Kaiser told his audience is that "The Ottoman government approached the ARF and proposed an alliance," so that "the ARF should start attacking and sabotaging" behind the Russian lines," and the carrot on the stick was "the political concession they denied the Armenian community for years." Kaiser wrapped up the idea with, "Basically, the offer was, 'You join the war on our side, take the risk, and then we promise you what we have denied you for years.' So it wasn’t really a good offer. What would happen to the Armenian community in Russia?" The result, Kaiser reported, was that "The ARF declined the offer and assured the Ottoman government that the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire would faithfully serve the common Ottoman war cause."

Since Kaiser has read McCarthy and Company's "The Armenian Rebellion at Van," he already knows this account of the Ottoman government's representatives to the Dashnaks' 1914 Erzurum conference is not confirmed by any non-Armenian source. That does not mean this meeting did not take place, but given the Armenians' penchant for "exaggeration," a true historian would pause before accepting this meeting and subsequent deal as a pure fact. But let's imagine what we've been told is the truth. (And it is possible Kaiser knows something McCarthy and his team of Turkish professors failed to unearth, as slim a possibility as that may be.)

As with the "genocide," the details of this meeting did not take place in a vacuum; there was some history from years past that led to this meeting, facts that must be taken into account. Here is how K.S. Papazian educates us, from Patriotism Perverted, also answering Kaiser's question, "What would happen to the Armenian community in Russia?" The answer to that question would have needed to take into account "What would happen to the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire?":

In August 1914 the young Turks asked the Dashnag Convention, then in session in Erzerum, to carry out their old agreement of 1907, and start an uprising among the Armenians of the Caucasus against the Russian government. The Dashnagtzoutune refused to do this, and gave assurances that in the event of war between Russia and Turkey, they would support Turkey as loyal citizens... The Turks were not satisfed. They suspected them of duplicity...The fact remains, however, that the leaders of the Turkish-Armenian section of the Dashnagtzoutune did not carry out their promise of loyalty to the Turkish cause when the Turks entered the war. The Dashnagtzoutune... were swayed in their actions by the interests of the Russian government and disregarded, entirely, the political dangers that the war had created for the Armenians in Turkey. Prudence was thrown to the winds; even the decision of their own convention of Erzurum was forgotten and a call was sent for Armenian volunteers to fight the Turks on the Caucasus front.

So it would not have been as though the Turks came in cold and asked the Dashnaks for a "favor." There was the promise of the Dashnaks from 1907 to contend with, when the Dashnaks tried their hand for one brief window in time, as loyal Ottomans. What the Ottomans reportedly promised the Dashnaks was not "the political concession they denied the Armenian community for years," as Kaiser stated, which we can only presume meant autonomy for the eastern provinces where Armenians formed a minority. (What we're getting at here, folks, is "independence," which the Ottomans would have been fools to offer. within their own territory. Besides, as Richard Hovannisian has educated us, the Armenians had already enjoyed an "internal autonomy" for centuries.) In reality, the Turks "promised to aid in the establishment of an autonomous Armenia in the Transcaucasus," as the Dashnak historian Hratch Dasnabedian wrote in History of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutiun (1890 - 1924), 1989, p. 109. (If Kaiser is going to rely strictly on the Armenians' version of history, he ought to be more careful with the facts they themselves provide. By the way, ironically, the Ottomans would deliver on this offer, regardless of the Dashnaks' treachery, helping to form and being the first to recognize the Armenian Republic, in 1918.) The thing that seduced the Dashnaks was Russia's own offer "of the autonomy for the six vilayets and Cilicia," as Dasnabedian continued to instruct on p. 119 of his propaganda book, adding, "But with the Russian victories came the return of what had been the policy of Lobanov-Rostovsky: creating an ‘Armenia without Armenians.'”

So Kaiser has misled us on several levels here, by neglecting to mention the Dashnaks' original commitment from 1907, on the correct details of this reported offer (assuming Kaiser was aware of the facts behind these last two points; otherwise his misleading would have been borne out of ignorance), and also by maintaining the illusion that the Ottomans were negotiating with what sounds like another country. These were Ottoman-Armenians in Erzurum! Of course if there was going to be war, the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire were expected to perform their patriotic duty to their Ottoman nation. When the USA decided to make war on Iraq, did representatives of the Bush administration consider having a powwow with, say, Reverend Al Sharpton, to insure that black Americans in the military can be counted upon to perform their duty?

