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Ruth Rosen of The San
Francisco Chronicle wrote the classic case of a "rubber
stamp" article of genocide enthusiasts on December 15, 2003, to be found
in these archives.
Let's take a look at what this champion of objectivity had to say.
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| "The
Hidden Holocaust" |
Already her title gives away her ignorance. There is nothing
"hidden" about the so-called Armenian "genocide." Run a search on the
Internet, and see if you don't get countless hits. Go to the bookstore or library, and see
if there aren't numerous books. Ask most people on the street if they haven't heard of the
"Armenian Genocide," and see what they have to say. Yet, zealous apologists as
Ruth Rosen continue to insist this episode of history is somehow "hidden" or
"forgotten." (Such a notion must play up the sympathy value, I suppose.)
The Armenian Diaspora has spread itself too fully throughout the
world, and members of its traditionally merchant class have too much money to finance
their identity-nourishing obsession. This is why we have countries such as Slovakia (in
December 2004) adding their names to the growing list of resolutions recognizing these
events as a genocide. There is no reason for Slovakia to care, unless there is a confirmed
group of Armenians in their midst, throwing lots of money at their politicians, already
brainwashed through centuries of "Terrible Turk" indoctrination. The Slovakian
politicians only listen to what the Armenians have to say, and don't know anything about
the true history. What's worse, they don't care to do any true research. Not unlike Ruth
Rosen.
If Ruth Rosen truly wants to sputter on about hidden holocausts, she
doesn't have to look very far. There are countless
episodes of "Man's Inhumanity to Man" throughout history where the victims
are not rich or obsessed enough to proclaim their victimhood, or have not been deemed
worthy enough to receive recognition, by the hypocritical genocide scholars' community.
She could start with Tasmanians, a truly sorry example of genocide, because it's one where
the extermination aims actually succeeded. Aside from the devilish fellow in Bugs Bunny
cartoons, no Tasmanians are left behind today. She could look at practically any
country that supports these Armenian Genocide resolutions... say, Slovakia. Slovakia may
be excused in its participation of the Holocaust, as she was a Nazi puppet state at the
time. Yet, in recent times, human rights groups have singled out Slovakia for forced
sterilization of an "undesirable" element in their country, the Romani or Gypsy
women. These voiceless people were the "hidden" victims of the Holocaust, but we
only hear about the victims who have the money and the influence.
She could also look at the Turks/Muslims, where 5 million were
expulsed by the Russians and other Orthodox peoples, and 5.5 million were killed, in the
century from the Greek War of Independence to the end of WWI. Now Turks are the easy
villains of western history, so it would take much for a Ruth Rosen to switch gears and
regard them as victims. My speculation is that Ruth Rosen, as a probable Jew, is so
immersed in the tragic genocide experienced by her people, her sympathies get clouded when
she sees the parallels between the Holocaust and the Armenian "Genocide" that
the genocide industry has so notoriously created. Ironically, the number of Jewish victims
— 5.1 to 5.4 million, according to Washington's Holocaust Museum — are comparable to
the Turkish mortality. (Although we're often reminded by these dishonest genocide people
that "numbers don't matter," when the numbers don't suit their purposes.
Meanwhile, they do their best to inflate their numbers, every chance they get.)
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"IMAGINE IF a producer from National Public
Radio invited a scholar to speak about his new book on the Jewish Holocaust and
then, to provide 'balance,' included another guest known for denying that the Nazis
murdered 6 million Jews," Ruth Rosen begins. (First by not getting her
facts straight about her millions.)
She goes on to proclaim her outrage this
is exactly what happened to Peter
Balakian, who went on his book tour for "The Burning Tigris." We can't expect Ruth Rosen to
understand, because her emotional passions have allowed her to wholly swallow the
stomach-churning propaganda Balakian filled his book with. Yes, the same propaganda
that Professor John Dewey cautioned Americans to no longer be deceived by, back in
1928 when he wrote an article
for The New Republic. Three-quarters of a century later, this
disgusting propaganda is still doing its evil work in the hands of ethics-challenged
individuals like Peternocchio Balakian, and continues to deceive brainwashed
genocide zealots that often speak in shrill voices.
