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This essay is a continuation from here.
The Armenian "Genocide" is such a widely
spread cottage industry (it may be more correct to say, "mansion
industry") that every time I follow a genocide-related link, whole new
worlds open up. At this point, I'm finishing up the main construction of TAT,
and although I have an excellent idea by now regarding what the Armenian
perspective has to offer... the more I realize there is so much more to be
discovered.
After I got through analyzing Roger Smith and Robert
Melson's testimonies before the United States Congress in support of yet
another Armenian "Genocide" resolution, I decided to look into the
backgrounds of these two gentlemen. My word! I had no idea they were such
professional "friends" of the Armenians.
Then I found an article that I could not overlook
examining for the purposes of this web site. Not only did it expose academic
ethics, but it revealed a critical piece of genocidal "fact." Unlike
Greek and Armenian sites, that is EXACTLY what I welcome... the FACTS. The
facts are all that matter to people of integrity, in this case, studying
whether a government-sponsored policy of extermination truly occurred.
 |
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Professor Robert Melson |
There is just too much information to digest... in fact,
I had come across Robert Melson before, but unbeknownst to me... I also had
run into Roger Smith, as well. (His non-descript name prevented a bell from
being rung.) This is when I criticized Professor Richard Hovannisian for being
exactly in the same boat as what Professor Heath Lowry had been accused of...
getting financed/supported by a partisan organization, throwing doubt into a
professor's credibility for remaining objective.
Professor Richard Hovannisian's position at his
university is not only supported by grants from an Armenian organization (AEF)
since 1986, but Professor
Richard Hovannisian also belongs to an organization (ANI) which makes no
bones about being "dedicated to the study, research, and affirmation of
the Armenian Genocide. Its overarching goal is affirmation of the worldwide
recognition of the Armenian Genocide."
If a professor aligns himself with an organization whose
sole purpose (pretty much) is to advocate a certain partisan view of history,
then that professor declares his intention to close his mind to any other
view. This runs in direct contrast with what an open-minded professor should
be all about. If the professor specializes in history (this is true for all
academic fields of expertise, but it is especially true for a professor of
history) it is the business of that professor to constantly revise his or her
view, on the basis of whether new information that constantly keeps cropping
up is valid, or not.
I remembered Professor Robert Melson was also a member
of the seven who serves on ANI's "Academic Council," but was I
shocked to find Professor Roger Smith on this very same council as well! (Was
I really shocked to discover this pro-Armenian professor... who would
suspiciously drop everything to testify at Congress for a cause that seems too
out of line to get so emotional about, for a non-Armenian professor... to be a
member of these Seven Dwarfs? No.... not really.)
And yet, Roger Smith had the nerve to co-write the
article I'll be discussing, questioning Dr. Lowry's integrity.
 |
|
Professor Roger K. Smith |
I would hope because Roger Smith must have a Ph.D., he
would know how to spell the following: H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y... but I cannot be
too sure that he does.
What I can be sure about is that these omnipresent
Armenian organizations have money. Lots and lots of money.
Am I saying Roger Smith and Robert Melson are on the
Armenian payroll? (Like Taner
Akcam apparently has been?) No. I cannot say that. I have no proof. Saying
such things without proof is the Armenian and Greek way.
I am only suspicious. It doesn't add up. Why would these
men be so passionate about the Armenian cause, when any objective person can
look at the voluminous evidence from Western and even Armenian sources that
points to evidence in another direction (Western sources which have had no reason to love the Turks,
so they would have no reason to lie).... and when any objective person who
seriously examines the objective history of Armenian-Turkish relations can see
the invalidity of clearly biased sources like British propagandists Bryce and
Toynbee, Turcophobe American ambassadors and consuls like Morgenthau and
Horton, Lepsius and the missionaries who were lying, anti-Muslim religious
fanatics, and all the Armenian claims when Armenians historically have been
known to (ahem) "exaggerate"?
Is it because they have become so convinced regarding
the "raw deal" Armenians have gotten, and can't see past their blind
love for Armenians? I don't know these men, so I cannot say. What I do know is
if men and women are moved by people getting a raw deal, there are MANY
examples of people getting an incomparably rawer deal (at least in terms of
getting recognition) than the Armenians, regarding historic cases of "Man's Inhumanity to Man."
Do Melson and Smith speak for the Gypsies of World War II, equally targeted as
much as the Jews? Do they raise an outcry over the Tasmanians, who are much
more deserving of our sympathy, since they got totally wiped out? What about
the Hawaiians in their own country, who are slowly being usurped? And, of
course, I have a sneaking suspicion these two gentlemen will be the last
to shed any tears over Turks, but what about the millions of Turks who got
ethnically cleansed by the Russians over the last couple of centuries... some
of the remnants of which are still
being felt today?
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| What
of "Pro-Turk" Historians? |
In fairness, let me go over to the other side of the coin... much of
what I've said could equally apply to professors like Dr. Heath Lowry and Dr. Justin
McCarthy (the latter of whom, I've just encountered in an Armenian site, happened to be
labeled not as a history professor, but as a "Pro-Turkish historical
revisionist." He has been called worse.)
To answer this question, I would like you to imagine the following
scenario...
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Imagine the Following Scenario
|
Everything the Armenians have been telling us
is true!
(That shouldn't be so hard for some of you to
imagine.)
Everything... including 1.5 million of them
getting "annihilated" (a word Dr. Dennis Papazian loves) from a pre-war
population of 1.3 million. All those horror stories... women's breasts being cooked
and eaten, women throwing their babies into the river out of desperation, the
prettiest women taken by the savage Turks for their "harems," priests
getting their beards ripped off and toe/fingernails pulled out, the ever-present
"red-hot irons" being applied to whatever Armenian flesh that happens to
be nearby, the Ottoman-Armenian troops getting massacred after being used as
"pack animals"... Talat Pasha saying things in telegrams like, "Don't
leave a single Armenian alive".... everything!
However, now imagine THIS...
The Turks are the Christians, and the Armenians
are the Muslims!!
After every atrocity the Christian Turks
commit, they cry to America and Western Europe, "W-aahhhh! See what those
barbaric Muslim Armenians did to US!"
Since the Western Christians have a
pre-disposed prejudice against the Muslim Armenians, they believe everything,
without question, that the Christian Turks tell them. Why, everyone knows those
Muslim Armenians are barbarians!
For many, many years, the Western press ONLY
reports how the poor, Christian Turks have been victimized... never considering the
plight of the Muslim Armenians, since it's already been well established they can
only be victimizers.
Flash forward some sixty years. Heath Lowry
joins the Peace Corps, and gets to know the barbaric Muslim Armenians first hand.
Why... Heath Lowry says to himself... these Armenians aren't barbaric at all.
Could... could everything I've been led to believe have been the product of a giant
CON JOB?
As the years pass, Heath Lowry gets into the
education field, earning a doctorate. He devotes himself to learning the other side
of the coin, that almost NO American historian has seriously applied him/herself to.
Heath Lowry emerges as one of a tiny handful of
American academicians who has gotten to know the TRUTH. He has learned firsthand the
injustice perpetrated upon the Muslim Armenians, who were really at the short end of
the stick, contrary to what almost all his countrymen believe.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I can
see a man of integrity like Heath Lowry hooking up with officials of the people who
have been wronged. Heath Lowry has come to believe in the injustice, and Heath Lowry
knows if he doesn't lend a helping hand to the folks so pathetically incompetent with public relations, nobody else
will. (Since there are no historians LIKE him. Just about every other scholar simply
cannot let go of their deeply-rooted beliefs and prejudices.)
And this is why a Justin McCarthy has made it
his business to testify at these Congressional hearings for meaningless Armenian
resolutions. (Has any other "pro-Turkish" professor testified at these
things? Dr. McCarthy must have concluded if he doesn't do it, nobody else will...
since there practically IS nobody else.) Justin McCarthy is perhaps the best
objective, American authority on Armenian-Turkish history, meticulously delving into
Ottoman facts and figures like few, if any, other American scholars.
Armenians and their supporters will shout,
McCarthy is not objective... McCarthy is "pro-Turkish."
NO.
McCarthy and Lowry are no more
"pro-Turkish" than Admiral Bristol was. The only thing these men
have in common is that they are pro-TRUTH.
This is why, as I stated on the
"Lowry" page of this site, an honest historian like Heath Lowry can
ironically wind up one day as the Armenians' best friend. Why? Because Ottoman
history is his area of expertise, and he is always on the lookout for new facts and
figures. As he already has said, if he comes across enough "genocide"
evidence, he could change his mind....
and then the Armenians will have some REAL evidence for a change.
That's a lot of hogwash, Armenians will say.
(Reading the language of Armenians on their web sites and guestbooks, I guess they
would not use the word, "hogwash.") Everyone knows Heath Lowry is a tool
of the Turks... why, Roger Smith, Robert Jay Lifton and Peter Balakian have said so.
They even got some notable American authors
and other famous names signing a petition declaring how dishonest Lowry is. Well, I
would beg to differ, for the following reasons:
1) These men don't have any proof Lowry is a
paid agent of the Turks (particularly at the expense of his beliefs); as usual,
Armenians and their supporters only know how to express their opinions, and if a
man's reputation gets harmed, it would be no skin off their unethical noses. (Dr.
Lowry did work at the Institute of Turkish Studies for twelve years, but unless it's
shown he drew a wildly exorbitant salary, don't tell me he couldn't have easily
found a job elsewhere with his UCLA Ph.D., drawing the same conventional paycheck.
Unless a person is desperate, it would take a lot of money to sacrifice one's
beliefs. And that's really the underlying issue of the charges leveled against the
professor: the Armenian "Genocide" is an undeniable fact... Dr. Lowry
knows this... and Dr. Lowry has been bought off to lie otherwise.)
2) A common tactic of the Armenians has been to
assassinate the character and conduct smear campaigns, especially against those
whose views run contrary to the very essence of their being and life's blood, the
Armenian "Genocide,"
3) From the articles I have read regarding the
Smear Campaign conducted against Dr. Lowry, those who vouch for him... his fellow
faculty members, and (more importantly) his students.... find him to be an excellent
academician. (Even if there was something fishy going on between Dr. Lowry and the
Turkish government, the ultimate resting stop is the quality of the man's
research. Given his works that I have read, a few of which are presented on TAT
[this site], I am sincerely impressed with his work... and I'm not just saying that
out of an interest to defend him. Luckily, you don't have to take my word for it...
read his words (a sample here,
and here), look at his
sources, and judge for yourselves.
