General Harbord

Chapter 26, “The American Mandate for Armenia,” opens with a quote from General Harbord: “We literally dreamed Armenia and massacres.” I’d say those who vehemently became so pro-Armenian definitely dreamed of an Armenia in place of Turkey, and definitely dreamed up the many massacres that did not take place. (The song with the line, “I’m a dreamer… ‘cause dreaming can make you mine,” illustrates the hopes dreaming provides, when we desperately want something to be true.)

“While… in the spring of 1919… the fledgling Armenian Republic was trying to survive assaults from Turkey…” Balakian begins. We’ve already provided American and Armenian sources regarding who was assaulting whom, and the aggressor certainly was not the torn-apart nation of Turkey... and least not with lands the Turks did not own before WWI began. Balakian is referring to the period shortly after December 14, 1918, when Armenia attempted a land grab attempt by launching a surprise and unprovoked attack on its neighbor, Georgia. Days later, the premier of Georgia declared: “Who had ever heard of war over a few incidents in a village or two? The real explanation could be found in the character of Kachaznuni's government, which, like the wolf, eats the calf because such is its nature. That government could not live in peace and was obsessed with battling one or another of its neighbors, for like the wolf, it had to devour everything.” (Richard Hovannisian’s “The Republic of Armenia, Vol. 1”)

The chapter covers two fact-finding commissions to Turkey, the first being the King-Crane Commission. The author fills us in on who these men were: Henry C. King was a “theologian,” which sounds like he could have been a missionary (ADDENDUM: Hovannisian tells us in Republic of Armenia, p. 323, that King was the president of Oberlin College, the school for missionaries. King was not just a missionary, he was a missionary king!), and Charles R. Crane was a former secretary of the original Committee on Armenian Atrocities in 1915. Good, neutral, unbiased gentlemen. They interviewed many missionaries. Turks who were interviewed were unwilling to “accept the cession of any territory for the creation of a non-Turkish state.” (The very idea!)

I’ve read this report, and there were actually some parts that seemed open-minded, like the outlining of the secret treaties between England, France, Russia and Italy, regarding the carving up of the Ottoman Empire. Very briefly, the authors even allowed themselves to pay the following compliment:

One may recognize fully the agreeable and attractive personal qualities of the Turks that commonly make them the best liked, probably, of all the peoples of the Empire, and that almost unconsciously turn most foreigners who stay long in the country into pro-Turks.

However, King and Crane step into high gear afterwards, criticizing “the hideous misgovernment” over the years. It took a lot of doing to juggle the many incongruous elements within the empire, demonstrated by how former territories in the Balkans and the Middle East turned out to be the trouble spots of today. Professor Norman Stone wrote in “Where There's Trouble, There Were Ottomans,”: “A look back reveals that whatever the Ottomans' many shortcomings, they did manage for a time to maintain a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational empire with cosmopolitan cities. It was not democratic, to be sure, but it was less oppressive, for example, than other contemporaneous multi-ethnic empires such as Russia and China, and later the Soviet Union.”

Their main witness for the Armenian massacres is the British propagandist Lord Bryce, who was lovingly quoted as having said: "The record of the rulers of Turkey for the last two of three centuries, from the Sultan on his throne to the district Mutessarif, is, taken as a whole, an almost unbroken record of corruption, of justice, of an oppression which often rises into hideous cruelty.... Can anyone still continue to hope that the evils of such a government are curable? Or does the evidence contained in this volume furnish most terrible and convincing proof that it cannot longer be permitted to rule over subjects of a different faith?"