The reason why Ruth Rosen is dead wrong is
because even Peter Balakian couldn't prove his genocide, despite filling his book
from top to bottom with endless examples of hearsay, canards, and opinions of
religious/racist bigots. (Although he makes a stab at factual evidence with his
incredible support for the legitimacy of the Aram
Andonian-forged Talat Pasha telegrams.) Therefore she should know better
than to compare an alleged genocide with a proven one. She has no idea of the
injustice she is committing upon the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, by putting
them on the same plane with a genocide that has been concocted under false pretenses
for political purposes.
One NPR producer, however, insisted on
inviting another guest to present the Turkish "perspective" that no
genocide ever occurred. Balakian declined the invitation.
Indeed! Pro-Armenians like Balakian, like one
of his inspirations, Richard Hovannisian,
are only good when it comes to monologue, not dialogue. This is why these people are
questionable academicians, to put it kindly. What real academician would try to
stifle debate, if there are questions about the validity of their position?
Balakian is so averse to debate, his response
to a challenge (in Nov. 14, 2004, at
California's Museum of Tolerance) was: "I don't want to share this stage
with a genocide denier. I ask you to please leave." Balakian knows that
should he get down and dirty, his case is going to fall apart. This is why he covers
his tracks with attention diverting charges such as "denier" and that
Turkey is "totalitarian." The smear campaign is a time-honored Armenian
tactic, and Balakian is no stranger to this terrorism weapon, as when he helped
spearhead the campaign to assassinate Heath
Lowry's character.
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Unfortunately, much of the American media still thinks that
the Armenian genocide is subject to debate. Until recently, many American newspapers wrote
about the "alleged" Armenian genocide or felt obliged to give equal weight to
Turkey's denial of this grotesque crime.
When a crime is unproven, moral people believe it is wrong to point
accusatory fingers. And once again, we get the tiresome claim that it is only the
government of Turkey that believes there was no genocide. In 1985, sixty-nine American academicians thought so.
These days, because of discrediting maneuvers by those such as Peter Balakian and Israel
Charny, far fewer academics wish to put their reputations open to attack when they have
clearly learned how dirty the tactics are of genocide zealots.
To counter such historical inaccuracy, in June 1998 the
Association of Genocide Scholars unanimously defined this event as the 20th century's
first genocide. Two years later, 126 Holocaust scholars, including Elie Wiesel -- awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifelong effort to bear witness to genocide -- published a
petition in the New York Times affirming "the incontestable fact of the Armenian
genocide."
Here we go again. Everyone knows genocide is "bad" and
so-called genocide scholars are automatically presumed to be moral and upright. Instead,
many of them — like Ruth Rosen — have become so emotional, truth is the first thing
they allow to compromise. Genocide
has become a religion with these people. Many are so convinced of the righteousness of
their cause, it becomes easy for them to excuse their lack of attention to principles and
morality. This is why they are the modern counterparts of the missionaries of the Ottoman
Empire. The missionaries spent years
vilifying the Turks, without a care for the facts... nor for their own commandment, THOU
SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR. Such is the difference between faith
and reality based mindsets. The missionaries, like the genocide scholars, were successful
because people believed clergymen would not lie.
A similar New York Times petition by genocide zealots has been
examined here, and unfortunately Elie Wiesel has lost his grasp
on his recognition of true history by allowing his emotions to supersede his reason. If
one only considers Vahakn Dadrian as the source for Armenian "Genocide" history,
of course they're going to throw their lot into this cause. However, despite what Peter
Balakian and Ruth Rosen tell us, there is always another side of the story to consider.
We can see, by the way, how on the mark this "Association of
Genocide Scholars" is, as regards the truth, when they "unanimously
defined this event as the 20th century's first genocide." That honor probably
belongs to the United States, as their marines committed untold atrocities upon the civilian population of the Philippines at
the turn of the century. Then there were German acts of extermination against the
Hereros and other African peoples a decade before "1915." We don't hear about
these genocides, because the victims simply weren't and still aren't rich enough, and/or
white enough. Yet, is it not inexcusable for a group that calls itself the
"Association of Genocide Scholars" to select certain presumed genocides as more
important then probable real ones?
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Denial of the Armenian genocide didn't always exist in
this country. Before World War I, Americans knew exactly what had occurred. During
the 1890s, American reformers launched a human-rights campaign to protest repeated
massacres of the Armenian people. In September 1895, the New York Times headlined a
story as "Another Armenian Holocaust." During 1915, that paper published
145 articles about the mass murder of the Armenian people, describing the massacre
as "systematic, "authorized" and "organized by the
government." In 1918, Theodore Roosevelt called it "the greatest crime of
the war."
