(QUESTIONS) Tall Armenian Tale: The Other Side of the Falsified Genocide

Elsewhere on this site, I have not shirked from meeting every sensible (and usually not so sensible) assertion from the Armenian camp that desperately tries to prove there was a genocide. Genocide, that is, as defined by the 1948 U.N. convention, and the way most of us understand the word: a government sponsored, systematic extermination. The Turks don’t hide the fact massacres were committed on their end, usually by Muslim citizens who were out for revenge on the Armenians because the Armenians slaughtered their own... once the Armenians fired the “First Shot.” Therefore, the eyewitness accounts of suffering/murdered Armenians even by the more reliable parties — of whom there were few impartial observers — do not constitute as proof of state-sponsored genocide.

Let’s keep in mind, when the tables are turned, Armenians are very good at making up any kind of assertion, in order to curtail the bleeding of their carefully constructed big lie, which so overwhelmingly has enjoyed the support of historically anti-Turkish Christian Westerners. The Armenians have said they were targeted because of their Christian status, avoiding the facts of the Ottomans’ famously known religious tolerance and the Armenians’ own centuries long-held position as the favored people of the empire. They have said the Ottomans were after financial plunder, ignoring the fact that the truly wealthy Armenians were concentrated in the bigger cities of the West, where they mostly weren’t subjected to the resettlement program. (The Armenian, Pantikyan, claimed any wealth taken by the Turkish/Kurdish raiders did not even amount to one percent of what Armenian terror groups stole from wealthy Armenians.) They have said it was the Turks’ racist goal to implement a policy of pan-Turkism, not addressing the fact that a few voices having extreme views and mad dreams is a far cry from official government policy... not to mention other non-ethnically Turkish minorites (Jews, Arabs, Georgians, Gypsies, many more in the huge melting pot that was the Ottoman Empire) that weren’t subjected to this so-called purification program. They have said they did not betray their nation where they prospered for centuries, in the nation's darkest hour, but instead explained their violence as "self-defense"... ignoring their own sources, such as the1923 Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, Armenia's First Prime Minister... and "Men Are Like That," the 1926 memoirs of an Armenian officer who participated in the Armenian massacres of Turks (which The Jewish Times referred to in June 21, 1990 as "An appropriate analogy with the Jewish Holocaust .")

When the facts are in pathetically short supply to support their cause, the Armenians have resorted to a systematic campaign of lies and forgeries. They have enlisted as a moral witness to their cause none other than one of history's most infamous villains, Adolf Hitler, milking a quote the Fuehrer likely never said, ad infinitum. They have resorted to character assassination (from putting down American intellectual John Dewey in response to one of the few pro-Turkish articles that appeared by the rare, unbiased Westerner back in the 1920s, to falsely accusing Sam Weems as being a “convicted felon” (among other things), in response to one of the few pro-Turkish books that appeared by the rare, unbiased Westerner in our current 21st Century... along with their concerted efforts to destroy the reputations of the rare, unbiased historians by claiming they are Turkish, they are the tool of the Turks, etcetera.) They have resorted to intimidation tactics, by bringing people who oppose their views to COURT (!) in lands with laws that originally had a different purpose in mind, and sometimes by actually trying to kill such parties, as when Armenian extremists bombed the house of Professor Stanford Shaw. Such a violent shakedown program would certainly make future historians think twice before digging into potentially dangerous waters... rattled targets of shakedown can easily consider going to the Armenian/Greek side, as in the case of actor Antonio (“If you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em”) Banderas.

Death threats by Armenians are a common tactic, as one can see in practically any guestbook of Armenian/Turkish web sites. (An Armenian-American was arrested when he threatened to kill President W. Bush, in response to the American government’s consideration of subjecting Armenia to more stringent anti-terrorist regulations. The wish to kill anyone perceived as anti-Armenian happens alarmingly too often, among Armenians. The American government abandoned the idea, by the way... after a bombardment of letters and e-mails to the White House, from the Armenian-American "militia." Fortunately for the Armenians, too many government officials and politicians love to kowtow to Armenian demands.)