4) Finally, the most important reason why I
believe an honest historian like Dr. Lowry could one day turn out to be the best
friend the Armenians ever had, and that he could change his mind based on conclusive
new evidence, is because....
I AM EXACTLY THE SAME WAY.
If you've been through a little of this site
already, you can see I'm not impartial. That derives from my frustration against the
terrible prejudice against Turks that I have experienced living my life as a
Turkish-American. That also derives from my knowledge of how successfully Armenians,
Greeks and their sympathizers have been mainly behind a massive campaign to sully
the reputations of the Turks, unfairly and through their typically deceitful ways.
However, my loyalty to my "tribe" has
NOTHING to do with the truth. The Truth supersedes ALL. I believe, of what value is
a man or woman without honor, and integrity?
If I come across actual proof, I will change my
mind. Can Armenians say the same? If they say they do, they might be fooling
themselves (or, more likely, trying to fool others).... Armenians NEED the genocide.
I can live with the knowledge that the Ottoman Turks committed a genocide; sadly,
too many Armenians cannot live with the
knowledge that there was no genocide.
Granted; the "proof" required will
need to be beyond a shadow of a doubt. Here, at this late stage of preparing TAT...
while doing further research on Professors Smith and Melson... I came across one of
the few bits of "real" evidence regarding Ottoman government participation
in an actual genocide.
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| GENOCIDE
PROOF! |
STOP the PRESSES!
Within the first few paragraphs of the following paper designed to
"expose" Professor Heath Lowry is the evidence Professor Roger Smith alluded to
(actually, it was confusingly presented) during his congressional testimony for H. Res. 398 (in 2000), when he mentioned
"explicit Ottoman documents."
In fact, this is the very paper it sounds like he based his entire
testimony on.
The beginnings of this paper read as such:
The following is an article concerning Heath Lowry that appeared in Holocaust
and Genocide Studies, Vol. 9, Number 1, Spring 1995, pages 1-22
Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian Genocide
By: Roger W. Smith
College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Virginia
Eric Markusen
Southwest State University Marshall, Minnesota
Robert Jay Lifton
The City University of New York
This article examines Turkish efforts to deny the Armenian genocide
of 1915-17. Specifically, it exposes an arrangement by which the government of Turkey has
channeled funds into a supposedly objective research institute in the United States, which
in turn paid the salary of a historian who served that government in its campaign to
discredit scholarship on the Armenian genocide. After a short review of the Armenian
genocide and a range of Turkish denial efforts, three documents are reproduced in full.
They include a letter that Robert Jay Lifton received from the Turkish Ambassador to the
United States, and two documents that were inadvertently included with the Lifton letter,
a memorandum to the Turkish Ambassador and a draft letter to Lifton for the Ambassador's
signature. After a critical analysis of each document, we discuss the harmfulness of
genocide denial and explore why intellectuals might engage in the denial of known
genocides. The article concludes with reflections on the relationship between scholars and
truth..
(Here is the web site for the rest.)
"The relationship between scholars and truth." Hoo-boy.
I don't know much about the middle author (which I subsequently went
on to rectify, at page bottom), but the other two one-sided gentlemen are fine ones
to lecture about "scholars and truth."
At any rate, let's get to the juicy genocidal evidence. I'll be
getting back to the gist of this article afterwards.
Here it is:
|
From 1915 to 1917 the Young Turk regime in the Ottoman Empire
carried out a systematic, premeditated, centrally-planned genocide against the
Armenian people. One of the documents authenticated by Turkish authorities in 1919 is
a telegram sent in June 1915 by Dr. Sakir, one of the leaders of the secret
organization that carried out the planning and implementation of the genocide. He asks
the provincial party official who is responsible for carrying out the deportations and
massacres of Armenians within his district: "Are the Armenians, who are being
dispatched from there, being liquidated? Are those harmful persons whom you inform us
you are exiling and banishing, being exterminated, or are they being merely dispatched
and exiled? Answer explicitly...." [3].
|
Well, there you have it. A smoking gun. As
clear as can be.
However, before we close the books on the
existence of The Armenian Genocide, let's take a look at that footnote...
Vahakn N. Dadrian, "A Textual Analysis
of the Key Indictment of the Turkish Military Tribunal Investigating the Armenian
Genocide," Armenian Review, 44:1 (Spring 1991), pp. 26-27.
Vahakn N. Dadrian?
(Dr. Smith: Warning! Warning!)
Professor Malcolm E. Yapp
wrote an excellent, objective
analysis of Dr. Dadrian's methods and motivations:
...Although Dadrian produces many reports
tending to suggest that members of the Ottoman government wanted to destroy the
Armenian, he fails to find any document which constitutes a definite order for
massacre...
In the last sections of the book, Dadrian
describes the various post-war efforts by the Ottoman and Allied authorities to
bring those responsible for the massacres to book. The 1919 courts martial, however
cannot be taken entirely at face value because they were conducted by a government
which was anxious to pin any blame on the CUP leaders...
Despite the numerous documents cited and the
careful assembly of information about individuals and organizations, there is no
decisive evidence to support Dadrian's case.... Of course one may argue that even
without clear unambiguous documentary evidence the weight of so many pieces of
indirect and circumstantial evidence brought together could be persuasive, even
conclusive, but one must enter a caveat. The author's approach is not that of an
historian trying to find out what happened and why but of a lawyer assembling the
case for the prosecution in an adversarial system. What he wants are admissions
of guilt from the defendants, first Germany as the easier target and then Turkey.
What is missing is any adequate recognition of the circumstances in which these
events took place; the surge of Armenian nationalism, the ambitions of Russia, the
fears of the Ottomans and the panic and indiscipline of war. Dadrian is so obsessed
by his theory of the long plan that he too often overlooks the elements of the
contingent.
In fact, when I examine the footnotes of these
three professors, gleefully attempting to pin ethical blame on Dr. Lowry, here are
the names that crop up: Rouben Adalian; Hovannisian; Minasian; Housepian; Jernazian;
Koutcharian; Bardakjian; oh, I see there are a few non-Armenian sources listed as
well... such as Henry Morgenthau.
You guys are writing an essay on ethical,
truthful scholarship, and you are mainly relying on Armenian sources?
For another example: Dr. Lowry wrote an
exemplary article examining the questionable nature of the Hitler Quote, which you
can judge on TAT's "Hitler Quote"
page. These fellows' rebuttal:
"For a thorough discussion of the Hitler
remark, and its authenticity see Kevork B. Bardakjian, Hitler and the Armenians
(Cambridge, MA Zoryan Institute, 1985).."
...From the Zoryan Institute? Oh, that's
a really impartial source.
Do NOT insult your readers' intelligence.
Evidently, Dr. Smith has cavorted around with
Dr.Dadrian in the past; Professor Türkkaya Ataöv examined the two's scholarly
chops (along with that of a Dr. Richard Falk) in a treatise entitiled The 'Armenian Question': Conflict, Trauma and
Objectivity, which begins with:
None of the three writers
presents a combination of interrelated factors. Scholars are not only expected to
keep in mind opposing views, but also to utilize interdisciplinary approaches. Final
judgment in history, especially in a very controversial case like the
Armenian-Turkish conflict, cannot be surrendered to an ethnic participant in a
dispute. In most cases, one side will be painted as an "idealized white",
and the other as a "gruesome black."
In all his presentations.
Professor Dadrian portrays the Turks as wild, cruel, ferocious, uncivilized and
barbarous savages, and the Armenians as simple victims, prey in the hands of their
fierce enemies. In the publications of many Western authors, like Dadrian, the Turks
are never the sufferers. This approximation is an oversimplification inconsistent
with historical phenomena.
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| Getting
Back to the "Evidence"... |
Am I suggesting that nothing by Armenians can
be trusted? Such a racist thought goes against the essence of my being... I prefer
to judge matter on the merits of the matter itself, and not the source.
However, I am hampered, when it comes to
trusting Armenians, by my knowledge... that is proven over and over and over
again... that the Armenians are as one-willed a monolithic voice that may have ever
existed. (Not that I don't believe there are Armenians who have good thoughts about
their Turkish roots, and wish the obnoxious, loud-voiced hate-mongers among them
could just go away. However, you won't find too many Armenians bucking the tide,
especially not publicly. To do so has historically meant risking your reputation,
and even your life.
(Many Armenian deaths blamed on the Turks came by the hand of the Armenian
revolutionaries/terrorists themselves. Go to any Armenian web site, and death
threats by Armenians are never far behind, when they encounter thoughts they don't
like. Many are empty threats resonating from the cowards these people are, but you
can bet there are a number of real maniacs among them.)
Armenians will lie, deceive, falsify, discredit... anything, as long as
their beloved "genocide"
can appear legitimate.
Dr. Dadrian can be trusted by any real
truth-seeker as far as he can be thrown. However, permit me to look further into
this quote of Dr. Sakir's. The following questions come to mind.
1) Who translated this quote into English?
This quote must have originated from the Ottoman archives, and somehow Dadrian must have gotten a hold of the document before
the Turks had a chance to "purge" it, as Peter Balakian and many other
Armenian apologists love to tell us. (Dr. Dadrian has also claimed the same, but he also goes on to
absurdly state that despite the fact the archives are no longer good, there is still
evidence to prove the genocide.) If so, it was written in the old Turkish style
(handwritten a la the Arabic style, not using the Roman alphabet as modern Turkish
does... as this forged example by Aram Andonian
demonstrates), which one has to be a real expert to understand properly. Even
"Turkish Turncoat" Halil Berktay totally misconstrued a Talat Pasha telegram, making it look "bad," when in fact, it was
"good." (When I say "good," I don't mean good for the Armenians.
It showed Talat Pasha cared for the Armenians, which, of course, the Armenians would
not even consider bringing themselves to believe.) (Further note: "Even"
may not have been the correct word to use, since Halil Berktay is an "Armenian in Turkish clothing,"
and uses the facts as he sees fit.)