Here are my other favorite passages the authors wrote, to justify their “fair” dividing up of Turkish land:

The very fact of her age-long misrule, coupled with her occupation of territory of critical significance to the world, constitutes her a "menace to the freedom and security of all nations," and makes unusual restriction in her case necessary, for the greater good of the world and of her own subject peoples

(1) For Turkey is held, as Dominian has said, by "a people whose incompetence to convert nature's gifts into use or profit is historically patent." [ Dominian, "Frontiers of Language and Nationality In Europe," p. 236.] But striking as has been their economic failure, the failure of the Turks has been far more than merely external or material. She has acted rather as a kind of blight upon all the peoples she has conquered. As Ramsey — possibly too strongly — puts it: "The action of the Turks in every department of life has simply been to ruin, never to rebuild.... They destroyed the intellectual and moral institutions of a nation, they broke up and dissolved almost the entire social fabric; they undermined every educating and civilizing influence in the land, and they brought back a great part of the country to the primitive simplicity of nomadic life.... There is hardly a social institution in Asia Minor, showing any degree of social constructiveness, that is not an older Anatolian creation, Moslemized in outward form, and usually desecrated in the process."[ Ramsey, "Impressions of Turkey " pp. 264.]

(2) Now the evil of this blighting influence of Turkish rule is vastly increased because of the critical significance of the territory which she occupies… Turkey is simply not conceivably equal to a great world responsibility — and the larger world interests must prevail. Moreover it is certainly better for Turkey herself to be delivered from this intolerable responsibility, and to have her own government taken out of the midst of what has been through the centuries a center of boundless intrigue. The common people of Turkey would lead a much happier life in a state freed from outreaching imperialism, and at liberty to devote itself to the welfare of its own citizens.

Well, wasn’t that nice! (A… “blight”!)

The aforementioned was no doubt music to the ears of the British and French, likely most responsible for the suppression of the report because they did not like its other recommendations. The first part had to do with the Middle-Eastern territories won from Ottoman Turkey, and both world powers had their separate agendas in the oil-rich region. The British must also not have been happy about the part sticking up for the Palestinians, as Churchill and others were married to the Zionist cause, by then.

The second part of the chapter covers the “Harbord Mission.” President Wilson appointed Gen. James G. Harbord to lead an American military mission to Armenia, in order to avert “disaster… more terrible than massacres of 1915,” according to an American commissioner within Armenia, Maj. Joseph Green. (Reacting to news that the Turks were on the march.)

Upon meeting Ataturk, Harbord reported (in Balakian’s words, citing “Mustafa Kemal Pasha and His Party,” World’s Work, 1920) "Kemal ‘deprecated the Armenian massacres’ and blamed everything on ‘foreign intrigue.’" Such responses run contrary to false Ataturk quotes used by the Armenians, as with the (August 1, 1926) Los Angeles Examiner interview conducted by unknown Swiss journalist, Emile Hilderbrand.

Harbord’s report claimed "a conservative assessment of the number of Armenians killed," in Balakian’s words. The rest:

" ‘The official reports of the Turkish government’ showed 1.1 million Armenians to have been deported, and Harbord stated that ‘this wholesale attempt on the race,’ a premodern term for genocide, had taken about eight hundred thousand lives, although he noted that many other estimates placed the number at over a million."

Notice Mr. Balakian’s helpful reminder, "a premodern term for genocide." Yes, Peter, we get the idea your whole purpose is to remind the reader, "See? See, there was a genocide. Please, please believe me, there was a genocide."

I wonder where these ‘official reports of the Turkish government’ came from? The pre-war Ottoman census had the Armenian population at 1.3 million. Since there were 200,000 Armenians untouched from the Western part of the country, added to the 1.1 million these "official reports" claimed… does that mean the Turkish government concluded every single Armenian in the empire (aside from the 200,000 not subjected to the relocation policy) was "deported"? I don't know… something isn't right, here. The 1.3 million pre-war estimate, by the way, lies smack-dab in the middle of a dozen Western (therefore pro-Armenian) estimates, ranging from 1 to 1.6 million. Peter Balakian signed his name to a 1998 Armenian commemoration attesting to the survival of one million Armenians, also confirmed in a New York Times letter he co-wrote. So how could 800,0000 to one million Armenians have perished? I don’t know… something isn’t right there, either.