Because Armenians have had the upper hand for so long, basking in the luxury of Christian (and too many Jewish) Westerners accepting their claims with no questions asked, they are very spoiled. This is why, during the last generation (when Turkey reversed its policy of not dwelling on the tragedies of the past in the mature hope of concentrating on the issues that unite us), suddenly Armenians have been caught in the uncomfortable position of needing to support their... ehh... "exaggerations." While most of their big gun historians no doubt are fully aware of the real facts, a lot of average Armenians passionately believe in the truth of the Armenian "Genocide"; the truth of the "Genocide" is the very cause of being for far too many of them, and their belief in its occurrence along with related anti-Turkish hatred are much too deeply-rooted for many to open their minds. That's their psychological problem, and I hope one day they will be able to overcome it... however, in the meantime, how do they respond whenever they hear something contrary to their deeply-rooted beliefs? Here's the list of excuses: "Turkish lies," "Denialism of genocide," "Turkish revisionism," "The Turkish government says..."

Go through the pages of this site and see whether accounts from traditionally-Turk-hating Westerners are lies, or not. Westerners have had no reason to love Turks since the Crusades; while Westerners have plenty of reason to lie when they speak for the beloved Christian Armenians, they have ZERO reason to lie when they give accounts against the Armenians (and Greeks).

Warning: You Armenians (and their supporters) are still able to get away with sidetracking the real issues, because you still enjoy the sympathy of Christian (and Jewish) Westerners, who are just too lazy or prejudiced to think for themselves. However, this situation will not last forever... you can COUNT on it. You will no longer be able to rely on the testimonies of U.S. consuls, British propagandists, missionaries, newspaper reports, or your fellow Armenians (along with their forged documents and sob stories) of the period. Each of these sources had their own agendas, and the world will awaken to the fact that to rely on any of them is akin (as Bruce Fein pointed out) to relying on the Ku Klux Klan to get a fair account of American blacks.

Since the Armenian "Genocide" is your sad obsession, there will come a time when ALL you can rely on to prove a state-sponsored system of extermination actually took place is no-buts-about-it, hard, documented evidence. The British tried desperately to come up with exactly what you need... at the end of World War I, when they tried to prosecute Ottoman officials at the Malta Tribunals. They failed miserably. Do you think you will do any better?

Good luck.

Here is my list of questions for Armenians and their supporters:

1) Why was every single Ottoman official, incarcerated for war crimes during the nearly two-and-a-half years of the Malta Tribunals, finally acquitted? Especially when they were in the hands of the occupying British force, a country (among others, but mainly it was Lloyd George’s Great Britain) who tried to wipe Turkey off the face of the earth... and every Ottoman document was freely available (before the days “shredding” would come to mind) to the Allies and their crack team of Armenian researchers?

THIS IS THE QUESTION THAT WOULD PUT AN END TO THE “ARMENIAN GENOCIDE” MATTER, TO ANY LOGICAL MIND. I HAVE NOT SEEN THE MALTA TRIBUNALS REFERRED TO IN ANY OF THE ARMENIAN WEB SITES. (ADDENDUM: Malta is referred to at times, and excuses are offered, such as "British POWs." One must read all of the British archives, not just the parts that are propagandistically supportive.)

2) The “Sick Man of Europe” was on her knees, financially broke and depleted of manpower (thanks to German-directed military mobilization) and needed resources. Why would the empire choose this most inopportune time to target the Armenians, who made the financial wheels turn and were clearly a vital resource to the country? Even if the Ottomans had the racist/religious zeal to wipe out the Armenians, wouldn’t it have been sensible to wait until they had won the war to do so? Do not give the argument that the Turks were mentally weak, as Ambassador Morgenthau and practically every other Turcophobe of the period loved to claim... this would have been a matter of insanity, not stupidity. (An Armenian from an Armenian guestbook opined the Turks could not have managed the genocide because they WERE mentally weak [or "imbecilic," as he put it; actually, his exact word was "imbicle"]; and the ones who pulled the genocide strings were... the Jews!! You won't find influential Armenians publicly criticizing the Jews, since the Jews are to be clung to as the Armenians' "genocide life raft"... but anti-Semitism runs rampant in Armenian guestbooks, among the "commoners.")

3) The “Sick Man of Europe” was on her knees, financially broke. Why would she spend a fortune on resettling the Armenians? If the idea was to wipe them out, why didn’t they massacre them on the spot, as the Armenians did with the Turks? Surely this money would have been better spent elsewhere. (261 million kurush until Oct. 1916; Gurun, The Armenian File, footnoted as Genelkurmay, 1/2, KLS 361, File 1445, F. 15-22; more on this discussed here.)

