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

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

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

Dr, Dennis Papazian

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

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

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

Cloak and ARF Dagger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kaiser continued:

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

Dr. Hilmar Kaiser

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Kaiser then reports a letter between ARF Central Committees stating that they did everything to avoid a clash, but they needed to make a last stand; had the Russians and Armenian volunteers arrived 24 hours later, it would have been all over.

To get an accurate picture of what truly transpired, one must refer to the following few pages in The Armenian Rebellion in Van, where McCarthy follows the rules of honest history, utilizing all sources. McCarthy has written on p. 200 that Cevdet took action against the Dashnak leaders in April (not March 25; Toynbee agreed with McCarthy as to the start date, within the propaganda of Toynbee's Blue Book; on the other hand, Toynbee was fully in agreement with Kaiser as far as the "self-defense" notion: "...In the town of Van itself, when they had seen some of their leading men murdered and massacre overshadowing the rest, they took up arms, expelled the murderers, and stood a siege of 27 days —1,500 defenders against 5,000 assailants equipped with artillery—till they were triumphantly relieved by the advancing Russians."), in the hopes that once the leaders were killed, the rebels would be disunited (They targeted the leaders, a far cry from targeting the Armenian community to "wipe them out.") Vramian, for example, as McCarthy further wrote, was "arrested on April 17 and sent under guard to Istanbul, disappearing (surely killed)... Cevdet's policy, brutal and illegal, would probably have been somewhat successful in disorganizing the rebels had Aram not escaped."

On p. 201, "Some Armenian sources have claimed that the Van rebellion began with unprovoked attacks on Armenians on April 20." (The source is Gossoian's The Epic Story. April 20 is nearly a month after Kaiser's March 25.) "They contend that Ottoman forces began to shell Armenian neighborhoods without reason. This seems extremely unlikely. The Armenian sources, writing after the fact for public consumption, had ample reason to proclaim that they were completely innocent. The Ottoman documents, in contrast, were purely internal reports."

Kaiser's ARF Central Committee letter was an internal report as well, and it would be worthwhile to examine it in detail; particularly the part about doing everything to avoid a clash. Yet what would that prove? The cannier members of the ARF would have surely desired to hold off as long as they could, biding their time until the Russian army and the Armenian volunteer force arrived. Too bad the more bloodthirsty Dashnaks and Hunchaks could not refrain from jumping the gun, with juicy Muslims ripe for the picking, and the Van Armenians advertised their aggression. Regardless, the handwriting was on the wall; the treachery they were conducting was all too clear, Cevdet was not stupid, and the jig was up for them. Think about it: with the Russians breathing down the gates, would this have been the time for Cevdet to kill Armenians for fun, just so he could have more feet to nail horseshoes on? The limited forces Cevdet had would have been best directed against the advancing enemy — only the enemy was already within! Luckily, however, in order to counter Kaiser's singular source demonstrating how poor and innocent the self-defending Armenians were, we have other Dashnak reports to see exactly the kind of "belligerents de facto" the traitorous Van Armenians were, the kind that "indignantly refused to side with Turkey":

Kaiser concludes that "the only way to avoid the potential threat of Armenians aiding the Russians was to deport them," and adds that he does not "have a document that says this..." He appears to be referring strictly to "the deportation of Armenians in the area of the Van province, adjacent to the Bitlis province and then in the northern Erzerum province, exactly on the front line." (Of course, that would not be called a "deportation," unlike the Russians' forcing out of their entirely innocent Muslims, straight through the front lines.) Did the Ottomans have the forces — and more importantly, the control of the front line area — to conduct what Kaiser is telling us was a limited relocation? By April 24, Cevdet was considering at least one relocation, on the 24th, a relocation of Van's Muslims, in a telegram to the Ministry of the Interior:

"Until now approximately 4,000 insurgent Armenians have been brought to the region from the vicinity. The rebels are engaged in highway robbery, attack the neighbouring villages and burn them. It is impossible to prevent this. Now many women and children are left homeless. It is not possible nor suitable to relocate them in tribal villages in the vicinity. Would it be convenient to begin sending them to the western provinces?" [Genelkurmay, 1/1, KLS 44, File 207, F. 2.]