(According to the League of Nations Emigrants’ Committee, the number of Armenians who emigrated during the First World War from Turkey to Russia was between 400,000 and 420,000, updated to 500,000 by Richard Hovannisian. Arnold Toynbee wrote in early April 1916’s propagandistic “The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire” that 500,000 of the deported Armenians were alive, a figure that perhaps increased as the relocation policy came to a close soon afterwards. Let’s not forget the 200,000 “untouched” Armenians. Once again, how could a pre-war mean population of 1.3 million have lost 800,000 to 1 million? And of those who did perish, did they all die of massacres? Richard Hovannisian wrote some 150,000 Armenians died of starvation, accompanying the Russian retreats, in a 1967 work. Many Armenians died of famine, disease, harsh weather, and combat… just like many Turks.)

Both commissions believed “the Turks would not stop trying to annihilate the Armenians unless a third party interceded.” (P. 357) Since no third party interceded, and Armenia is still standing around wreaking havoc today, it looks like both commissions were proven dead wrong. Gee… I wonder if there was anything else in these reports that the commissions could have been wrong about.

The initially pro-Armenian Niles and Sutherland also issued a 1919 report, finding the Armenians guilty of atrocities The report began by stating, “"In the entire region from Bitlis through Van to Bayezit we were informed that the damage and destruction had been done by the Armenians, who, after the Russians retired, remained in occupation of the country and who, when the Turkish army advanced, destroyed everything belonging to the Musulmans. Moreover, the Armenians are accused of having committed murder, rape arson and horrible atrocities of every description upon the Musulman population. At first we were most incredulous of these stories, but we finally came to believe them, since the testimony was absolutely unanimous…”

Niles and Sutherland’s report was suppressed by General Harbord. Professor McCarthy speculates, "One cannot help but believe that their evidence was not what those in power wished to hear."

(Ditto for those in power today, regarding the genocide industry. Let's make a note that "Peternocchio" completely ignored the Niles and Sutherland report, even though he undoubtedly knew about it.)

Balakian: “In the wake of renewed Turkish military assaults on Armenia, John Sharp Williams, democratic senator from Mississippi, presented a resolution endorsed by Near East Relief asking for immediate relief for the estimated one hundred thousand Christian and Jewish women and girls held captive in Turkish harems.” Well! That’s the first I’ve heard of Jews being held captive in… “harems.” (Brother.) It’s kind of heartwarming that there has been a precedent for gullible or self-serving politicians bringing up Armenian resolutions in Congress, based solely on the hogwash of Armenian propaganda.

Woodrow Wilson, possibly the greatest friend of the Armenians, would keep trying with the mandate idea, even though political interest in securing “Western Armenia” had plummeted. He declared, "We hold it to be the Christian duty and duty of our Government (shouldn’t a U.S. president, sworn to uphold the Constitution, be aware the founding fathers wanted nothing to do with Christianity in government?) to assume responsible guardianship of Armenia which now needs only the advice and assurance of a powerful friend…" No, President Wilson, you were very wrong. Armenia didn’t care for advice, nor assurance. Once they couldn’t get American boys to shed their blood to retain lands that didn’t belong to the Armenians, all they wanted from America was the almighty American dollar. This they succeeded in, with the procurement of a 1919 $50 million loan (at 5% interest; worth perhaps half a billion in today’s dollars) which the Armenians reneged on… along with $1.5 billion in the last decade or so, thanks to their powerful lobbies, freely given to the Armenians, with the United States getting nothing in return.

 

The Turks were "adamantly against the idea of any settlement for the Armenians." That will happen when a minority turns traitor and joins the enemy upon the darkest hour of war, and when the minority massacres the bulk of over half a million of your people. Balakian states the "Turkish delegation maintained that the Armenian exodus from Turkey had been voluntary." Perhaps they were referring to the Armenians who decided on their own accord to go to Transcaucasia and other regions not under Ottoman control; I do not believe for one moment the Turks would have been so foolish as to expect anyone to believe the relocation policy would have been voluntary. If there is a source (a footnote at the end of another point but part of the same sentence refers to Joseph C. Grew’s diary; Grew was one of the three observers, and a minister to Switzerland), then perhaps something got lost in the translation.