4) Speaking of killing centers, while the Armenians’ usual 1.5 million figure of their murdered own is certainly less than the Nazis’ 6 million murdered Jews (keep in mind the Germans had a little more time, too... from 1942-1945, while the Armenian “Genocide” took place largely between 1915-1916)... it would be quite an effort to murder on such a grand scale. Especially when every military man was desperately needed at the fronts, the reason why the gendarmes assigned to protect the marching Armenians were few in number and low in quality. Even the Nazis went through a trial and error period before getting the science of genocide down pat. And we know the Germans are famous for scientific and other skills, order and efficiency, just as much as the Turks are known (Turcophobes like Morgenthau and George Horton would be the first to agree) to be disordered, lazy and incompetent. (Turcophobes also like to point to the fact that the Turks were so incapable, they had to go outside the country to get almost every need. Even their fezes were manufactured in Austria, one wrote. On the other side of the coin, Ambassador Morgenthau wrote in his ghostwritten book that one effect of the old capitulations was that the Ottomans were FORCED to buy their goods from outside..! The Turks are always damned if they do or don't.) The question then becomes.... could the Ottoman Turks have the TECHNOLOGICAL capacity to carry out a government-sponsored genocide on such a grand scale?

5) If the idea of the resettlement program was to subject the Armenians to a slow, genocidal death, why did so many Armenians survive? Turcophobes such as Christopher Walker love making dramatic statements to the tune of Armenians being deliberately sent to the desert “to die.” This gives the impression that the Armenians, already weakened after an arduous march, were abandoned in the middle of the sands, surrounded by the occasional bedouins who would do their best to finish off the last of them. (Was Aleppo, in Syria, that sandy and barren? Aleppo was kind of a "city," wasn't it? Of course, Aleppo was not the only destination, there was Damascus, and other cities) Why didn’t they all die? The Armenians had no picnic... they faced famine and disease (like their fellow Ottoman Muslims), added to the shock and tribulations of being transplanted. However, it’s not like they were without support, where they wound up. Where the Turks failed with what must have been their inadequate support system (they couldn't even feed Turks), the Christian relief organizations were around to take up the slack.

Estimates of the Ottoman-Armenian population

5b) As a follow-up... We can believe the Armenians' "cooked book" figures, or we can trust over half a dozen neutral sources from the period that state the Armenian population could not have surpassed a million and a half. A recent Armenian anti-Turkish "proclamation" claims one million Armenians survived the war, which means the number of dead Armenians from all causes afflicting all Ottoman citizens numbered around half a million. Since it's so hard to believe this large number could have died through old-fashioned, untechnological "brute force" methods, in a dying empire with limited manpower and resources, desperately fighting a war on five fronts, the Armenians and their supporters claim "starvation" during the relocations was another murder method... handily forgetting even sources such as Henry Morgenthau stated thousands of Turks were dying daily from the deplorable conditions (that is, famine and disease truly affected everybody, not just the Armenians). However, if we imagine starvation was the convenient murder method, how much effort would it have taken to pick off the few resilient human beings who didn't easily die from lack of nourishment? If there was a true government sponsored policy of extermination, why leave the barely-living starved alive? In short, it all boils down to: how could the great majority...one million out of less than one and a half million... have survived?

6) When the Armenians engaged in their policy of systematic extermination, much closer a parallel to the Holocaust than the arbitrary massacres by the Turks, they made sure to slaughter everyone, down to the children. Their goal was complete annihilation. Why then, would the Turks fool around by going through the musical chairs of separating the men (remember, the Armenians claim the men were largely unarmed)? Also, why were there supposedly so many orphans? If a government has in mind to wipe out a race, why leave so many children alive? The Armenians didn’t intend to leave the Turkish children alive. (Their cowardly goons, like the "Jew Hunter," General Dro... who went on to help the Nazis with the Final Solution... seemed to have made a point to specifically target the helpless children.)

7) Hitler began by targeting the Jews in Berlin. Why were the Armenians in Istanbul and other cities of the West such as Izmir, left alone for the most part? The Armenians say this was because these cities were under too much foreign observation. However, the Ottomans were aware, after generations of being subjected to capitulations, that foreign posts were set up even in the distant corners of the empire... as readily under foreign observation. (American consuls of these out-of-the-way distant provinces, such as Leslie Davis [the genocide-proving “big gun” highlighted in the PBS pro-Armenian programs covered at this site], were among them. In addition, the missionaries were everywhere.) Don’t forget, after being humiliated by the big powers’ imposed capitulations during the previous century or two, the Ottomans finally felt empowered to remove their shackles during World War I. (Ambassador Morgenthau himself supports this idea in his ghostwritten book.) Finally, it was the chance of the Turks to “stick it” to the domineering big powers; if systematic murder was on their minds, do you think they would have cared about what these powers would think of them? No matter WHAT the Turks did, they knew their name would be mud in the eyes of these powers, in any event!