Kaiser follows up with how this ARF "minority opinion" had been leaked to Talat Pasha, wherein the Ottoman government regarded it as "the real policy of the ARF" — and with good reason, because it was "the real policy of the ARF" — "and began acting on it." Entirely because of this "minority opinion," the Ottoman government "began a campaign of repression" from Oct. 1914 to May 1915. Never mind about the many reports learning about traitorous Armenian activities, as this one from Oct. 20, 1914, warning about "8000 Armenians gathered in Kagizman," forming "some sort of guerilla band," composed mainly of Ottoman-Armenians as well as "army deserters."

Kaiser then tries to minimize the effects of the ARF's reactivation of "an earlier, secret, semi-clandestine armed wing of the party, the Self-Defense Organization," the purpose of which was to protect Armenian villages in remote areas, "from Kurdish attacks, bandits... and other outrages that occurred regularly." (Was that its real purpose? How shamefully insincere.) He tells us this wasn't really a big deal, since per village we would have maybe 6-10 armed men, plus mobile units of perhaps a dozen who would be rushed in when needed. Is that so? That is, naturally the Dashnaks were not going to maintain troops in each village that would simulate actual armies, but we have to get at what the real intent of this "Self-Defense Organization" was. This organization must have followed the "Instructions for Self-Defense," a pamphlet that (as mentioned earlier) began to be distributed in 1910 in the thousands, with sections such as "To Attack Villages," which obviously provided a different idea than self-defense. ("Self-Defense" is frequently the Armenian synonym for "Attack"; see Dasnabedian's book and his comical insistence on using this term for every single conflict.) Since Kaiser has read McCarthy & Company's The Armenian Rebellion at Van, he was surely aware of this "blueprint for rebellion," as described on p. 183, and reproduced in its entirety in the book's appendix, followed by "An Example of Attacks on Villages" in Appendix 5, taken from an internal archival document, dated March 15, 1915, relating the atrocities committed upon the Muslims of Mergehu Village, and reproduced here. The reader may also study portions of these "Instructions" on this page.

Following the Instructions, on p. 184 of The Armenian Rebellion at Van, McCarthy and Company present a highly revealing report, dated Jan. 10, 1914, from Consul Smith at Van, relating the activities of the Dashnaks, which "during the past year has actively concerned itself with the secret importation of arms and their distribution amongst its followers." The weapon of choice was the Mauser pistol, and the consul reported the reason for such arming as "the general lack of security," and stressed how the "selling of arms in Van is a very profitable trade — a rifle or pistol being sold for nearly three times its real value — and this makes the arming of the villages a not unattractive business for the Dashnakist leaders... " Note this report was prepared half a year before the Erzurum Dashnak Convention, where Hilmar Kaiser tried to portray the Dashnaks as loyal Ottomans.

Kaiser continued:

"The Ottoman government knew who the militants were, they began taking out local party leaders one by one and also tracking down the members of the organization, thereby trying to destroy it. This was very easy because in those days the winters in Armenia and Kurdistan were very severe in 1914-15, high snow, so there was no way for the militants to escape to the mountains and hide; and even if they were to leave the villages, there’s a trace."

Dr. Hilmar Kaiser

Is Kaiser actually trying to make a criminal of the Ottoman government for tracking down these terrorists who were committed to having the Ottomans' mortal enemy, Russia, come in and take over? What plane of reality are these genocide proponents living on? (And as far as "Armenia and Kurdistan," designating areas that overlapped one another: were there countries at that time called ""Armenia and Kurdistan"? No, the country was called "The Ottoman Empire," and the Ottomans were attempting to maintain law and order in their own nation which — surprise! — happens to be the duty of any nation. After all, international law at the time regarded these guerillas as "outlaws," who may be punished "as robbers and murderers." The U.S. Army Instructions stated "Men or squads of men who commit hostilities..., are public enemies," and if captured shall be treated not as prisoners of war, but "as highway robbers or pirates.")

Ohanus Appressian gave a more accurate picture on Ottoman efforts to stamp out the ARF agents: "The Dashnacks were in continual open rebellion against the Turkish Government. The Turks took severe measures to stamp out this society but without achieving any great success because they had nothing tangible against which to direct their rage. It was as though they were battling with the air."