Kaiser is on the right track when he offers:

"How were these deportation organized? Basically, they weren’t organized at all in the beginning. They were just decreed. They said the local administration takes care of the welfare of the Armenians. There were no precise orders on how to secure the welfare of Armenians." He's absolutely correct. The Ottomans had to undertake this gigantic operation in a hurry, once they realized the threat of the traitorous Armenians (the nation was fighting for its life, a fight that ultimately ended in the nation's death), and as Kaiser himself contributes, "A lot of Armenians, very expensive, very few resources," and the nation was bankrupt. (As Ahmed Rustem Bey reminded us in the box above, the state could not even feed its soldiers; we also know more Ottoman soldiers died of disease and famine than through combat.) An honorable party can't then "fill in the blanks" by presenting murderous intent as though it were a fact. For example, Kaiser tells us, "Then in July, Talat says, Move the Armenians away from Der Zor," as if it were Talat's intention to put additional strain on the Armenians, hoping they would all die. What Talat Pasha did, on July 12, was order a halt to further Armenians from coming in to Zor because the law stated Armenians cannot exceed ten percent of the Muslim population. On one hand, you have necessities (Kaiser gives another: "The presence of Armenians threatens the supply lines of the Iraqi army along the Euphrates. They must not stay along the Euphrates"), and on the other, you have the responsibility of looking out for the welfare of the resettled Armenians.

Of course there are going to be times when disaster will strike, regarding huge operations that are not planned for very well (as we know from the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an example of a modern superpower with all the time in the world to plan). This is why one of the few reliable Western eyewitnesses, U.S. war correspondent George Schreiner, wrote that what happened to the Armenians was due to "Turkish ineptness, more than intentional brutality." That is the simple truth.


Here is a map of the thirteen relocation centers; only three are outside Anatolian borders, with the caveat that the jury is still out on the source.

And we must not forget that every single Armenian was not resettled to Zor, but other areas as well. Again, the idea was for Armenians not to exceed 10 percent of the Muslim population, meaning Armenians were sent to many other places. It's not very honest to refer to what happened to the Zor Armenians as happening to all other relocated Armenians. Kaiser follows up with how much more effective the "desert" was as "concentration camps," because barbed wire is not necessary in the desert. So now every single Armenian who was sent away found himself between sand dunes, including this one who kept a real-time diary of his family's ordeal. One wonders how any Armenian could have possibly survived, and yet we have reports as one by a British officer: "...Despite all they have gone through, I did not see a thin one amongst a good many thousand I saw, and most looked cheery too. The massacres seem to have been a good deal exaggerated..." (See under "A British Observer" on this page.)

Regardless, true to the form of the usual genocide scholar who must adhere to his pre-arranged conclusion (instead of allowing the facts to lead us to the conclusion, which is how a real scholar would operate), Kaiser tells us:

"The Young Turk government did not have one decision for mass murder, they had several decisions for mass murder, and these various decisions for mass murder add up to this total wipe out, destruction."

So now there was a "total wipe out," and a "destruction." Here's how Kaiser makes his case for that:

"The Ottoman Armenian population was approximately 1.8-2.2 million people. Depending on the estimate, between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians were “lost.” When I say “lost,” I mean killed, but also taken into Muslim households. 'Lost' to the community, not returned."