8) As a related point (brought up by Turkish professor Turkkaya Ataöv... in his words:), "Talat Pas(h)a allowed the American missionaries to do relief work among the Armenians, in spite of the fact that Turkey and the United States were on the opposing camps during the war. How many examples are there in history of a combatant country permitting the citizens of another country fighting in the other camp to stay, feed, cloth and educate the people it is accused of exterminating?" BIG food for thought. Demonstrates an admirable magnanimity for a leader dumbly characterized by an Armenian apologist as "a man whose crimes equaled those of Hitler and Stalin." At any rate, Talat Pasha and the rest of the Ottoman leaders were bitterly aware of the horrendously unfair and untrue charges hurled against them, especially in the American media... and they must have been aware many of these lies originated with the biased missionaries. If a genocide campaign was planned, would it not have been sensible to round these unfriendly religious "witnesses" up first, and boot them out of the country? Where the Armenians were, the missionaries were... if the Armenians were to be murdered, why add fuel to the propaganda fires kept alive by the missionaries?

9a) The Armenian perspective never fails to offer the convictions Turkish courts laid out to their own officials immediately after the war, and the Sevres Treaty, which partly proclaimed a large chunk of Eastern Turkey to be part of Armenia. Any objective analyzer can conclude both are meaningless: the kangaroo courts under Allied control laid blame to Turkish officials for every crime they could think of, and the Sevres Treaty was stillborn and not implemented, ultimately replaced by the Lausanne Treaty. (For which some Armenians cannot forgive the Greeks, a co-signer of the treaty... forgetting Armenia's own treaty, mention of which is coming up.) The reason why you keep seeing these two viewpoints in Armenian/Greek literature and web sites is another demonstration of their lack of ethics; those who are not well informed can be more easily swayed by accepting the offered “facts” at face value. For a better proof of judging whether a genocide occurred, one must look at the Treaty of Leninakan (Gümrü) signed (December 3, 1920) by the Armenians and Turks, which closed the book on past ills, foregoing the issue of reparations. If the Armenians were truly outraged over the Turks’ Nazi-like evil campaign to exterminate them, how could they have agreed to such terms?

9b) As a follow-up, Judge Sam Weems (of "Armenia — Secrets of a 'Christian' Terrorist State") brings up the following notion, quoting Professor Hovannisian, from pg. 54 of "The Republic of Armenia": "Armenian diplomatic labor... had been frustrated. In an ironic paradox Armenia turned to the Ottoman Empire." Weems asks: "If the Ottoman Empire really did commit the crime of genocide from 1915-1919, as Armenians allege, then why would the newly established Armenia turn to the Ottoman Empire for help in 1918, 1919, or 1920?" If the Armenians truly believed the Ottoman Turks intended to annihilate the Armenians, that would have made no sense whatsoever! Imagine if Israel was created in 1943, and then turning to the existing Nazi Germany for help.

10) As yet another follow-up, why didn't Armenian delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, Boghos Nubar Pasha, mention the "genocide" in his January 30, 1919 letter to The Times of London? (He did refer to "unspeakable sufferings and... dreadful losses," but those do not a genocide make; every involved party suffered those during the war. Boghos Nubar instead stressed how the Armenians fought against the Turks as belligerents.) If he was attempting to get the sympathy of the Allies in order to gain more goodies from the Turks, wouldn't that have been the perfect opportunity to once again pull the Christian folks' heartstrings? After World War II, Israel was created in large part because the Jews were the victims of an extermination policy.... and the powers involved, chiefly President Harry Truman, felt morally obligated to help the Jews establish a homeland. In short, why did the Armenians clutch on for dear life to the “Genocide” only after the Sevres Treaty was abrogated, their hope for establishing an Armenian State on Ottoman territory was dashed, and previously Armenian officials stressed they were officially a party to the war?

...So many people get these views with "their mother's milk" so to speak. Logic or history does not enter into it. Much of it derives from propaganda that no one — including the Turks — has bothered to correct... If the huge Muslim diaspora from the Balkans and the Caucasus in the last century and the early part of this century had gone to N. America instead of to Turkey the picture would be vastly different today! Armenians and Greeks in the diaspora have made the image of the "Terrible Turk" a central part of their ethnic identity. It has become an article of faith the consequence of which has been a reverse scholarship — belief first, inquiry second. Of course, we all know, in principle, that if you want to research something you have to look into the facts and then produce an opinion afterwards. You can't "back engineer" history the way you can a piece of technology because history is organic.