"Barton noted that the Turks were fabricating tales of Armenian massacres of Turks." Perhaps the missionary could not have allowed himself to believe the atrocious crimes committed by Armenians, having heard only one side of the story (or choosing to believe only what he wanted to) but what is Peter Balakian’s excuse? Don’t tell me Peter Balakian, so obsessed with this topic, does not know of the crimes of his forefathers. Has he absolutely no conscience, in presenting a line like this… making it appear as though the thought was true?

Barton was aghast the Turks were unyielding, because the Armenians were around in "that country" a thousand years prior. Yes, but how much of that time were Armenians independent, and not ruled by others? (The Turks had freed the Armenians from their latest oppressive rulers, the Christian Byzantines.) Furthermore, I wonder if the good Christian missionary decided to give his home in Boston, Massachusetts back to the Indians.

The pope sent a message, crying for the Armenians to be saved from "further deportation and death." The Turks responded angrily, calling it "Christian propaganda," which Balakian mockingly reports. However… maybe it WAS "Christian propaganda"? Lausanne was ratified, and the only deportation and death between Armenians and Turkic peoples since has been in the hands of the Armenians, in 1992 Karabakh.

Taner Akcam

I’m sure Peter Balakian could appreciate further what the Armenians did by "buying" Taner Akcam. The ex-terrorist and escaped convict was given a job in Dennis Papazian’s university as a “visiting professor,” after having earned a degree in a German university, with no academic credentials that I could see. (As far as a faculty position in Germany.) I understand the Turkish community in Michigan succeeded in forcing out the putative scholar, who quickly found a new home in the Armenian-friendly University of Minnesota. (An institution which supports one of the most viciously one-sided “genocide studies” departments ever devised, backed by Armenian money.)

Now Peter Balakian can tell his unwary reader, "See. A Turk agrees with us." Taner Akcam may be a "Turkish historian" technically (in ethnic terms, at least with the “Turkish” part; if reports that his father was 100% Kurdish are untrue), but aside from sharing a common ethnicity, Taner is no Turk. Taner Akcam is 100% in agreement with Armenian propaganda. The footnote for his reference within this chapter comes from the Zoryan Institute (“The Genocide of the Armenians and the Silence of the Turks”), where Vahakn Dadrian has earned his bread and butter while vilifying the ethnic group these people love to hate.

Regardless, as invalid as a source may sound, I believe it is what’s being said that’s more important, rather than the source itself. Here, it says Akcam has had a problem with the "foundation myths" of Turkey, by creating a homogeneous national identity. If I’m understanding correctly, "Kemalism… (refused) to acknowledge that the new Turkish state had been built not from a war ‘against imperial powers,’ but by expunging ‘the Greek and Armenian minorities'."

Many of the Armenians who survived the relocation (Toynbee wrote 500,000 of the resettled were alive in April, 1916) were still within the nation; the Armenian Patriarch himself estimated up to 644,900 within the Empire after war's end (in 1921; the Patriarchal figure in 1918 was a whopping 1,260,000), added to the many who were refugees in other regions... such as 50,000 in Iran and 500,000 in Transcaucasia, according to Richard Hovannisian. (Again, the reason why "deportation" is the wrong word to use.) They were not "expunged" permanently, and were allowed to come back. (Whereas an addendum to Dennis Papazian’s “What Every Armenian Should Know” claimed, "Russia even forbade Armenian refugees, who had managed to flee the Genocide, from returning to their lands, which the Russian armies had overran (sic) during the war." Israel did not allow for 750,000 Palestinians forced out to return. Russia did not let their deported Muslims return. The Turks allowed for the Armenians to return.