How very charming that Dr. Kaiser prefers to settle on propagandistic sources, even allowing for the possibility of going beyond the Patriarch's absurd 2.1 million figure (which was the Patriarch's "official" estimate; the number provided to Lepsius was a more reasonable, and yet still inflated, 1.85 million.) The consensus of Western, and even some Armenian, estimates of the period averaged 1.5 million. (The Ottoman census was 1.3 million.) It is impossible to have a mortality of nearly 1.5 million if the original population hovered around 1.5 million, especially when even Vahakn Dadrian and Peter Balakian tell us that one million had survived. Particularly since the Patriarch himself went with an 840,000 mortality, based on his 2.1 million pre-war figure. (Since his "real" figure was 1.85 million, and since one can verify the living more accurately than one can account for the war dead, then subtract the Patriarch's own figure for survivors from his "real" pre-war figure. Let's do it together: 1.85 million [minus] 1.26 million [equals] 590,000. What do you know! The Patriarch agreed exactly with Prof. Justin McCarthy, as far as the "real" Armenian mortality.)

Most Muslims who took Armenians into their households were motivated by humanistic concerns. For example, according to one Armenian's memoirs, which is the kind of evidence Kaiser appears to respect, Leon Surmelian's sister was saved by a Muslim family, and Surmelian himself clamored to get a Muslim to take him in; Surmelian left when he chose to, his Armenian identity very much intact, and the Muslim did not keep him under a ball and chain. Let's not forget as well that after the Armistice, the rabidly pro-Christian occupying British made sure to address the propaganda regarding all of the "stolen" Christian women and children, and "the Ottoman Government spent several years and more than 1,150,000 liras, and employed hundreds of officials to return the Greeks and Armenians to their previous areas of residence from the regions they had been transferred to." We're not going to have too many "lost" Armenians if such a gung-ho effort was made to "save" the Armenians, and there were also a good number who preferred to stay in their new homes, despite how propaganda tries to paint the picture that these people were being evilly reconstructed into Turks or that they were sex slaves. (Meanwhile, nothing is said about the Turkish children who were claimed to be Armenian, as the above link will shed light upon.)

"It turns out the Armenian Patriarchate figures are surprisingly reliable. I obtained documents from the Ottoman archives where you find Armenian in small numbers in villages where, according to the Patriarchate, there were no Armenians."

If the Patriarch was unaware of the existence of Armenians in some villages, that would demonstrate how predictably unreliable the Patriarch's figures were (in one breath, the Patriarch Zaven said 2.1 million, and in the next, 1.85 million; like a previous Patriarch — Nerses Varjabedian — who said 3 million at the time of the 1878 Berlin Conference, only to next offer 1.78 million). Beyond that, isn't it hypocritical to vouch for the accuracy of the Patriarch's figures, only to outdo by almost double the Patriarch's own 840,000 mortality figure?

"The Armenian genocide is a history of the women and the children, because the men were in the army or were killed early in the deportation."

With such a statement, Hilmar Kaiser is slipping into unabashed propaganda territory, and if he's not careful, he's going to start making Tessa Savvidis Hofmann jealous. There were a good many family men in on the "deportation" ride, and the rest of the men were not either all killed early on or were in the army. Many in the army had deserted, many escaped conscription, and thousands joined the armies of the enemy. We also have a good number of men included in the 400,000-500,000 who hightailed it to lands outside Ottoman control, and an additional near-300,000 from Eastern Anatolia who accompanied the Russians with their back-and-forth retreats. ("By the end of 1916," according to Hovannisian.) These were Ottoman-Armenians who were not even subjected to "deportation," and are we being asked to believe there were few men among them?

And, under the heading of "Andonian was not lying," Hilmar Kaiser was quoted as saying:

"One of these officials was Naim Bey, the famous Naim Bey of Aram Andonian. We have identified him. He existed, the name was right, Andonian’s description of him as corrupt was right, and also his workplace at Meskene was right. Andonian was not lying."