NICK, guestbook commentator, 11/7/99

11) Most who are versed in this subject are aware of the Talat Pasha telegrams that were forged by Aram Andonian. One authentic ciphered telegram which Talat Pasha sent to the Governor of Diyarbakir (on July 12, 1915) reveals the Turkish leader demanding an investigation of massacre reports emanating from the region... and, further, Talat Pasha demands that the “law enforcement and political” measures implemented against the Armenians should not be enforced against other Christians and that there has to be an immediate and definite stop to all similar events that threaten the lives of all Christians in the region. (Archives Directory General, Armenians in Ottoman Documents 19 15-1920, Ankara 1995, Document: 71) Ironically, given his villainous status by genocide advocates, Talat Pasha obviously desired the safety of all Christians in the area, including the Armenians... in an environment where there were fears of a “Muslim retaliation” (thanks to the prior massacre of almost 90,000 Turks in Kars-Ardahan, Van and Bitlis by Armenian rebels). How could a government allegedly following a campaign of extermination against Armenians come up with such a contradictory order, and from the Minister of the Interior... the top man in charge?

12) If the Armenians are so convinced a genocide occurred, and assuming their typically exemplary character suffers a shortfall by not recognizing the terms of the Leninakan treaty, why don’t they take their case to an international legal body, such as the World Court? I understand the Azerbaijanis took their case of being massacred by the Armenians in the early 1990s to the court in The Hague.

13a) To me, the most incriminating evidence of the Turks' wrongdoing are the disturbing reports by the German officers. As allies of the Turks, the Germans should have had no reason to lie about the tragedies, any more than the Russians would have had to lie, when they reported the murderous nature of their lackeys, the Armenians. (Although not all Geman officers were unanimous in their conclusions, as with this 1921 report by a genuine eyewitness... versus the bulk of the anti-Turkish reports that came from Germans sitting behind desks.) However, nobody is denying massacres of Armenians occurred; the Germans were reporting on such brutalities, and this is no proof of a government-sponsored genocide. (Germans are also Christians, and not all were immune to the trappings of the "barbaric Moslems prone to slaughter Christians" school of thought.) In the trial of Talat Pasha's assassin, however, General Liman von Sanders, high commander of the German forces, as witness for the defense, testified: "In the five years I was in Turkey, I never saw an order signed by Talaat against the Armenians..." Since the Germans were, for all intents and purposes, behind the workings of the Ottoman war machine, how is it possible that such a key German general not come across any government-sponsored genocidal order? (Von Sanders further testified he received many telegrams.) If a government decides to commit genocide, they would have to let their local officials to know about such a policy, so that the genocide could be carried out.

13b) Continuing with the above: as stated in An Unjust Trial, "None of the relocation orders, whether public or secret, which have been reviewed by historians to date, orders murder. Instead, they order Ottoman officials to protect relocated Armenians." (And we're not talking about phony orders, like the words forger Aram Andonian put in Talat Pasha's mouth, that unscrupulous Armenians are still trying to pass off as the truth.) When such a huge undertaking as the displacement of many thousands is implemented, communication would be essential... the local leaders would have to get their instructions from somewhere in order to carry them out. (Not to mention countless "follow-up" messages surely needed to fine-tune such an immense undertaking.) If a systematic extermination was truly planned, how would these local leaders have heard about them? Smoke signals?

14) Why did the Ottoman government pursue, arrest, try and convict – to the extent of actually executing, in some cases – their own officials and soldiers who had erred in carrying out the Armenian relocation orders? Twenty men were executed in 1915, and many more (among a thousand) were likely punished in less extreme ways. (ADDENDUM, 5-06: Here is an update of the punished people during the war.) Did Armenia try its murderers at any time? Quite the contrary, the mass-murdering Dro was celebrated by Armenia's president and even "moral" patriarch in 2000. What kind of a genocidal government would give orders to annihilate a segment of the population and then seriously (you can't get any more serious than DEATH) punish the people in charge of carrying out the orders?