Therefore, could Dadrian have "hired"
someone to translate this "evidence," assuming the masterly Armenian
scholar is not an expert in reading old Turkish? Who could he have gotten to
translate? Well, what are the odds of his turning to a non-Armenian (or Armenian
friendly) source?
In conclusion... who among us can vouch for the
accuracy of the translation?
2) The Ottomans were aware crimes were being
committed against the Armenians, and took measures to try and secure the safety of
the Armenians (done in as they were by the shortage
of manpower and resources; they did
not do a very good job, and they certainly can be blamed for that. Nor did they do a
particularly good job in saving the many Turks who were massacred by the Armenians, and they can be blamed for that, as
well.)
If you read this Talat Pasha telegram, the Minister
of the Interior begins with citing statistics he has heard where Armenians have
suffered... and then he tries to go on and insure their safety. Is it possible that
the telegram of this "evidence" could mean the same?
"Are the Armenians, who are being
dispatched from there, being liquidated? Are those harmful persons whom you inform
us you are exiling and banishing, being exterminated, or are they being merely
dispatched and exiled? Answer explicitly...."
So, whomever translated this from the confusing
old Turkish... could the real meaning NOT have been, "Are you making sure to
follow our genocide orders and liquidating the Armenians?" but instead,
"Look, we keep getting reports that Armenians are getting massacred. These are
the people you are responsible for relocating ("exiling and banishing"?
How could anyone be exiled and banished within a nation's own borders?) , but are
you or someone else actually killing them?"
You think I'm grasping at straws? I know there
are incriminating words like "merely dispatched," indicating getting
dispatched and exiled weren't good enough, and the Armenians needed to get
"exterminated".... but I don't know what biased force was involved in
twisting the words in its translation, and neither do you.
Read it again, and think of this logic:
We must presume that when "Dr. Sakir,
one of the leaders of the secret organization that carried out the planning and
implementation of the genocide... asks the provincial party official who is
responsible for carrying out the deportations and massacres of Armenians within his
district," he is doing so because the order for the genocide has already
been given out. Right? That's the idea. The genocide order had
to already have been given out, and since nobody has discovered any reliable
documents whatsoever substantiating this order, we have to assume all the local
officials got these orders through smoke signals, or some other mysterious method of
communication.
Regardless of how the party officials got their
orders, we are asked to believe they already got them. This is why Dr. Sakir is
writing, trying to find out whether the genocide order is being carried out... this
is what we're being asked to believe.
SO WHY DOES EVEN THE THOUGHT OF THE ARMENIANS'
GETTING BANISHED, "DISPATCHED" OR "EXILED" EVEN ENTER DR.
SAKIR'S MIND?
That makes no sense whatsoever. If the order
was given by this "secret organization" to liquidate the Armenians, how
could Dr. Sakir even think about whether the official is allowing for the Armenians
to be "merely dispatched and exiled," when the insinuation is they must
have received a previous order where the Armenians were to be outright killed. Did
the party official take it upon himself to go against the extermination order, and
instead took on the comparatively more humane tack by "banishing" them?
And if the party official decided to go against the extermination orders, why would
he reveal his disloyalty by INFORMING Dr. Sakir? ("...Are those harmful persons whom you inform us you are exiling and
banishing, being exterminated, or are they being merely dispatched and exiled?
Answer explicitly....")
By the way, what was this secret organization?
(The Teşkilat-i Mahsusa [the Ottoman secret service].) Was this an organization
of Ottoman SS men out to apply the Final Solution on the Armenians, as the Armenians
and their supporters would have us believe... in their desperate quest to tie in the
Holocaust with the Armenian "Genocide"? Or could its real purpose have
been that it was set up during WWI to garner the support of Indian, Egyptian and
Russian Muslims for the Ottoman State? If there is any LEGITIMATE evidence that this
organization was given any tasks during the forced migrations, I have yet to see it.
3) It is as dishonest for these professors to
classify this telegram as "One of the documents authenticated by Turkish
authorities in 1919," as it was for Robert Melson to suggest the Turkish scholars in an Armenian
conference were average, objective Turks (and not Turks who made the decision,
for one reason or another, to join the Armenian club... which is what these scholars
were exclusively comprised of), during his 2000 H. Res 398 testimony. Just another
way to try and pull the wool over the eyes of the unwary.
As Professor Malcolm E. Yapp wrote (above), "The 1919 courts martial, however cannot be taken
entirely at face value because they were conducted by a government which was anxious
to pin any blame on the CUP leaders.";
These 1919 "Turkish authorities"
were illegitimate. This is why the whole nation abandoned this unelected, spineless
government, scared out of its wits... and selfishly anxious to hold on to whatever
little power that remained. They were the puppets of the Allies, the reason why the Sevres document they went on to
sign spelled the death sentence of the Turkish nation, eliminating whatever negligible support they might have had, among the
population.
These kangaroo courts cooked up whatever evidence
that was presented, and their purpose was mainly political retribution. Almost every
defendant was found guilty... sentenced for things as mundane as leaving a post
without permission... and a good several were executed. About the only value of
these courts was that at least the Ottomans attempted some form of justice for
crimes against Armenians (DURING the war, they also meted out punishment to Turks
who misbehaved with the Armenian relocations... executing twenty of them in 1915, and punishing many more in
less extreme ways; the figure is a whopping 1,397, according to Gurun's "The
Armenian File"), while neither Armenia (the country) nor Armenian guerillas
ever tried their own criminals for horrible acts against Turks that are documented even by Armenians.
If you show me a
document presented for the purpose of these phony-baloney courts, you have to go the
extra mile by substantiating what the person has claimed within the document.
4) THE NUMBER ONE ARGUMENT AS TO WHY THIS "EVIDENCE" IS
FAR FROM COMPELLING IS...
If this incriminating telegram was presented in 1919, in
British-occupied Istanbul, where all archives were available to the British and
their Armenian team of
researchers, why then did Lord Curzon desperately resort to actually contacting
the British Ambassador in Washington a full two years later, while desperately
searching for evidence.... ANY evidence... that would prove to be incriminating to
the Turks, for the planned "Nuremberg" of the Armenian
"Genocide," the Malta Tribunal? What could have been WRONG with this
telegram, for the British not to have latched on to it, but fast?
5) By the way... can you imagine Heinrich Himmler adopting two
Jewish boys and lovingly raising him as his very own? Here's a little more insight on Dr. Bahaddin
Sakir, regarding his personal life... see if he could be behind the extermination of
the Armenians, like another Himmler or Adolf Eichmann.
ADDENDUM,
LATE 2005:
This is one of
the earlier pages I had written, and I wish I had the time to rewrite it.
Since then, I've learned a lot more. Of course, Dadrian's deceptive idea is to
find a Gestapo-like instrument, making a convenient genocidal fall guy out of
the Special Organization (S.O.). The reader can refer to Prof. Guenter
Lewy's real S.O. facts on this page.
Dadrian countered, and I objected back to Dadrian's mumbo-jumbo on this page. In his excellent book,
Lewy exposes Dadrian's lack of
ethics time and again. Dadrian's faulty academic standards will better
come to light in future years, as additional neutral scholars find the
backbone to enter into this minefield; Dadrian has been fortunate to get away
with second-rate, unquestioning scholars accepting his theoretical claims at
face value, thus far.
See the part
where I kiddingly wrote about how local officials got their genocidal orders?
(The "smoke signals?" part.) Well, see, Sakir
travelled by automobile, Dadrian tells us, giving these orders secretly... as
if any local official would accept the word of someone who stops by the door,
ordering the locals to participate in extermination, especially if the real
governmental orders to safeguard the Armenians had already been issued. Such
is the ridiculous Dadrian logic, offered without real proof, as usual. (Even
the British rejected the rants of Ottomans tried during the1919-20 kangaroo
courts, in the preparation for the Malta Tribunal... in case Dadrian points to
the desperate statements of men whose necks were one step away from the
noose.)
But here's more
food for thought. If
Dadrian is telling us Sakir went by automobile to give these orders verbally
(for fear of being judged by future historians, you see; nothing could be
preserved on paper)... why would Sakir have given such "genocide
orders" on paper, through the telegram we've been reading about?
|
The S.O. "...was certainly
not primarily involved in the Armenian events of 1915-16."
Dr. Gwynne Dyer, letter, Middle
Eastern Studies 9 (1973): 379
|
| The
Rest of Roger Smith's Paper |
As promised, I'm getting back to the gist of the
article, Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian Genocide.
The above telegram was these gentlemen's big
ejaculation regarding "proof" of the Armenian "Genocide." Some of the
rest I already responded to when I examined Dr. Smith's genocide resolution-testimony. There is some more blabbity-blah-blah
desperately trying to lay out a case for "Turkish Denial" (are these men
suggesting were they to be accused of a crime they did not commit, they would not have the
right to deny committing the crime?) marred by inaccuracies, such as stating there are
fewer than 60,000 Armenian-Turks in Turkey (ten thousand somehow vanished in the two years
since the writing of this article from The
New York Times; of course, the latter source is the one that
could have been wrong. Regarding Turco-Armenian matters, The New York
Times often is), that more than one million Armenians perished as a result of a
deliberate extermination policy (that's what they must be implying, since the reasons for
the deaths they cite also largely applied
to Ottoman Muslims) when the number was no more than 600,000,
and that the Armenians "lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years." The
loophole word is "nearly," but coming up with perhaps an extra six hundred years
is overdoing it.
The professors also have a problem with Turkey's
pressuring "the U.S. State Department into preventing MGM Studios from producing a
film based on Franz Werfel's The Forty Days of Musa Dagh," in the 1930s. We (that is,
ALL right-thinking people of integrity) owe a debt of thanks to Ahmet Ertegün's diplomat
dad for managing this. Franz Werfel was
tricked into believing the Armenians' side of the story for writing his fictional book,
and then was too afraid to distance himself from his work, afraid of Armenian reprisals.
Meanwhile, like MIDNIGHT EXPRESS, the book has caused severe damage to the Turks'
reputation, since people have regarded this story as true history. People like mental
midget Yossi
Sarid, Israel's Minister of Education..!