It's ironic that for someone who has laudably pointed to the lack of ethics of Dadrian and Akcam, Kaiser goes to lengths, in this instance at least, to emulate them. For among even the blinded-by-passion and/or morally corrupt genocide scholars, practically the only two who dare to give credence to Aram Andonian are Dadrian and Akcam. (In 1992, Akcam toyed with the notion of credibility, and called Andonian's forgeries for the fakes they obviously are. But once Dadrian tugged on the choke leash around Akcam's neck, Akcam went along with his master. Of course, these two don't come right out and proclaim that Andonian was on the level — not even they are that foolish, much as Dadrian has come awfully close — their goal is to cultivate enough doubt, just so we might think, maybe... just maybe there might be something to this awful, immoral work.)

For those familiar with the arguments of the two Turkish scholars — Orel and Yuca — who have decisively put the issue to rest, there is nothing Dadrian, Akcam, and the handful of others like them can say that can possibly convince us. We don't even need to get into the technical, and sometimes confusing, details such as the dates, and the codes for the telegrams that Andonian did not have, so that he had to make them up. A simple reading of The Memoirs of Naim Bey book is a dead giveaway as to what a total joke these forgeries are. We have a March 9, 1915 telegram saying that all Armenians must be killed and that none are allowed to work, and yet a month later, not only is Andonian himself working, he is working in the sensitive post as a military censor. The words put into Naim Bey's mouth are such that he thinks the Turks are the lowest beings on earth (why, almost as if an Armenian might have written the script), and yet he is not around to corroborate the authenticity of these telegrams, despite the fact that an Armenian team from England has come all the way to put the documents (that is, the copies of the documents, since Andonian "lost" the originals) through the most stringent tests. (Why wouldn't Naim Bey have come right out in the open? After all, he had freely given his name, didn't he?) Furthermore, we're told that right after the Armistice, Andonian was told about the existence of Naim Bey, Andonian had to seek Naim Bey out, Andonian had to persuade Naim Bey to give up the goods (by bringing around dozens of Armenian women who had suffered, for example, to wear Naim Bey down, as Naim Bey was a real proud Turk at the beginning... a process that sounds like it must have taken a long time before Andonian gained Naim's confidence), and yet Naim Bey shows up with the first of the telegrams only eleven days after the Armistice was signed on October 26, 1918. There are so many more stupidities and inconsistencies that we can readily understand why the British refused to consider these forgeries for their planned Malta Tribunal, and even the kangaroo court Berlin trial of Talat Pasha's assassin rejected them in 1921.

And yet here is Hilmar Kaiser attempting to validate this evil work, albeit in a backhanded way, by declaring "Andonian was not lying." It is quite a leap to imply these forgeries might be on the level simply because the name of Naim Bey was found on a document. Let's put ourselves in the position of an unscrupulous scoundrel like Aram Andonian, who decided to do his patriotic duty by creating the evidence so sorely needed to prove this nonexistent genocide, in order that the powers would better justify the doling out of "Greater Armenia." Andonian was keenly aware that the bigoted and hateful Christian powers who looked upon the Terrible Turk as belonging to some other animal species were not going to examine Andonian's concocted words with any great care. (Very much like why the work of Akcam and Dadrian are mindlessly accepted today, because of the intense prejudice against Turks, and because — as Kaiser put it in his interview — "no one is able to check the sources." More correctly, no one cares to check the sources, then as well as now.) Once the Turks' lands would have been taken away, if Andonian's evil work was discovered at a later date to be the fakes they were, Andonian knew it would not have made a bit of difference.

Richard Gere as Clifford Irving in "The Hoax": "The more outrageous I sound, the more convincing I am."