It's infuriating when seemingly intelligent
people like Ruth Rosen don't bother to scratch beneath the surface. If there is a
centuries long prejudice against the Terrible Turk, in existence since the Crusades,
and if no one speaks for the Turks, naturally it's going to be easy for
religious/racist bigots who will be swayed by the influences of Armenian colonists
giving their lopsided "please feel sorry for me" version of events.
Balakian outlined how one infiltrated the ranks of New England intelligentsia, in
his Burning Tigris abomination. Like a stack of dominoes, the influence of
these people spread. The commonly accepted wisdom became the Armenians were the
persecuted victims, and the Turks were reinforced in their familiar role as
barbarians.
Scarcely were the Armenians' role of beginning
their revolutionary groups examined, coming into prominence in the 1880s.
"The Dashnak revolutionary society is
working to stir up a situation in which Muslims and Armenians will attack each
other, and thus pave the way for Russian intervention," Russian
Consul General in Bitlis and Van, General Mayewski, reported. (And the intervention
was not limited to the Russians; other European powers were chomping at the bit to
maintain their stronghold over the "Sick Man of Europe." Dashnak
ideologue, Mikayel Varandian, concurred in his 1932 work, History of the
Dashnagtzoutune: "(By inciting massacres, Armenians) wanted to assure
European intervention"
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Sir Gilbert
Parker
The books of the Canadian novelist (1862-1932)
dealt with either Canada, or England and the empire;
his experience in Australia and elsewhere made him a
strong Imperialist in politics. He moved to England
in 1889 and served in Parliament from 1900 to 1918.
The "First Line" of his book, The Right of Way, was
"Not guilty, your honor!"; For warping the truth as
a propagandist, the verdict is otherwise. |
Of course it will be easy for newspapers of the
period like The New York Times (and sometimes newspapers
of this period, like Ruth Rosen's The San Francisco
Chronicle) to blindly print the war propaganda of
those days, particularly when a branch of Wellington House operated illegally on U.S. soil, directing
these stories. Sir Gilbert Parker, the Canadian managing
this branch, had a list of 170,000 to send anti-German and anti-Turkish propaganda
to the Who's Who of American society, targeting "every
editor and molder of public opinion." What a genuine truth-seeker should ask is
why these reports of hearsay could not constitute evidence when the British
desperately sought to convict the Turks in the more than two years long process of
the Malta Tribunal.
"There is no crime without evidence. A
genocide cannot be written about in the absence of factual proof." So
wrote "genocide scholar" Henry R. Huttenbach, in his
Genocide Forum, in 1996.
And
the Roosevelt quote is the one time
Teddy, under the influence of the avalanche of this propaganda, spoke loudly and
carried a little stick. (Wouldn't this have been a good opportunity for
genocide-conscious Ruth Rosen to have brought up what Teddy had to say about the
United State's crimes in the Philippines War during his presidential watch, when
most of the atrocities occurred? Assuming Ruth Rosen knows much about real history,
which is a mighty big assumption.)
So what cast such a cloud of uncertainty
over the Armenian genocide? The short answer is: oil and military bases. After World
War I, the United States' drive for oil in the Middle East resulted in an alliance
with the new Turkish republic.
Ruth Rosen should forever be embarrassed by
being caught on record for utterly believing Peter Balakian's history at the expense
of checking other sources... as a good journalist is honor-bound to do. The fact of
the matter is, the Turks had all of their oil-producing lands stolen by the British and the French by the
end of 1918. Military bases did not become an issue until the Soviet Union became
more powerful in later years. (Or during the period when the Cold War heated up, as
Rosen mentions later in her article. If there is evidence of any prominent American
thinking of the strategic importance of military bases in Turkey, during 1919-1923,
I have yet to encounter it.)
What should cast a cloud of uncertainty over
Ruth Rosen's zealous, righteous mind is the documentation of her own rear admiral
and surrogate ambassador of the time, Mark
Bristol. This great American was mainly responsible for driving United States
opinion away from phony Armenian propaganda at the period, as he realized his
country would better benefit through friendship with the Turks. He was also a man of honor, and let truth be his
guiding principle.