Greece and Turkey allowed for a population exchange. That means if there were Greeks "expunged" from Turkey, there were Turks "expunged" from Greece. If Taner Akcam were a true Turk or a "historian" of integrity, he would not look at this issue from only the Armenian side. Similarly, what of the Turks "expunged" from Armenia? (1828: Muslim majority in Erevan. 1920: "Zero" Muslims left in Erevan.) ADDENDUM, 4-08: Greece was the one who insisted on the postwar population exchange, not Turkey; this is according to Greek historians.

As far as "creating a homogeneous national identity"… I’d say Turkey was one land justified in doing so, given that one big reason why the Ottoman Empire withered and died was the nationalism of minorities, which led to revolts and breakaway nations. And is there any nation that frowns upon a "homogeneous national identity"? Does not Taner Akcam’s new Armenian-provided home, the United States of America, encourage such an identity… despite being a highly heterogeneous and multi-ethnic nation, just like Turkey? " ‘How happy is he who can call himself a Turk,’ was aimed not at ‘ethnic Turks’ but at those who shared in this nationality,” wrote Professor Norman Stone (in Where There's Trouble, There Were Ottomans); the Turncoat Turk should ask himself, What is the difference between ‘How happy is he that can call himself a Turk,’ and ‘Proud to be an American’?

One-time pro-Armenian George A. Plimpton wrote in 1926’s “The New Turkey”: "We believe in America for the Americans, why not Turkey for the Turks?" It makes perfect sense to me. I don’t know why it doesn’t make sense for Peter Balakian. Maybe he would prefer, “America for the Armenians first, and some other incidental Americans second.”

"Many Americans came to see how clearly the State Department had sold out the Armenians over political interests and the oil fields of the Mosul" Balakian writes tearfully. Political interests yes, but I still do not understand the “oil” connection. Turkey had nothing to do with "the oil fields of the Mosul."

Balakian writes: "The pro (Lausanne) treaty (American) people sounded like the Turkish government, claiming now that the Armenian massacres had been exaggerated and that many Turks had suffered as well because of war, famine, and disease — only their sufferings ‘are less well known in the United States’." (The Turco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce, a report of the E.P.A. Foreign Policy Association 26 (1924), quoted in Aftandilian, Armenia, 61.)

The mystery deepens. Is Peter Balakian just dishonest like other Armenian (so-called) historians, or is he truly deluded?

Does he actually believe Turks did not suffer as well? He edited the re-issue of "Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story," where Balakian's own guru had the ghostwriter write "...About a million families were left without breadwinners, all of them in a condition of extreme destitution… As a result thousands were dying from lack of food and many more were enfeebled by malnutrition; I believe that the empire has lost a quarter of its Turkish population since the war started."

Now why a re-issued book would need an editor, I don’t know…. I hope it’s not for the same reason that the English edition of "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" was re-edited, where all references offering objectivity were deleted. I hope Peter Balakian did not re-write or edit passages like the above. Regardless, as the editor, how could he have ignored what was being said, and by Morgenthau himself… a source Balakian tells us had "high moral conscience"?

Unconscionable. And the Turks not only suffered from "war, famine, and disease"… but 500,000-600,000 innocent Turks were massacred by Balakian’s forefathers, with a little help from the Russians, out of the over 2.5 million who died from all causes. "Mr. Human Rights," Peter Balakian, has only referred to Armenian-massacres of Turks once, in just a quick paragraph, within his whole hoax of a book… and only in the context of how justified the Armenians were, by avenging their losses in the "genocide."

What Peter Balakian has inadvertently done (with the passage referring to what the pro-treaty people were saying) is tell the world that what the Turkish government has been saying about the Armenian "Genocide" has been the truth.

The Democrats voted unanimously against the Lausanne Treaty, in their proud tradition, along with Republicans, to believe everything the Armenians would tell them. The lobbies of the one million Armenians in America today can afford more than ever to keep American politicians in their pockets.