15) One major foundation of the Armenians' arguments has rested with the false Christian vs. Moslem charge... ironic for the Ottoman Empire to be so charged — a nation far ahead of its times regarding religious tolerance — but Armenians knew how to tug the heartstrings of their Christian sympathizers in the West, aware as they were (and are) of how Turks/Muslims are perceived as barbaric. If the reason for the genocide was a feeding frenzy against the hated Christians, why were Catholic and Protestant Armenians (the ones the missionaries succeeded in converting) largely exempt from the relocations? (Also exempt were officers, soldiers and their families, the ill, the blind, "merchants," along with some "workers and masters.") If the idea is to murder the Armenian people, NOBODY would have been exempt. Did Hitler leave any loopholes for the Jews? (Aside from perhaps a few individuals, for propaganda purposes.)

16) How could so many Armenians be left behind to commit the slaughters against Turkish villagers within the Ottoman Empire after 1916, if they were so "annihilated"? It was after this year the Armenians tried to form governments in the Turkish vilayets under their control, and they had enough men to form armies (it seems the mischief Armenians committed before 1917 were at the hands of Armenian bands). Could it be many fled to Russia instead of being relocated, and then returned? Utilizing figures from Richard Hovannisian, Justin McCarthy has prepared an excellent case study of the Armenians in Erzurum: "Most ... were not killed by the Turks and other Muslims, unless they were killed in battle as they fought Ottoman forces. Nor were many Erzurum Armenians deported. They went to the Russian Empire, where they did die of starvation and disease in great numbers... just as Muslim refugees died." (Everywhere one turns, the Armenian "Genocide" gets to be a bigger and bigger crock.)

17) The following point doesn’t directly fit the “Why there could have been no genocide” style of the others, but it’s related: It is the contention of Armenians and their Turk-hating supporters that any historian going against the established view of Turkish guilt must be a tool of the Turks; they are in the pocketbook of the Turkish government. Never mind the inequity of the Armenian hold over academia, supported by Armenian financial and lobbying support (where historians such as Professor Hovannisian basically act as subjective mouthpieces for the Armenian cause). How much money can the Turkish government afford to spend in this area, anyway? Is money burning that much of a hole in the Turkish government’s pocket? (If the nation was that rich, Turkey would have already been a part of the EU, Moslem nation or not.) Regardless, could every single historian be a paid lackey of the Turks? (Sixty-nine of them this declaration in 1985.) Even if the historians were paid agents, would each and every one of the universities they work for be complicit with the arrangement? When Turkey does offer money to universities, is it out of the need to diabolically conceal her own alleged guilt, or is it out of an attempt to offer the real truth, and even the playing field a little after the Armenians (and Greeks) have enjoyed total say for so long? Even if Turkey succeeded in getting lackeys hired in these universities, once the professors gain a foothold, how can Turkey control the minds of ALL of these professors? These educators would all have to be very sinister and unethical people to maintain such a false pretense, if they didn’t believe in the Turkish perspective (unlike Armenian educators, some of whom are aware of the true facts, but are able to maintain a facade, for emotional and other reasons)... assuming they would all be under the Turkish payroll perpetually, which would be quite an expensive proposition for an economically unstable country.

18) Once Richard Hovannisian is referred to (in “The Republic of Armenia”) as having written the Armenians wanted “the return of refugees to their native districts,” Sam Weems makes the following point: “this revelation flies in the face of Armenian allegations that Turks committed genocide. After all, why would anyone wish to return to a place where, allegedly, a heinous crime like systematic annihilation of his kin took place? Would the Jews wish to return to Auschwitz?” In his excellent “Armenia -- Secrets of a ‘Christian’ Terrorist State,” 2002, pg. 90, Weems also questions the Armenians’ “1.5 million murdered” claim: “In the first place, 1.5 million people were more Armenians than they claimed who lived in these districts. There clearly were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of refugees, and obviously 1.5 million of them could not have been murdered.” He wraps up with, “The only reasonable explanation for this revelation is that the truth tells us... it was an armed conflict triggered by Armenian betrayals and ended up in forced relocation of those Armenians during the time of World War I.” (Note: after 1916, many Armenians trickled back from the Arab regions they were resettled to, and Ataturk granted the right of return for the rest, for a limited period, in the Treaty of Gumru. The Russians, according to “What Every Armenian Should Know,” were not as generous.)

19) Immediately after the war, the British attempted to find "genocide" culprits quickly, before observing the rule of law with the planned Malta Tribunal. The Ottomans asked five neutral countries to send representatives to impartially investigate the resettlement measures, on February 18, 1919. (K. Gurun's "The Armenian File," p. 231; Turkish archives claims date as Feb. 13.) Would it be logical for a nation guilty of genocide to ask other countries to come and investigate? Only a nation that had nothing to hide would take such a step.