So now are we all on the edges of our seats as to what McCarthy left out? Kaiser:

"In the second part of the report by Cevdet, the governor, to Talat (there is not a single decision at Van that was not supervised and approved by the central authorities), it says that the Armenian population is entirely peaceful, calm, doing nothing; however, in reality they are rebels, they are only waiting for the Russians to come and then they will kill every Muslim."

As we can see, McCarthy's reportage was entirely honorable. There was no need to include the second portion of this telegram, as McCarthy had already conveyed the idea that the Armenians in this neighborhood were trying to control themselves, biding their time. On the very next page (p. 198), McCarthy began his sub-chapter on "Rebellion in the City of Van" with: "The city of Van had remained relatively quiet as the countryside erupted in rebellion. The peace was not to last." Perhaps Cevdet was referring strictly to the city, in which case it was most dishonorable of Kaiser to have given the impression that McCarthy was trying to hide something. In any event, it is doubtful that the second part of Cevdet's telegram presented the notion that the Armenians were totally innocent. The telegram's first part gives an excellent idea of what was on Cevdet's mind, that the Armenians who were restraining themselves were coiled and ready to strike, and (getting back to the telegram), "They are only waiting for the roads to open [from the winter snows]... (engaging) only in occasional and isolated incidents..."

As far as Kaiser's contention that "there is not a single decision at Van that was not supervised and approved by the central authorities," naturally Cevdet consulted with the home office when it came to major decisions, but how absurd to give the impression that Cevdet never took the initiative and did not make decisions on his own. For example, Rafael de Nogales provided an idea of Cevdet's criminality (in "Memoirs of a Soldier of Fortune," NY, 1932) by turning his guns on the missionary sick bay, and "Djevded" only desisted when de Nogales reminded him of international law. If Cevdet actually did this (which sounds most believable; at this point, he must have hated the missionaries for the part they played in their stirring of and support of the Armenians), of course he would not have contacted the home office for "permission." (Any more than he wouldn't have contacted the home office for permission to turn the guns away.) It is also highly unlikely that Cevdet asked for permission to nail horseshoes onto Armenian feet, as Peter Balakian charmingly wrote in his "The Burning Tigris," without providing any evidence, of course.

The reason why Kaiser is desperate to tell us that every Van decision was "supervised and approved" is because, like your usual genocide scholar, Kaiser's genocide conclusion is pre-determined. It suits his purpose to provide such speculation as fact, because he is in a rush to prove that the central government decided upon "genocide." Kaiser continued:

"At this point, the Ottoman government decided that it does not make a difference at all if an Armenian would be fulfilling his civic duties, obeying the law, or would be in open rebellion. He would be killed anyhow. On March 25, the Ottoman forces decided to attack the Armenian community in Van and wipe them out. It didn’t work."

What is Hilmar Kaiser basing the above absurdity on? When he went to the Turkish archives, did he actually find a telegram from Cevdet asking for permission to try and wipe out the Armenians, and a reply telling Cevdet to go ahead? If there was no such documentation, how could Hilmar Kaiser, in good conscience, make a statement like that?

We know there is no documentation, because we already have a March 25 telegram from Cevdet. There is nothing there indicating the asking of permission as to whether he should go into Van and kill all of the Armenians; it is only a report warning of the impending situation. Since Kaiser confidently informed us that "there is not a single decision at Van that was not supervised and approved by the central authorities," how could the central authorities have even had the time to consider their response, assuming there was a mysterious "Can I please kill the Armenians" request by Cevdet? Kaiser is telling us that this attack took place on March 25, the very day Cevdet wrote his telegram informing of the general situation.

(By the way, Cevdet's March 25 telegram was not sent to Istanbul, but to the Third Army Command. Is Kaiser expecting us to believe that a governor was going to bother central headquarters with every day-to-day decision, when central headquarters had enough to deal with? Particularly when "There was no solidly established government in Turkey at that time. A political committee... headed by Talaat, Enver, and Djemal, controlled the Central Government, but their authority throughout the empire was exceedingly tenuous," as Ambassador Morgenthau summed up on March 18, 1915? .If a governor was so incompetent as to not take charge with day-to-day decisions, such a pain-in-the-neck could not have possibly lasted very long.)