The professors go on to
claim:
Turkish officials also tried to force
cancellation of a 1982 conference in Tel Aviv, "if the Armenian genocide were to be
discussed, demands backed up with threats to the safety of Jews in Turkey."
 |
|
Israel Charny; here as an
invited speaker for an
Armenian-Canadian
student organization |
Uhhhhhh... right. Turkey is known as one of
the Jews' only true historic friends for
centuries, and because of one rinky-dink genocide conference, Turkey was going to risk the
wrath of The United States and its powerful Jewish lobby, not to mention worldwide
condemnation, by threatening Turkish Jews. (That's what it sounds like, doesn't it? How
else would the safety of these Jews have been threatened? What were the Turks suggesting,
that they were going to massacre their own Jews?) The co-source is Israel W. Charny, one
of the Jewish scholars who signed
this petition.
Well, why not? Turkey has been accused of
just about every other genocide, so why not a genocide of the Jews?
Did this trio of "professionally
ethical" genocide scholars misrepresent the facts, regarding the 1982 Israeli
conference? According to Dr. Sedat Laciner's essay entitled "Armenia's Jewish Skepticism
and Its Impact on Armenia-Israel Relations," the government officials
involved trying to limit the Armenians' claims were not Turkish:
In 1982, when some
Armenian researchers aimed to participate in an international conference on the
subject of the Holocaust and Genocide in Tel Aviv (Israel), the Israeli Government
saw this attempt as a part of the politically motivated propaganda campaign. For the
Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Armenians were trying to manipulate the public opinion
by using the conference in Israel. As a result the Foreign Ministry rejected the
Armenian applications and tried to limit the subjects regarding the Armenian claims.
However the Armenian applicants started an international campaign against Israel and
blamed the Israeli Government of damaging academic freedom.
Sources: Israel Charny, ‘The
Conference Crisis. The Turks, Armenians and the Jews’, in The Book of the
International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide. Book One: The Conference
Program and Crisis, (Tel Aviv: 1982); on, The Banality..., pp. 354-355; Leora Eren
Fruncht, ‘A Tragedy Offstage No More’, The Jerusalem Post, 15 June 2000. Also
see: Amos Elon, ‘Their Holocaust’, Har’aretz, 11 June 1982; Yad Vashem, ‘We
and the Armenians’, Ha’aretz, 29 June 1982; Israel Amrani, ‘A Little Help for
Friends’, Ha’aretz, 20 April 1990; Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust
Industry, Reflections on Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, (Verso Books, 2001),
Chapter 2.
|
Incidentally, Mr. Charny,
it is reported later in the article, sent a questionnaire to the sixty nine scholars who offered a different view of the Armenian
"Genocide." Seventeen responded, and from those, Mr. Charny was able to
designate the mindset of the Denialist. For example, he classified as "definitionalism"
the
acknowledging of deaths, but "denying that they were the result of
'genocide,' thus shifting responsibility for the genocide away from the Turkish government
and trivializing the killing of over a million Armenians as the inadvertent result of
famine, war, and disease."
Well, Mr. Charny might spend his time in
such interesting ways and tack on fancy names to whatever theories he can come up with...
but the last time I checked, not every death needs be the result of "genocide."
It's possible people can be killed en masse without the reason being genocide, as with the
My Lai massacre during Vietnam. And let us not forget the definition of genocide by the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention of the Crime of
Genocide... where not only "intent" must be proven (no such evidence exists, in
the case of the Armenian "Genocide"... unless folks feel the dubious telegram
above would do the trick)... and, furthermore, the Convention does not protect
"political groups" — as exactly what the Armenians were, when they politically
and violently allied themselves with the Russian and other Entente forces... and the
Armenians' ethnic or religious identity had nothing to do with their being subjected to
the relocation.
I realize why Armenians and their supporters
bald-facedly lie about the revolting Armenians, as these professors will
do in a few paragraphs, showing their true, subjective stripes; once the truth gets
out as to the traitorous nature of the Armenians, they cannot classify what happened to
them as a genocide.
It's remarkable how some Holocaust-driven folks like
Mr. Charny are so obsessed with the topic, seeing genocides everywhere. Well, Turks have
been the victims of genocide as well... not just at the hands of the Russians, but through the Armenians. " The
Jewish Times" declared in its June 21, 1990 issue:
"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."
When I opened up the "69 Scholars" page,
the first name on the list's second column happened to be Avigdor Levy. Dr. Levy, like Israel
Charny, happens to be Jewish... but unlike Israel Charny, Avigdor Levy is what some might
call "Pro-Turk." ("Pro-Turk" is a reverse-euphemism meant to protect
Turcophobes from having epileptic seizures when they come across irrefutable facts. For
the rest of us, substitute "Pro-Truth" for "Pro-Turk.") Let us take a
moment to examine what possible reasons Avigdor Levy might have for being a "Denialist,"
other than the actual reason, which is championing the cause of truth. Could Avigdor Levy
be a "Denialist" because he has a blind love for Turks? Well... in contrast to
Christians, studied Jews do have a reason to love Turks... since out of almost continuous
dark chapters in Jewish history, Turks were one of the very, very, VERY few beacons that
provided light. However, let's be realistic here; it's extremely unlikely that Avigdor
Levy could be a "Denialist" because he is slavishly devoted to all things
Turkish. So what could the other rational explanations be, other than the obvious one,
which is that Professor Levy is doing what any true scholar would do, sorting out the
evidence and drawing conclusions upon the truth? (Something that Israel Charny ought to
try one day... what was that about "...and trivializing the killing of over a million
Armenians"... where did you get that "million" figure
from, Israel Charny?) The only other two explanations I can think of is that Dr. Levy is
in need of psychiatric help and is prone to delusions... which I think we can all safely
agree may be counted out... or that Dr. Levy KNOWS there has been a genocide, and for some
peculiar reason... maybe the "sinister" Turkish government has
"bought" Dr. Levy?...Dr. Levy is covering it up.
Is that what Israel Charny is telling us, that the distinguished professor, Avigdor Levy,
is a liar?
 |
|
A surviving eyewitness to Armenian atrocities |
Mr. Charny can amuse himself with all the "Double-Killing"
theories he wants, such as later in the paper ("Genocide does not end with its
last human victim; denial continues the process"), but the all-importance of
"closure" doesn't apply to everyone. (Forget about the systematic extermination
plan the Armenians conducted during World War I, you won't find many Armenians admitting
they even massacred Turks. Turks then must be suffering from a "Triple
Killing.") If sympathy-seeking people get off on boo-hoo'ing themselves to
death, that's their psychological problem. Turks prefer to look ahead. This is
exactly why Turks made the mature decision of not
dwelling on the crimes of the Armenians, when the Turkish Republic was formed...
it was more constructive to stress the issues that bound us, and not the ones that divided
us.
On a personal note, it is heartbreaking for me to see
Jewish people so blindly supportive of anti-Turkish forces, having been raised in New York
City, where I have seen firsthand experience of anti-Turkish Jewish attitudes. (And I
don't mean most American Jews are that way; no, most are good, kind and extremely
"cool.") I am not blaming American Jews — even though they are The Chosen,
they have just as much right to be as gullible and ignorant as the average American.
American Jews are also prone to clumping Turks with Arabs (no differently than the average
American), which adds special weight to the anti-Turkish bias the average American
normally carries, when we refer to Jewish-Americans.
Since so many Americans generally have blinders on
regarding the rest of the world, I'm especially disappointed when Israeli Jews express
such ignorance, because I (unrealistically, I know) expect Israeli Jews to be a little
more savvy and enlightened. I don't know if Israel Charny is Israeli or American (he's
based in Jerusalem, so most likely he is Israeli... very possibly, he could be both), but
how naive can one be, expecting the simple admission of genocide will bring closure?
Despite Germany's giving billions of dollars in "reparations" to Israel and the
fact that a lot of Germans are wallowing
in guilt, those like Mr. Charny are still obsessed with the Holocaust. In the
Armenians' case, does anyone believe these people will put the "Armenian
Genocide" behind them if Turkey should say "sorry"? (Should the Turks ever
truly be proven to have committed state-sponsored genocide, I am not saying they should
not say "sorry.") Especially since the "Genocide" has sadly served as
the very cause for most Armenians' existence? That wouldn't bring Armenians
"closure"... that would serve as a renewed "opener."
Israel Charny and other Jews who are so driven to join their falsely-perceived Armenian
"brothers-in-genocide" might do well to remember these words, spoken by an
Israeli in an interview conducted back in 1956 (according to mediamonitors.net):
"I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that I'll burn
every Palestinian Child (who) will be born in this area. The Palestinian Woman and Child
is more dangerous than the Man, Because the Palestinian Child existence refers that
Generations will go on, but the man causes limited danger. I vow that if I was just an
Israeli Civilian and I met a Palestinian I would burn him and I would make him suffer
before killing him. With One hit I've killed 750 Palestinians (in Rafah, 1956). I wanted
to encourage my soldiers by raping Arabic Girls as The Palestinian Woman is a slave for
Jews, and we do whatever we want to her and Nobody tells us what we shall do but we tell
others what they shall do."
The speaker? Ariel Sharon, who set up a secret death squad within the
Israeli Defense Forces known as "Unit 101," in 1953. The very Ari Sharon whom
Israelis had no moral problem with electing to lead their government, when years ago most
decried Austrians for electing as their leader Kurt Waldheim (once the U.N. secretary
general), who was discovered to have Nazis in his closet (although apparently without
personally-committed blood on his hands, according to an international investigation
clearing him of complicity; the Nazis were horrible monsters by and large, but don't tell
me every single human being who got caught up in the prevailing corrupt and evil system
was a comic book villain; one incredible example was the anomaly of a diplomat-Nazi
Schindler who saved many Chinese lives against the Japanese).
A contemporary of Sharon's, Menachem Begin, was
criticized by outraged American Jewish intellectuals, including Albert Einstein and Hannah
Arendt, in a December 4, 1948 letter to the editor of The New York Times,
for being a "fascist" and a "terrorist," and for being involved in a
terrible massacre of innocents that Begin and his Freedom party were proud of, inviting
"all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and
the general havoc at Deir Yassin." Clean up your own back yard, Israel Charny, before you lecture the Turks.