20) Pro-Armenians like to compare the Ottomans with the Nazis, that is, the innocent Armenians were killed because they were different, and thus hated. ("Turkey for the Turks.") At the same time, they also like to claim there are up to 2 million "crypto" Armenians in Turkey, an assertion Fatma Muge Gocek affirmed. As we know, even if a German had a drop of Jewish blood, that would spell a one-way ticket to a concentration camp. Why weren't these Armenians, for example the ones who had converted to Islam, also killed? As already asked in Question 6, why were so many Armenian orphans left alive? When a nation has an ideology for racial extermination, they do not waste time with converting the ones of the hated race, or with feeding their orphans. Compare with the Armenians' systematic extermination efforts based on hatred; they murdered hundreds of thousands of fellow Ottomans, even Jews and Greeks... even Armenians who had converted!... because these people did not fit the "Aryan-Christian-Armenian" mold. These murderous Armenians did not bother with a "relocation" policy.

21a & 21b) The relocation policy is a synonym for "genocide." Talat Pasha sent orders to stop the movements as early as August 1915, and sent several reminders because central government control was weak and locals took matters into their own hands. This raises two questions. [1] If central control was so weak (as Morgenthau himself asserted), how could the government have been behind a "Final Solution"? [2] If the relocation process was all but over by 1916 (as Dadrian himself asserted), why would the "genocide" had come to a halt? There were still plenty of Armenians left to be slaughtered. The Armenian Patriarch's 644,900 left in what was left of the empire by 1921 would have been an impossibility.

Five More Questions

After writing the above, I came across the following written by an Azerbaijani who had a similar idea (instead of always being on the defensive, countering the unending Armenian charges usually not based on fact... how about forcing the Armenians to be on the defensive? Wow, what a concept).

I see there is only one overlapping with what I've come up with (Question #2); Questions 4 and 5 don't really qualify... they have more to do with the author's frustrations with the betrayal of Armenians against his own country. However... Questions 1 and 3 are extremely thought-provoking, and wonderful.

Five questions on the so-called "Armenian Genocide"

Ph. D. Ahmed Geshemoglu (Baku / Azerbaijan)
Poet-Sociologist

Herewith I want to make known my unbiased view on the subject of the genocide. I would very much wish that my questions listed below be directed to the parliaments and heads of states, which recognize or intend to recognize so-called Armenian genocide.

When I face the Armenians, I don't get into extended discussions but rather ask them only five questions. And usually I put a condition before them that if I get persuasive answers, I will then support the Armenians as well. So far I could not get answers from any of the Armenians coming from different walks of life, to whom I have repeatedly addressed these questions. I wish that all the people, who love the truth would address these and similar questions to the Armenians, the international organizations of the world, parliaments, and politicians and ask them to ponder upon these questions before taking any decision on this issue.

1.. You affirm that the Turks committed the genocide and destroyed a million and half of Armenians. If so many people were destroyed within a short time at the dawn of the century as a result of a genocide, then why not one of the then most active and prominent politicians such as V. Lenin, J. Reed and other personalities, who used to voice their attitude toward the events taking place in the world did not express any attitude to this particular event?

2.. You affirm that the Turks slaughtered 1,5 million of Armenians. If so, then please tell us with which weapons and within which time period did they kill so many people? Because by means of swords, cannons and riffles it is impossible to kill so many people. I urge you to take a pen and a sheet of paper and make calculations.

3.. If the Turks slaughtered 1,5 million of Armenians, perhaps 300-500 thousand of their own people must have unquestionably been killed. If that is true, then where are the bones of the approximately 2 millions of people. If that were the case, lots of bones would have been discovered on a big territory. Moreover, if so many people died it would have been impossible to bury them. In that case a large-scale epidemic would have broken on that same territory. Can you explain all of that?

4.. During the entire history the Armenians always had to find refuge under other nations and live under their patronage. All of these nations except Azerbaijan looked down upon the Armenians and did not trust them much. This is reflected in historical records such "Gobusname" book and in a number of other sources and records of the modern history. Even nowadays this is the case. Only the Azerbaijanis treated the Armenians most kindly, were a support to them and held them dearer then themselves. Only with the help of the Azerbaijanis was there an affability created between the Armenians and the Turks. Only in the union with the Azerbaijanis were successful possibilities opened for the future of the Armenians. That being the case, what can we say to the "biting the hands that fed them"
committed by the Armenians?