However, such a flim-flam man would have needed to take some precautions, to get the odds on his side. It makes great sense that Andonian would have gone through the trouble to learn who worked in the Aleppo administration, and if Naim Bey was the secretary in the "Deportation” office of Abdulahad Nuri (as claimed in Andonian's book), what would have prevented such an unethical character as Andonian from simply casting Naim Bey in the role? (Perhaps Naim Bey was not even alive at the time, as the book tells us nothing about Naim's whereabouts; that would have been perfect. A real Ottoman government employee serving as Andonian's fall guy, with Naim Bey no longer around to defend himself. Unlike Howard Hughes, who in later years emerged from what appeared to be his hermetically-sealed reclusive state, to denounce his forger, Clifford Irving.) If Naim Bey were on the level, and gave up compromising documents (some of which, Andonian wrote, Naim Bey constructed from memory..!) for quick cash, would Naim Bey have permitted his name to appear in this viciously propagandistic book, allowing him to be denounced by dangerously fanatical and "patriotic" elements in the Ottoman Muslim community? Why, the fanatical Dashnaks have knocked off their own for incomparably lesser offenses.

What is this great compulsion on Kaiser's part to wish to give credence to these horrible forgeries? He wants to come across as a professional scholar, and to distinguish himself from scholarly frauds such as Dadrian and Akcam; and, again, much as he is to be credited for blowing the whistle on such obvious propagandists, for reasons that may have more to do with getting burned by the ungrateful genocide industry and perhaps for reasons of simple jealousy (Kaiser knows he's incontestably a more legitimate scholar than the copycat Taner Akcam; Kaiser is putting greater effort into original research, is much more meticulous with his work, and yet Akcam still winds up with the precious Armenian money to make a living at this game), he is really little different. Hilmar Kaiser has his pre-arranged conclusions just like Dadrian and Akcam, and he's going to close his eyes to the evidence that does not suit his purposes. He's going to stress the propaganda, and choose to go with the ludicrous flow, on matters such as Dashnaks being loyal Ottomans, that the insurgents in Van were really engaging in self-defense, and that Andonian was one heck of a stand-up guy as much as Justin McCarthy is not. It is almost as though he is telling the big Armenian money that he has been wronged, and that he is as stalwart a genocide proponent as the best of the propagandists they have got. (In his interview, he expresses sadness for being overlooked, or for being done dirt by those as, say, Papazian, much as Kaiser is working so tirelessly for Hai Tahd: "All these donations the [Armenian] community put into research, obviously none of it is coming there. So when I am going there [the Turkish archives], people should not think that I am going on an Armenian ticket. If there was five percent Armenian money in it, it would be nice.")

Hilmar Kaiser has no excuse to be ignorant, as the unconflicted sources disproving genocide are voluminous and accessible; Kaiser also has given strong signs of regarding Turks as equal human beings, at least on a personal level, and cannot be accused of racism. Yet take a look at his output, as summarized by Mouradian for his interview:

His published works-monographs, edited volumes and articles-include “Imperialism, Racism, and Development Theories: The Construction of a Dominant Paradigm on Ottoman Armenians,” “At the Crossroads of Der Zor: Death Survival and Humanitarian Resistance in Aleppo, 1915-1917,” “The Baghdad Railway and the Armenian Genocide, 1915-1916: A Case Study in German Resistance and Complicity,” “1915-1916 Ermeni Soykirimi Sirasinda Ermeni Mulkleri, Osmanli Hukuku ve Milliyet Politikalari,” “Le genocide armenien: negation a ‘l’allemande’” and “From Empire to Republic: The Continuities for Turkish Denial.”

It's all totally one-sided.

We learned that he values Armenian testimony as historical evidence, and we know he has been in the Turkish archives and may have encountered the reams of Turkish testimony, as this one:

DECLARATION

Made on oath by Ali, son of Suleiman, from Bitlis; now residing in the village of Kayalou-Mardine (Bitlis vilayet).

It was about the end of February, 1915. Armenians of Bitlis and Van who had been early informed of the Russians’ intention to occupy Bitlis, attacked the Moslem population which they murdered ruthlessly using all means possible to prevent it from escaping. Meanwhile, my brother-in-law, Ali, aged 21 years, his mother Rebiche, Cheikh Ahmed of Kazaran, his wife and one of his servants; our neighbors Ahmed Oglou and his child, eighty-year old Hassan, his son Izeet and two soldiers on convalescent leave were victims of their wrath and slashed to pieces.