Sadly, for those of us who firmly believe that the Holocaust took place, some
scholars of the Genocide of the Jews have attacked any reconsideration of
Armenian-Turkish relations out of a fear that this will somehow give comfort to
those who, against all evidence, disavow the Holocaust. It must also be admitted
that we academics have been unwilling to undertake studies of Armenian-Turkish
relations, because of problems with career advancement and even physical dangers.
Prof. Justin McCarthy, 1996 Congressional testimony
|
---------------
"Finally, in the 1980s the Turkish
government supported the establishment of 'institutes', whose apparent purpose was to
further research on Turkish history and culture."
I'd say it was way past due,
after the Armenian and Greek contingents' unchallenged monopoly on information regarding
Turkish affairs.
"The Institute of Turkish Studies, Inc., located in Washington, D.C., was established
in 1982... The organization itself has a staff of two: an executive director and a
secretary."
I believe this is really
what Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's “Heart of Darkness” (film version:
APOCALYPSE NOW) had in mind when he said, “The horror! The horror!” ...
Wow. A staff of two, huh? I wonder how many people Roger Smith's organization, the
Armenian National Institute (ANI), has working for them? What about the Zoryan Institute
these three professors used as a reference in one of their footnotes? (The partisan Smith
later became affiliated with Zoryan, as well.) Combine all the zillions of Armenian organizations with the folks
working for them, and this Turkish organization is a veritable juggernaut with that huge
staff of two.
It's precisely because of a
reason like this that Heath Lowry lent his talents to The Institute of Turkish Studies...
the Turks are just so woefully overmatched. If the Turks are going to hire an academic
expert, who are they going to hire? Richard Hovannisian? I'm sure Heath Lowry drew a
paycheck (who would have spent all that valuable time without some compensation? We all
have our causes, but we also must earn a living), but was that because he sought to
sacrifice his principles, or because he believed in them?
At any rate, Professor Heath
Lowry was no longer working for the Institute in 1995, the year of the writing of this
article... that hoped to smear him. Since the authors know Dr. Lowry's paycheck was coming
from Princeton University and not the Turkish government, it is their motivations (and not
Dr. Lowry's) that become the issue. We'll be getting to that, in the case of at least one
of them.
Some of Charny's smear tactics may be examined here.
|
"Neither I nor any other scholar
specializing in Ottoman history would deny or condone the widespread death,
destruction, and decimation affecting a large portion of the Ottoman Armenian
citizenry which occurred in the course of the First World War ... However, I and many
other scholars in the field cannot accept the characterization of this human tragedy
as a pre-planned, state-perpetrated genocide ... unless and until the historical
records of the Ottoman state ... are studied and evaluated by competent
scholars."
Professor Heath Lowry,
referring to his "crime," in the eyes of these three Armenian supporters...
who hoped to wreck his reputation with the writing of their paper. |
...The Institute "shall continue to play a
key role in furthering knowledge and understanding of a key NATO ally of the United
States, the Republic of Turkey, among citizens of our country." [17]
Unfortunately, the phrase "furthering knowledge and understanding"
includes measures that have been construed as denial of the Armenian genocide.
As much as these three stoog...
that is, professors would like us to believe that it is a crime to deny the Armenian
"genocide," if they have failed to prove this SO-CALLED genocide, then it
is the RIGHT of the accused to deny the crime. The way Professor Lowry speaks above
is the way we would expect any normal, objective scholar to speak; first, there must
be PROOF. If you fellows can't find the proof, or if you actually believe citing
biased sources like Morgenthau and Dadrian is going to make your case (that worked
for years... no longer; not for genuine truth-seekers, anyway), then you really
don't know what a scholar does. What kind of an agenda do you have, and what nerve
do you have to preach on "Professional Ethics," when I have yet to see
evidence of ethics on your end?
|
| The Professors'
True Stripes Emerge |
|
"...ARMENIAN
VOLUNTEER UNITS SERVED IN THE RUSSIAN ARMY, AND THERE WAS AGITATION FOR A HOMELAND
IN AND AROUND THE ANATOLIAN CITY OF VAN..."
WILLIAM L. CLEVELAND, A
HISTORY OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST, 1994, PP.142
"...ARMENIAN VOLUNTEERS CERTAINLY STARTED KILLING MOSLEM
CIVILIANS AS SOON AS RUSSIAN TROOPS CROSSED THE OTTOMAN FRONTIER..."
DAVID NICOLLE, PH.D, THE
OTTOMAN ARMY 1914-18, 1996, PP. 38
"... MOREOVER, THROUGHOUT EASTERN ANATOLIA THE TURKS
WERE THREATENED BY THE INSURRECTION OF THEIR EMBITTERED ARMENIAN SUBJECTS, WHO
DISRUPTED COMMUNICATIONS AND FORMED VOLUNTEER GROUPS TO HELP THE RUSSIANS. OTHERS
JOINED THE RUSSIAN ARMENIAN FORCES...",
PETER MANSFIELD, A HISTORY
OF THE MIDDLE EAST, 1991, PP. 150
"...A FEW THOUSAND ARMENIANS JOINED THE RUSSIAN ARMY;
THERE WERE ARMENIAN DESERTIONS FROM THE OTTOMAN ARMY AND GUERILLA ACTIVITY BEHIND THE
OTTOMAN LINES...",
ERIK J. ZURCHER, TURKEY, A
MODERN HISTORY, 1993, PP. 120 |
The executive director of the Institute from its
inception to 1994 was Dr. Heath W. Lowry, who received his doctorate in history from UCLA.
His mentor at UCLA was Professor Stanford Shaw, whose history of Turkey strenuously denies
the reality of the Armenian genocide, while, at the same time, blaming the victims, who
are depicted as disloyal, rebellious, and terroristic. [18]
Wow.
These guys are getting themselves in
trouble deeper and deeper, with each successive line.
Are you getting the feeling these
"ethical" professors are either not in tune with reality, or... that they are
inextricably married to the "cause," for some mysterious reason?
No, gentlemen. Nobody is blaming the
real victims in the Ottoman Empire, during the time of the Armenian "Genocide."
The innocent Turks, Kurds, and other Muslims who got snuffed out by murderous and treacherous Armenians didn't do anything
wrong. As far as the other victims, the innocent Armenians who got dragged into the relocations, we have to remember who fired the first shot. If the leaders of
these people (and most average Armenians, the majority of whom followed the leaders) were
not:
DISLOYAL
REBELLIOUS
and TERRORISTIC,
not one of them would have been
touched... exactly like the loyal Jews of the Ottoman Empire. Even Armenia's first prime
minister agreed with this
fact.
It is clear now (not that it wasn't
so clear before) that you three are not on the up-and-up. If there was a trace of any
objectivity in your allegedly-scholarly bones, there is no way you could have implied such
an outrageously false statement... the context of which is clearly your "belief"
in that the Armenians were poor, innocent lambs being led to the slaughter.
The end-all argument against the Armenian "Genocide" is the Malta
Tribunal. Since these men are anxious to find parallels to Nazi Germany, here is a
parallel they suspiciously go out of their way to overlook: the Allies set up Nuremberg at
the end of World War II to punish the Nazis for committing genocide; as a result, all (or almost all) of the accused Nazis were punished in
one form or another... because evidence against a systematic, government-sponsored plan to
eradicate Jews was irrefutable.
The Allies set up a
"Nuremberg" at the end of World War I to punish the Ottomans for committing
genocide; NONE of the accused Ottomans were punished, not only for genocide, but for ANY
war crime... despite a feverish and desperate search for REAL evidence, that took nearly
TWO-AND-A-HALF years, headed by a crack team of Armenian researchers, to boot. Moreover,
they had access to every single document in Allied-occupied Istanbul, and the British,
under Lloyd George, planned to wipe Turkey off the face of the earth.
Do these professors have no idea of the Malta Tribunal, and other overpowering evidence that turns the Armenian
"Genocide" on its ear? If they truly have not done their homework to that
extent, then what business do they have being called "professors"? No, ladies
and gentlemen... we must believe these so-called professors know very well of such
incontrovertible evidence that fly in the face of the view they obediently support, but
they out-and-out make statements they know are not true. The question is... Why?
In the footnote to the false
implication of their statement, the authors express their displeasure regarding: "(Stanford) Shaw accuses some Armenians residing in Turkey
during World War II of being pro-Nazi and antisemitie [sic]." Why, Armenians who were pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic? I never heard of such a thing...
this is an OUTRAGE. (Well, maybe not the "anti-Semitic" part. I guess these
fellows don't visit Armenian guestbooks.)
Anyway, no point in rebutting their
ridiculous paper any longer... these three have proven their stripes, as far as I'm
concerned.
However, what I'd like
to do is examine the scholarly merit of one of them, Dr. Robert J. Lifton, based on the
very same evidence they hoped to hang Dr. Lowry with.
Allow me to repeat what I already
wrote about Dr. Lifton, in the Lowry page of TAT.
---------------------------
|
|
|
The man who "blew the whistle":
Dr. Robert Jay Lifton. In response to his 1986 book, "The Nazi Doctors:
Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide," in which he treats the
Armenian genocide as historical fact, Dr. Lifton reported he was
"surprised" to receive a letter in 1990 from Turkey's Ambassador to
the United States, Nuzhet Kandemir, denying the Armenian genocide. (I guess he
was surprised because the professor probably only considered — or only
seriously considered — the Armenian side of the story, like so many others.
Good objectivity, Prof.!) Then he was "shocked" to discover an
American academic had drafted the Ambassador's letter. He was further shocked
when he learned that the same scholar had been named to a chair at Princeton
University that the Turkish government had helped to endow. "We feel
strongly that there's been a violation of academic standards," he is
reported to have said. (Who is "WE"?) The picture is from PBS' "The Armenians, A Story of Survival." (Ah.
"We" must mean "My Armenian pals and I.")
|
|
At the time I wrote what you
have read above, I knew nothing about Dr. Lifton except what I read in the Princeton
student newspaper articles slamming (for the most part) Dr. Lowry... in addition to
Dr. Lifton's talking head on the pro-Armenian
PBS program, where the picture you see is from.
However, thanks to this report
by Dr. Lifton and his two fellow Armenian-loving
buddies, I have an excellent insight as to the scholarly methods the professor
preferred to use, at least for his "Nazi Doctors" book.