5.. If you did not create the contention, you now would have with the help of the wealthy Armenians privatized many things ranging from oil, small workshops, industries in Azerbaijan. Using Azerbaijan's resources you have embellished Armenia, established a true national autonomy in Nagorno-Karabakh. Why don't you realize what you have been deprived of?

I call upon all the Armenians to ponder over these questions and draw conclusions.

"Sahil" Information and Research Center
azerigenocide.org, khojaly.net, january20.net

Baku / Azerbaijan

The following are excerpts from a reaction by Professor Mahmut Ozan on the Turkish Forum:

The "five" questions you have formulated are superb and very erudite in every way. Unfortunately no Armenian-sympathizing politician, or Armenian lobbyist, nor their backers will dare to answer them. Because if they did truthfully they would prove the fallacy of the Armenian genocide claims and you would be helping them to hang themselves.

The American Congressmen and the Senators who back them to the hilt, and blindly support their every whim in order to obtain a few votes and goodly-sized monetary favors won't touch any of your logical "five" questions. There are (160) of them so far who have sold their souls to the Armenian voters, they will never agree with the crux of your questions. I repeat, because, if they did they would be among the very first politicians who would lose their benefits by infuriating their "paymasters."

---------------------------------------

Holdwater would like to embellish "Question Number Three."

Armenians like Professor Dennis Papazian generally tell us 1.5 million Armenians were "annihilated." (Unless they freak out, as Dr. Papazian did with the Armenian FAQ, depending on their moods... and suddenly claim another figure, like three million.) Ohh-kayyy... we also know from Armenophiles such as Christopher Walker that most of these Armenians "were just dumped in the desert to die," and "journalist" Robert "Tsk-Tsk" Fisk tells us that "The bones of one and a half million Armenians still lie in the Middle East deserts."

In this evidently phony photo (note sharp difference in quality
in the foreground bone elements) prepared by an Armenian
and featured in many Armenian web sites, we are asked to
believe these bones were excavated in some unknown time and
place. But hold on! It's OBVIOUSLY "the desert of Der-el-Zor."
(That's what it says, so it must be true.) By the way, here is
an account by none other than Henry Morgenthau himself,
as to what happened to the Armenians at Zor... straight
from the mouth of an Ottoman-Armenian leader.

I realize this will be hard to imagine, but let's figure "Tsk-Tsk" was... ehhhhh... "exaggerating" a smidgeon, and some of these "annihilated" Armenians died before they landed in the desert. However, most of them were "deported," so instead of 1.5 million who were "annihilated" in the desert, why don't we say... in all fairness... maybe one million were "annihilated" in the desert?

Now I've got a brilliant idea as to how the Armenians can finally prove the Armenian "Genocide"! Since we just KNOW Armenians will never be able to come up with conclusive evidence, to the order of:

"You have knowledge that the government has decided the thorough extermination of the Armenian population living in Turkey. Everyone who has a contrary opinion cannot continue to be a member of the State administration. There must be an end to their existence without any mercy for the women, children and invalid persons regardless of the awful means of extermination."

(The foregoing was signed by Talat Pasha, exactly the kind of documented evidence the Armenians need to prove their falsified genocide. Unfortunately, this particular piece of "evidence" was forged by Aram Andonian, although that still doesn't stop Armenian web sites from putting it up as pure fact.)

Since Armenians like Vahakn Dadrian have been making a good living from this genocide racket, why don't they pool their resources, and go to these "killing fields" (or "killing sands"... the deserts, y'know). Simply, excavate the skeletons! By God, there must be no end to the bones, since we are talking at least ONE MILLION "annihilated" Armenians.

Of course, Dr. Dadrian will have to bring along genuine people with integrity to vouch he really found a million skeletons. And, oh... what about the annoying possibility that not all the skeletons might be Armenian in origin? Here is how a helpful Armenian in a guestbook suggested one can easily get by that potentially sticky problem:

From: HAYASA
Date: 12/2/1999

Comments
Anyone can not claim the photos of murdered Armenians in Turkey 1915 as theirs. Armenians are a very uniqe race and any antropologist can see that the victims ARE Armenians and not mongoloid turks. Fuck you, turk.
---

Please, Armenians, do not thank me! At LAST you can prove your precious genocide, and you shall have me, Holdwater, to thank. (I don't know why you haven't come up with this idea before...)

You haven't won the debate until you have refuted your opponent's strongest arguments.

John Stuart Mill (paraphrased)

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