Of our family, composed of 17 persons, only three escaped with the greatest difficulties. One of my niece’s babies was tossed up I the air and cut in two as it fell down by Armenian bandits.

They raped young girls and dragged all bloodstained through the streets. Most horrible and indescribable outrages were committed by Armenians on the Moslem element.

Note the date of the above, about three months before the "Armenian genocide" had "officially" begun, and four months before it had "technically" begun, with the relocation program. Then there's this next one, which focuses on Van, and blows the lid on Kaiser's cherished notion of "self-defense":

DECLARATION

Made on oath by the police-constable of Van, Suleiman effendi,
Son of Sadoullah, now on service in Mardine (Bitlis vilayet).

When the Russians neared Van, all the Armenians of the city and neighboring villages began to agitate and to demonstrate against Ottoman authorities. They would no longer obey administrative orders (regarding tax collection and military duties), and set out to join the Russian army. They roamed about from village to village, attacking travelers and killing every Moslem they met on the roads. They also murdered sick soldiers who were going to their villages on furlough.

After some time, the Armenians of Van openly rebelled against the Imperial Government and strated in the streets to attack constables, soldiers and policemen. They killed every Moslem that fell in their hands, firing on people when they looked out of windows, or stood on the doorstep of their houses.

(This lasted 27 days). After the occupation of the town by the enemy, the Armenians were even more violent. They pursued refugees, killing them in the streets. Hundreds of Moslem men, women and children who had remained in town were tortured or killed by Armenian bands.

A number of inhabitants who had sought escape in three boats were exterminated at the Tarkat pier, in the district of Adildjavaz. The police accompanying them, Djelal, Hachim and Moustafa effendis, were wounded during the fight and managed to reach Bitlis after meeting with great dangers and difficulties. The inhabitants of the villages of Zive, Molla Kassim, Cheikh Kara, Cheikh Aine, Ayans, Zorayad, Pakes, in the commune of Timar, were exterminated by Armenian bands, as well as those from other places.

Before the occupation of Van by the Russians, Cheikh Zade Agha, Risa Memo, mounted constable, Hodja Hassan effendi, former Chief accountant of Van, and his family consisting of six persons; Rassim effendi, a professor at the Ruchdie school and his family, and other persons were all killed by the Armenians of the city. Lieutenant Hussein effendi was attacked in his own house, and his daughter Nadide, wounded and outraged. Other Moslem women and young girls were also outraged, and thousands of houses burnt down with their inhabitants.


The above (from the appendix of Ahmet Rustem Bey's book) appears to boil down to internal reports, taken down shortly after the committed atrocities, which makes them wholly more reliable than the bulk of Armenian memoirs, documented many years after the events, often in the service of Hai Tahd.

Why is Hilmar Kaiser, who enjoys presenting himself as a professional scholar, ignoring this other side of the coin? Why has Kaiser so resolutely chosen sides? Is it because in his heart of hearts Kaiser believes that the Turks were guilty barbarians? Or is it because he believes that the hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Jews that the Armenians exterminated in the most sadistic of ways, in a campaign that much more closely fulfills the rules of the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention, are not as worthwhile on the human scale, compared to the lives of Armenian victims? Or is it because he is aware there is no money and no glamor and no other kind of reward for researching the crimes of the Armenians? (And if one thinks Dennis Papazian was hard on him now, perhaps Kaiser is aware of the monumental defamation and other headaches he would be in for, if he were to truly go for "equal time," and who needs that?) Regardless, it is plain to see that the way in which Kaiser supports his current views are largely based on speculation, which is far from scholarly, and often the spottiest of conflicted sources. It is this spottiness that characterizes Hilmar Kaiser, the kind that a leopard would have the greatest trouble changing.