The evidence the professors refer to is a memorandum from Dr. Heath
Lowry, to Nuzhet Kandemir, Turkish Ambassador to the United States, on September 26, 1990... which the
professors wrote
was included "inadvertently," along with the ambassador's letter to Dr.
Lifton. Inadvertent? Far from it.... the ambassador deliberately wanted to demonstrate to
Dr. Lifton that his irresponsibly conducted research has been analyzed by a fellow
American academician. If the shopping list from the ambassador's wife were included
in the envelope, that would have been inadvertent.
Here is what Dr. Lowry wrote,
regarding Dr. Lifton (the "bold" highlighting is my work):
HE IS A WELL KNOWN
AUTHORITY ON THE TRAUMA OF WAR AND HIS MAJOR WORKS INCLUDE:
_DEATH IN LIFE_ (1968)
_HOME FROM THE WAR_ (1973)
_THE LIFE OF THE SELF_ (1976)
_THE BROKEN CONNECTION_ (1982)
IN SHORT, LIFTON IS A RECOGNIZED AUTHORITY IN HIS OWN FIELD WHO CLEARLY KNOWS
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT THE SO-CALLED "ARMENIAN GENOCIDE." INDEED, A
CAREFUL PERUSAL OF HIS BOOK, REVEALS THAT IN ITS 561 PAGES HE MAKES THE FOLLOWING
FEW REFERENCES TO THE SUBJECT:
_P. XII._ "BUT I
FOUND THAT NAZI DOCTORS DIFFERED SIGNIFICANTLY FROM THESE OTHER GROUPS, NOT SO MUCH
IN THEIR HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION BUT IN THEIR CENTRAL ROLE IN GENOCIDAL PROJECTS . . .
_(PERHAPS TURKISH DOCTORS, IN THEIR PARTICIPATION IN THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE
ARMENIANS, COME CLOSEST, AS I SHALL I LATER SUGGEST) . ."
[NOTE: LIFTON DOES NOT PROVIDE ANY SOURCE FOR THIS STATEMENT FOLLOWING THIS PASSAGE;
Well, this is the first time I
have heard of Turkish Dr. Mengeles, conducting horrifying medical experiments on
Armenians. The reason why Dr. Lifton does not provide a source for this figment of
his imagination is that none exists. (And if anything does exist, I'll give you one
guess as to whether it would be based on fact.) Dr. Lifton, unless you actually
based this assertion on some true, reliable evidence, how in the world can
you have the professional ethics to make up something like that?
_PP.466-7_: I SHALL REFER
TO OTHER GENOCIDES -- NOTABLY THE TURKS' ANNIHILATION OF ABOUT ONE MILLION ARMENIANS
IN 1915- _NOT WITH ANY CLAIM TO COMPREHENSIVENESS_ BUT ONLY TO
SUGGEST WIDER APPLICATION
NOTE: AGAIN NO FOOTNOTED SOURCE. MORE IMPORTANTLY IS LIFTON'S ADMISSION THAT HE
DOESN'T CLAIM ANY EXPERTISE ON THE SUBJECT HE IS GOING TO ADDRESS;
Sloppy? Irresponsible? What
other words come to mind?
 |
|
Professor Robert Jay Lifton's book |
_P. 470_: THERE SEEM
TO HAVE BEEN DEFINITE PARALLELS IN TURKISH HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE PRIOR TO THEIR MASS
MURDER OF ARMENIANS IN 1915. WITHIN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, THROUGHOUT THE LATTER PART
OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, THERE WAS AN ATMOSPHERE OF PROGRESSIVE 'DECAY AND
DISINTEGRATION', ALONG WITH A CONTINUOUS IF LOSING STRUGGLE FOR SPIRITUAL AND
POLITICAL UNIFICATION. THE TURKS ALSO EXPERIENCED HUMILIATING FORMS Of FAILED
REGENERATION IN THEIR DISASTROUS MILITARY ENTERPRISES DURING THE 1912 BALKAN WAR
(IGNOMINIOUS DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF THEIR FORMER SLAVES AND WARDS, THE GREEKS AND
THE BULGARIANS) AND THEIR ABORTIVE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN IN 1915 AS A GERMAN ALLY. _VAHAKN
N. DADRIAN_ OBSERVES THAT THE TURKS MOVED CLOSER TO GENOCIDE AS THEIR PERCEPTION OF
THEIR SITUATION PROCEEDED 'FROM THE CONDITION OF MERE STRAIN, TO THAT Of CRISIS, TO
A PRECIPITATE CRISIS, AND EVENTUALLY TO THE CATACLYSM OF WAR.' [19]
_FOOTNOTE 19_: VAHAKN N. DADRIAN, "THE ROLE OF TURKISH PHYSICIANS IN THE WORLD
WAR I GENOCIDE OF OTTOMAN ARMENIANS," _HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES_ I (1986,
FORTHCOMING); DADRIAN, "THE COMMON FEATURES OF THE ARMENIAN AND JEWISH CASES OF
GENOCIDE: A COMPARATIVE VICTIMOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE," IN ISRAEL DRAPKIN AND
EMILIOI VIANO, _VICTIMOLOGY; A NEW FOCUS, VOL. IV (LEXINGTON, MASS: D.C. HEATH,
1974, PP. 99-120. SEE ALSO, HELEN
FEIN, ACCOUNTING FOR GENOCIDE: VICTIMS -- AND SURVIVORS -- OF THE HOLOCAUST (NEW
YORK: FREE PRESS, 1979, PO. 10-18.
_NOTE_: THE SOLE SOURCE FOR LIFTON'S COMMENTS IS THE ARMENIAN AUTHOR: VAHAKN DADRIAN.
Son of a Gun! You learn
something new, every day... I honestly have never heard of "Nazi Doctors"
in the case of the Armenian "Genocide." So what did these Ottoman doctors
do, set up a secret camp to conduct their inhuman experiments? And how did they
"recruit" their human victims... did they march alongside the relocating
Armenians, point, and say, "You"? Or did they merely have to break into
some Armenian homes, Gestapo-style, and pull people out?
And who is the sole authority
Dr. Lifton chooses to rely on? Yep... Mr. Professional "It's my duty to dig
up any dirt on the Turks I can manage, verifiable or not" Dadrian, himself.
WOW! Dadrian actually has even gone after Turkish Physicians..! He covers just about
every conceivable ground to keep spreading the hatred he does... you've got to give
him credit for that.
The thing I don’t understand is, there was a time when Dadrian
felt the complete opposite of what he feels today. There was a time when Dadrian
loved the Turk. Everyone regarded the Turk as a brute... and yes, there were times
when the Turk applied muscle in order to maintain his living, even though his heart
wasn’t always in it. Dadrian saw through all that, and recognized the Turk as an
honorable being, in fact, one with a heart of gold. The Turk could be naive and
trusting in others, maybe even dim-witted at times... while possessing a wisdom and
sense of fairness/ethics rarely to be found in his contemporaries... but despite the
fact that he had no real friends, he had a way of persevering, on the basis of his
courage and great spirit. I don’t know why Dadrian made such a hundred-and-eighty
degree turn, because I heard Dadrain actually fell in love with... oh.
 |
|
Adrian,
with the big lug |
Sorry, my mistake. I was thinking of “Adrian,” from ROCKY.
We might be able to excuse Dr.
Lifton for being gullible during 1986, and accepting whatever Dadrian presented as
the God-Honest truth... since he didn't know much about the Armenian
"Genocide"... but in the ensuing near-decade, what is his excuse to
co-author a paper that makes a point of citing such untrustworthy, biased Armenian
sources as Dadrian? There is no excuse. For whatever reason, Dr. Lifton is not being
motivated by the pursuit of Truth. (Regarding the subject of the Armenian
"Genocide," anyway. In his own field of expertise, I'm sure... or I'd
hope... he must do a good enough job.)
I hope Dr. Dadrian has done a thorough job in coming up with all
possible parallels to the Holocaust. Here are some others, in case he has missed a few.
ADDENDUM LATE 2005
I have become more
familiar with Dadrian's work, and evidently he has found some Turkish doctors
who perfrormed "malpractice" on Armenians. The Ottoman Empire was
plagued with epidemics like cholera; a few doctors may have used Armenians for
experiments. Dadrian cites other Turkish doctors who blew the whistle on the
malpractitioners, which suggests if medical crimes took place, it was on the
initiative of renegade doctors, and not the state. These physicians may have
had a bone to pick with what they saw as traitorous Armenians, It's difficult
to comment, because the only source on this topic is Dadrian, and Dadrian
unethically "cherry-picks" facts serving his agenda, while ignoring
the rest. One needs to see the entire picture before drawing dire conclusions.
For example, a familiar quote to "prove" Mengele-like madness is,
"Was it not the duty of the doctor to kill the microbes?" (As
mentioned on this page.) What
immediately precedes that statement, however, is: "The Armenian
bandits were a load of harmful microbes that had afflicted the body of the
fatherland," which gives a very different connotation (as it was the
bandits, and not the Armenian people as a whole, that threatened the existence
of the nation. We can see how disjointed Dadrian-translations can be here,
because the Turkish word for "fatherland" is "anavatan,"
which is literally "motherland." Dadrian goes with
"fatherland," because it sounds more Nazi-like.
|
P. 473: "AGAIN, THERE ARE
SUGGESTIONS OF SIMILAR CURRENTS IN THE TURKISH SITUATION. THE YOUNG TURKS' WHO
SOUGHT TO REFORM THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE SPEARHEADED 'A MAJOR CAMPAIGN TO CHANGE
THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF OTTOMAN SOCIETY AS AN ANTIDOTE TO INTERNAL DISCORD AND
CONFLICT, AND ALSO AS A MEANS OF RECAPTURING. IMPERIAL, PANTURKIC GLORY.' THEIR
CURE INCLUDED AN ADMIXTURE OF RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES,' AND GENOCIDE
BECAME A MEANS FOR [ BRINGING ABOUT ] A RADICAL ..... CHANGE IN THE SYSTEM.'"
[34]
_FOOTNOTE 34_: SEE DADRIAN, "TURKISH PHYSICIANS" AND "COMMON
FEATURES" [19]
_NOTE_: AGAIN, LIFTON'S SOLE SOURCE FOR HIS VIEWS ON THE TURCO-ARMENIAN QUESTION
ARE THE TWO ARTICLES OF DADRIAN CITED IN FOOTNOTE 19.