As an American, Ruth Rosen should be grateful
for the efforts of Mark Bristol, assuming she has even heard of him. It was Turkey's
military might greatly helping to stem the tide of Soviet expansionism during the
dark days of the Cold War. The USA reaped great benefits through her alliance with
Turkey over the years, including an economic trade flow often advantageous to
America. Contrast with how Armenia betrayed her western benefactors by willingly
joining with the Soviet Union, and stiffing the USA on a $50 million + interest loan
made in good faith in Jan. 1920. Armenian money-supported politicians in the USA
(the kind that votes for their genocide resolutions) gave some billion and one half
dollars to Armenia over a decade or so, getting nothing in return.
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Ruth Rosen prints a long quote by a Rabbi
Matthew Berkowitz, railing with the familiar line about Turkish denialism and
coercion (who knew Turkey was such an influential superpower succeeding in such
behind-the-scenes arm-twisting), "and calling on Turkey to take responsibility
for this blemish on humanity."
Since Ruth Rosen prefers to give the soapbox to
a Jewish perspective, she may also wish to consider what "The Jewish Times" had to
say 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 memoirs
of an Armenian army officer who participated in and eye-witnessed these atrocities
was published in the U.S. in 1926 with the title 'Men Are Like That.' Other references abound."
I guess that's one "
blemish on humanity" the Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz and Ruth
Rosen don't give two sticks about, because this truly "hidden holocaust"
is one that simply is not in vogue. The area referred to mainly affected the Tatar
Turks, the inhabitants of today's Azerbaijan. I wonder how many pieces Ruth Rosen
has written about Armenia's illegal attack on the Azeris in 1992, with one billion
dollars of Russian military aid along with many millions from her own country,
resulting in massacres, the taking of a large chunk of Azeri territory condemned by
the United Nations, and perhaps nearly a million refugees still living in conditions
of squalor? This is the more contemporary view of that "genocide" episode,
but I have a feeling we won't have Ruth Rosen voicing her outrage about these
unpopular events.
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"To remain silent or indifferent" Wiesel
reminds us, "is the greatest sin."
Some might say a greater sin would be to not have your historical
facts straight and unethically condemn a people upon no evidence. And if remaining silent
or indifferent is so sinful according to Elie Wiesel, why is he selectively silent and
indifferent to other episodes of Man's Inhumanity to Man? Has he uttered a peep about the over one-half million Turks/Muslims and Ottoman Jews the Armenians deliberately slaughtered during their attempted
ethnic-cleansing policy, while in possession of eastern Anatolia, along with the
Russians? Such hypocrisy is unbearable.
Never forget that Adolf Hitler relied on that silence when he
said on Aug. 22, 1939, "Who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the
Armenians?"
And what better way to cap off a genocide article than to end with
the coup de grace... the line the Armenians' greatest moral witness most likely never uttered?
Thank you, Ruth Rosen, for predictably following the typical
Armenian Genocide article formula to a tee. You would do your profession, not to mention
your personal honor, a greater service if you only would bother to lift a finger to
examine all sides of the stories you write.
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ADDENDUM: A Bit About
the Author, Ruth Rosen
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Ruth
Rosen |
Ruth Rosen edits the monthly Jews
for Jesus Newsletter, an organization which is described on its web site as the
"world's largest Jewish evangelism agency." Her father, Moishe
Rosen, founded the organization. She received a degree in biblical studies from
Biola College in Southern California, according to her bio on the J for J web site.
In an article she co-wrote (along with her dad and the J for J Executive Director's assistant)
entitled, "When Jews Were Proselytizers" (here),
she gives credence to the missionizing nature of Jews by citing ' the pagan converts
(of) the (Turkic) Khazars in the ... 8th
century.') We are also told:
The rise of Islam in the seventh century added other
obstacles to the missionizing efforts of Jews. In 624 Mohammed began his persecution
of the Arabian Jews. By 628, the death sentence was decreed for those Jews who
accepted a Moslem convert to Judaism.
Nowhere in the article is mentioned how the Muslim Turks
served as one of Judaism's rare historical saviors. Looks like the Muslims are the
bad guys in her mind.
Is Ruth Rosen following the proud tradition of the Ottoman
Empire's missionaries, and feels she is duty-bound to make the Turks appear as
monsters?
In an August 26, 2004 Jewish Tribune article
("Jews for Jesus are back in a big way again"), we're told:
Ruth Rosen is ... 50 years old, she loves Jews, Israel and
Christianity. A middle-aged balding man wearing glasses walked up to her, jabbing
his finger, screaming loudly, repeatedly: “You are despicable. You should be
ashamed of yourself.”
Perhaps the middle-aged balding man knew what he was talking
about.
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