It's too much. Dr. Lifton, a
professed scholar, draws conclusions strictly (as it appears) on the basis of one
book (added to what must have been his pre-disposed, deeply-ingrained anti-Turkish
belief system, where he would have been far from the only American afflicted... but,
he is a professor, and ideally he should have had an open mind)... and the source
book of his choosing happened to be written by an Armenian notorious for not
entertaining an objective brain cell, regarding the genocide matter.
Could Dr. Lifton have been so naive as to believe Dr. Dadrian would be
such a reliable source? It is truly mind-boggling... well. Maybe not. I am
disappointed because I would have expected more from the intelligent man I sense Dr.
Lifton to be. However, I am aware there is no shortage of American professors who
are all too comfortable with strictly and irresponsibly and lazily accepting the Armenian claims as
pure fact.
P. 475: IN THE CASE OF THE
TURKS, WHATEVER THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARDS SCIENCE, THEY DID PUT FORWARD A MYSTICAL
VISION OF PAN-TURANIANISM (OR 'TURKIFICATION') _WHICH ALLEGED A PREHISTORIC MYTHIC
UNITY AMONG TURANIAN PEOPLES BASED ON RACIAL ORIGIN_' [43] AND ONE CANNOT DOUBT THE
EXPERIENCE OF TRANSCENDENCE OF TURKISH NATIONALISTS IN THEIR REVERSION TO
FUNDAMENTALIST MOHAMMEDANISM AS A CALL TO AN ANTI-ARMENIAN-CHRISTIAN CRUSADE --
ALL ON BEHALF OF A NEW VISION OF OTTOMAN GLORY."
_FOOTNOTE 43_: DADRIAN, "TURKISH PHYSICIANS" [19].
_NOTE_: ONCE AGAIN, LIFTON'S _SOLE_ SOURCE ID DADRIAN
"One cannot
doubt...the reversion to fundamentalist Mohammedanism (who uses that word,
these days?) as a call to
an anti-Armenian-Christian Crusade..."? Correction, Dr. Lifton.
Obviously, YOU could not have doubted this conclusion, in your own biased and
uninformed mind.
This very false "Muslim
vs. Christian" issue is what the Armenians and their supporters (like
Morgenthau) were banking on to fool the American public during W.W.I, and it is
tragic... TRAGIC.... that a supposedly enlightened intellectual as Dr. Lifton would
accept so whole-heartedly this irrelevant factor as to why what happened, happened.
It's really unbelievable.
|
"Lord
Bryce himself has said that there was no religious fanaticism."
C.F.
Dixon-Johnson, British
author of the 1916 book, "The
Armenians." |
Especially since Dr. Lifton
appears to be Jewish, I'd say it's particularly appropriate to ask him why he thinks
if the Turks were motivated by their fanatical "Mohammedanism," why
weren't the Ottoman Jews targeted? Maybe Dr. Lifton, once he outdoes Porky Pig while
stuttering for an answer, can consult The Dean of Disinformation, Dr. Richard Hovannisian, when he
was asked (in an unguarded moment) why the Young Turks’ so-called policy of Pan-Turanism
was so inconsistent.
ADDENDUM: Pan-Turanism simply was not followed as policy,
but is another silly theory irresponsibly put forth by lazy-minded genocide
advocates as a fact: "The notion of Turanism... was espoused by the
sociologist and prominent educator Ziya Gokalp, but he and his followers constituted
a fringe movement in Young Turk politics. Moreover, even for Gokalp Turanism never
represented a program for action. Still less did it envision the genocide of the
Armenian minority, as has been charged by some writers." Guenter Lewy, The
Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey — A Disputed Genocide, 2005, p. 33.
P. 493: "ONE CANNOT
SAY THAT ANY PARTICULAR LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGY IS REQUIRED FOR GENOCIDE: THE TURKS
KILLED ABOUT A MILLION ARMENIANS BY MEANS OF SHOOTING, CLUBBING, BEATING, SLAVE
LABOR, STARVATION, AND OTHER FORMS OF TORTURE,"
_NOTE_: THERE IS NO FOOTNOTE APPENDED TO THIS STATEMENT, BUT IT IS CLEARLY TAKEN
FROM THE DADRIAN ARTICLES AS WELL.
Most likely. Dr. Lifton seems
like such a believer, if one's got Dadrian, who needs any other source?
And I'd say even at a low level of technology, it would take a lot more
effort than the reasons cited (save for starvation) if a true campaign to murder a
million people is begun in earnest... especially when a nation is without manpower
and resources in a desperate life-and-death struggle, with every man needed at the
five or so simultaneous
fronts. Even the Germans, known for their order and efficiency, had severe problems
in perfecting the art of genocide, at the beginning of their Final Solution.
 |
|
From TAT's "Census" page |
The
"starvation" method of genocide would be a lot more convincing if a lot of
Armenians did not survive. (In a recent anti-Turkish "proclamation" that Dr. Lifton salivated to add his name to, the Armenians
claimed one million Armenians survived. Out of a pre-war TRUE population [based on OVER half a dozen NEUTRAL sources of
the period] of 1,000,000 to 1,500,000, over two-thirds survived. Listen to me: If
you're going to have a genocide where the intention is to exterminate a population,
and if you choose starvation as a method, how could you not kill off the pesky ones
who refused to die from lack of nourishment? In addition, this argument becomes a
lot less convincing when one considers so many Turkish citizens died of starvation
and disease; even the Armenian God, Henry "Holier-than-Thou" Morgenthau,
claimed in his phony book (assuming he was being uncharacteristically truthful),
that thousands
of Turks were dying daily... he estimated a quarter of
the Turkish population suffered, as a result (of all causes, combined... a figure
Justin McCarthy has confirmed). German commander of the Turkish forces, General
Liman von Sanders, testified (as a witness for the
defense in the trial of Talat Pasha's Armenian assassin) thousands of Turkish
SOLDIERS died as a result of famine and disease.... soldiers, the desperate land's
only line of defense against the obliteration the Imperialist powers had long
planned for; conditions were that deplorable.
|
| So
why is Dr. Lifton still harping on this? |
A Truth-Seeker does not continue to cite a
professional disinformation minister such as Vahakn Dadrian... a real scholar looks at
every side of the issue, and resists the temptation of simplistically boiling an issue
down to white hats and black hats.
So what's up with Dr. Lifton?
Well, it's possible he honestly believes all the B.S.
the Armenian propaganda mill has been feeding him. However, I hope not. That would make
him a totally irresponsible scholar, but he sounds much too intelligent for that. Besides,
he is an expert on "Professional Ethics"... I mean, he even co-wrote a
paper on that very topic.
I don't know the answer. Unless he has an undying
racist belief against Turks that psychologically disallows him from objectively
considering the weighty evidence against his Dadrian-directed conclusions, perhaps he was
hurt when his credibility was called on, and his poor research methods were revealed...
and his having taken up spicy Kama Sutra
moves with the Armenians is a form of revenge.
If that's the case, he would be no different than The
New York Times. Dr. Dennis Papazian says the
reason why the newspaper reverted to a policy of referring to the Armenian
"Genocide" as a "genocide," rather than an "alleged
genocide," is (I will put it into my own words here... Professor Papazian's
perspective is slightly different) because they couldn't stomach looking like shoddy
researchers when they blindly accepted all the lies and propaganda they were fed during
the W.W.I days, through the likes of Morgenthau, the missionaries, the Armenians, and
Britain's American branch of Wellington House. They have a whole backlog of biased articles that they would now have to recant, admitting they published News That
Wasn't Fit to Print. (Of course, these old "news" articles are featured in
Armenian web sites as proof of the "Genocide"; that's how I got to read them.
Thanks, Armenian web sites!)
The New York Times
couldn't bear to stand up and admit they were wrong. Better to perpetuate a falsehood than
to face up to one's responsibilities; this is what America's most prestigious newspaper
apparently decided was the safer course... concluding that "Honor" must be a
four-letter-word.
The will to truth
is cowed by pressure of numerous kinds, reasons of state on the one hand, economic
necessities on the other, and, not least, the pure careerism of intellectuals who
put their expertise in the service of power as a matter of course. When governments
and professional elites find reward in the sophistries of might makes right, truth
is bound to suffer.
Terrence Des
(A quote presented
by the three professors... that some non-Armenian scholars who whole-heartedly
accept the Armenian view, with no seeming consideration for any other view, would do
well to bear in mind.)
|
|
The Third Toady of
this Triumvirate
|
After writing the above, I looked into the
background of the other co-writer of "Professional Ethics"... Eric
Markusen. In addition to being a tenured professor of sociology at Southwest State
University, Dr. Markusen has also been recruited as Research Director in
Copenhagen's Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He has a long
association with Robert Jay Lifton, having co-written several papers, beginning in
1984.
On the "Education" page of the Danish site, historic genocides are
examined; the Armenian "Genocide" is not only presented as established
fact, but heads the top of the list, after "The Holocaust," and before
"Rwanda and Burundi," "Cambodia," and "Former
Yugoslavia." The "Other Genocides" page isn't yet constructed, but
when it's worked on, how many of you suspect the Armenians' systematic extermination
policy toward the Turks, or the Russians' centuries-long ethnic cleansing of Turks,
will be paid heed to? Ah, I see no hands going up... you're all on the ball.
A page is also handily provided outlining the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (http://www.dchf.dk/about/un_convention.html),
where somebody didn't bother to consult Article 2 ("In the present Convention,
genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group...") and
Article 7 ("Genocide and the other acts enumerated in article III shall not be
considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition.")
Dr. Markusen (credited at the page's bottom) appears to have at least partially
arranged a May 10-11, 2002 conference called "The 'Armenian Question':
Allegations and Denial":
The Danish Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies holds an international
two-day conference at Copenhagen University on a historic event which still has
great political relevance. Prominent researchers and politicians from the USA,
France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Turkey, Sweden and Denmark will present their
interpretation of the largely forgotten massacres of 1915, when several hundred
thousand Armenians were slaughtered by the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore – for the
first time in Denmark – leading Turkish and
Armenian speakers will participate in a conference...
There goes that ingenuous "largely
forgotten massacres" idea again... the Armenians and their worldwide big bucks
constantly remind us about the Armenian "Genodice": it's the real
genocides such as "Rwanda and Burundi," "Cambodia," and
"Former Yugoslavia" that few of us are reminded of to mourn. To the
Center's credit, at least they kept the numbers down from the typical 1.5 million to
the more accurate "several hundred thousand"... but to the Center's
discredit, they claimed all of these people were directly "slaughtered by the
Ottoman Empire."
I wonder who these " leading Turkish
speakers" happened to be... were they the Turncoat Turks required to be a
member of the Armenian "Genocide" club?
ADDENDUM
Holdwater here. Subsequently
came across the identities of some of the participants.
1) Richard Hovannisian
2) TANER AKCAM..!
3) VAHAKN DADRIAN..!
Is it unbelievable that these
men should even be considered as genuine scholars? Hardly. The three
professors who co-wrote this "Professional Ethics" smear job have
already shown that they swear by the likes of them.
At least the conference wasn't
entirely one-sided. In an article entitled "Enforced Forgetfulness
Does not Help a Nation Conquer the Future" (that appeared in The
National Herald on June 8-9, 2002), Greek writer Takis Michas
sounded outraged:
"The aim of the
organizers of the Copenhagen conference was to create the framework for a
meaningful dialogue among all the interested parties. But unfortunately this
was not to happen.."
Of course, a meaningful
dialogue can only take place if the parties maintain objectivity. You don't
earn marks for credibility when you give credence to dishonest pseudo-scholars
who are prosecutors rather than professors.
"From the very first
moment the Turkish officials started denouncing the organizers and the
institutions hosting the conference. Bulent Akarcali, deputy leader of the
Turkish ruling Motherland party accused the Danish Universities as being
'instruments of evil' and the few Turkish researchers who took part in the
conference as 'national traitors'. As one can easily surmise , the conference
quickly degenerated into a chorus of mutual recriminations while the goal of a
meaningful dialogue, which the organizers had hoped for, remained as elusive
as ever.."
When you look at the genuine
FACTS of this genocide situation, how could anyone with intelligence and
integrity not conclude the Armenian "Genodice" is as "phony as
a three dollar bill" (as Sam Weems put it)? When you know what a
repulsive charade this genocide industry is, anyone who supports it becomes
nothing less than "instruments of evil"... especially in this day
and age, when the actual facts are within reach, and when the book needed to
be closed on the Falsified Genocide, after the Malta Tribunals. The Turkish Turncoats like Taner Akcam
are nothing less than "national traitors." The Turkish deputy
leader was speaking nothing less than the truth.
"During the conference
the Turkish ex-ambassador Pulat Tucar indicated another possible reason for
the Turkish attitude of going into denial: The fear of social instability
which a recognition of the event might cause.. 'Your campaigns' he said
addressing the participants of the conference 'destroys the peace in my
country. You always think of the past, never of the future'.
This of course is also nonsense. Because as the American philosopher Santayna
[sic] pointed out, if a country fails to recognize the errors and crimes of
the past, it is bound to repeat them.
Enforced forgetfulness is, more often than not, the source of instability, not
critical remembrance."
The only reason in this case
for "going into denial" is because when one is accused of a crime
one knows one did not commit, the natural recourse would be to deny it. Does
the writer, Mr. Michas, actually believe if the Armenian "Genocide"
were to be genuinely proven, Turkey would go into "social
instability"? Now THAT is the true nonsense. By the same token, the
Turkish ex-ambassador's statement that Armenians and their bedfellows always
think about the past and not the future is, unfortunately, 100% true... and
far from "nonsense."
What George Santanya wrote is
all too true. (Although his actual quote had not quite the same meaning: "Progress,
far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot
remember the past are content to repeat it.") However, I'm sure
Santanya... when he referred to a country failing to recognize the errors and
crimes of its past... was referring to actual errors and crimes committed.
When someone says you have committed a crime, that does not automatically make
it a crime. It would be necessary for the accuser to truly prove the crime
took place. (Duh!)
Santanya (or what has been
accepted as his words) has been proven correct in the following manner: As a
writer in The Jewish Times has opined, the
true parallel to the Holocaust during the World War One era was provided
by the Armenians, and not the Turks; it was the Armenians who bloodthirstily
waged an extermination campaign against defenseless Moslem villagers.
(Genocidal skills they later put to use for Der Fuehrer in W.W.II.) Since the Turks
never called the Armenians on their crimes in the interest of moving on, and
since the West never called the Armenians on their crimes because the
Armenians are the Christian darlings of the West, the Armenians were slated to
repeat their crimes... as they went on to do, in their sneak attack of
Azerbaijan some seventy-five years later, slaughtering defenseless Moslem
villagers.
"Enforced
forgetfulness"? I know the writer is a naturally sympathizing Greek, but
is he for real? The Turks TRIED to forgive the Armenians (for their treachery
and massacres), and forget... by pursuing the mature course of looking ahead
to the future, the very reason why the Turks never bothered to defend themselves
against these genocide charges seriously, until the early 1980s... but nobody
in Turkey is NOW forgetting about the Armenian "Genocide."
Especially since the "Genocide" is all over the place in Turkish
society, where books written in Turkish by Taner Akcam and Levon Marashlian
are freely available, and other Turk-hating Turkish Turncoats are teaching the
Armenian perspective within Turkey itself (like Akcam's buddy, Halil Berktay).
(Apparently, even some teachers
in Turkish high schools have been affected by the relentless Armenian
propaganda, and have begun teaching about the Armenian "Genocide"
from the Armenian perspective.) Once Armenians activated their genocide
business in full force in the 1970s and 80s with their terrorism, Turks were forced to
look into this genocide business... ascertain the genuine truth... and now
they are never going to forget.
|
The page also goes on to state: "There were Danish
missionaries in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 who witnessed massacres. How did Denmark
react?"
Holdwater's personal experience with Danes has left him with the highest opinion;
they are a true stand-up, honest people. I didn't even know there were Danish
missionaries, and they might not have had the same unscrupulous agenda as American
missionaries, appealing to Christian sympathies to raise money. However,
missionaries in general were zealous in their outlook (otherwise, why would anyone
become a missionary?) and had their sympathies clearly laid out... especially in a
land ruled by (in their view) oppressive, barbaric Moslems. These Danish
missionaries (or missionaries of any nationality) did not "witness"
massacres being committed.... remember, the evil Turks were slaughtering Christians
because they were Christians! Does anyone believe a missionary could have been in
the middle of such a bloodbath spurred by fanatical "Mohammedanism," and
have been spared?
No, the only thing the missionaries might have come across were bodies of the
massacred, if that; mainly, they just took the word of their beloved fellow
Christians, the poor, defenseless Armenians.
There is no question the Armenians suffered, but unquestionably, so did the
Turks/Muslims... for the exact same reasons, famine, disease, and massacres. Why did the missionaries
discriminate, and why did they only observe the suffering of the Armenians? Were the
missionaries true Christians?
On the Danish site, there was a beautiful message from a
Pastoral Letter of Danish Bishops, dated 29 September 1943:
Because persecution of Jews opposes the view of human beings and the love of
one`s neighbour which is a consequence of the gospel that the church of Jesus Christ
has the task to preach. Christ knows of no respect of persons, and he has taught us
to see that every human life is costly to God. "There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all
one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3.28)
Now THAT, to me, is what a Christian should ideally be about. Most missionaries in
the Ottoman Empire were anything but true Christians. They not only kept their eyes
closed to the suffering of the Turks, many deliberately bore false witness against
their neighbors.
|
Admit or deny
that you Armenians teach your children to hate Turks from birth? This isn't a
Christian act now is it?
Devout Baptist Sam Weems, in response
to Armenian
Hate Mail |
 |
|
Dr. Eric Markusen |
My
original purpose was to spotlight Eric Markusen, and instead I digressed to a look
at this organization he works for. Now Eric Markusen may have put himself on record
as a co-writer of this "Professional Ethics and the Denial of Armenian
Genocide" paper for the same reasons as Doctors Smithian and Liftonian...
sloppy scholarship and a possible prejudice against the Turks, among others.... but
as a "genocide scholar," it justifies his purpose to make the Armenian
"Genocide" appear as an established fact. Forget about unheralded and
"unsexy" genocides, as those against the Gypsies, Tasmanians and
especially Turks... it's just so comfortable and easy to point to the popular
Armenian "Genocide," and then come up with scholarly genocidal
conclusions.
On the Danish site's "Armenian Question" conference page which Dr.
Markusen perhaps had a hand in preparing, there is a line that states: "The
Turkish government refuses this label (of genocide)." But don't you see,
Dr. Markusen? It's not just a case of "The Turkish government says..."
which is Armenian code for "Everybody knows you can't trust what a government
says... especially the evil, totalitarian Turkish government"... there are
PROFESSORS WHO KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A PROFESSOR, COMPARED TO YOU — WHICH IS TO
EXAMINE ALL SIDES OF A HISTORICAL EVENT BEFORE REACHING EASY, IRRESPONSIBLE
CONCLUSIONS — who ALSO refuse to label what took place in W.W.I's Ottoman Empire
as a "genocide."
Who CARES what the Turkish government says.... I sure don't. All I care about are
the FACTS. Not the "facts" that Vahakn Dadrian gives, that a gullible and
ignorant amateur would accept at face value... but the real, cold, objective, hard
facts that should be almost impossible to argue with.
Because you don't like what these other professors say, you willingly become a party
to the Armenian-directed smear campaign of one of them?
Even if Heath Lowry was guilty as charged... let's say the evil Turkish government
bribed Heath Lowry with millions of dollars... why are you not looking at the
validity of his research? For that matter, why have you overlooked all these many
sources of non-Turkish origin this web site has only partially provided? Isn't the
truth all that matters? What kind of a professor are you??
Shame on you, Dr. Markusen, for being a part of this ugly paper... when the words
within are examined by your IMPARTIAL peers, it becomes clear who is really devoid
of "Professional Ethics." You owe Heath Lowry an apology... and because
Heath Lowry refuses to be a lazy thinker and has the courage and integrity to go
beneath the easy surface, perhaps you should ask him for lessons on what it means to
be a true professor.
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| |
Related:
The Heath Lowry
affair
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