Armenian Genocide

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For many years in American media, the Indian was portrayed as the savage "bad guy." Certainly, native Americans hardly had anyone speaking on their behalf, and it was natural for the public to unquestioningly accept a one-sided version of events. Finally, as the indisputable truth became reported more and more (especially following the1960s publication of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee), the real version of this historical conflict became widely accepted. Ironically, the formerly accepted "good guy" side was revealed to have been the actual dishonorable ones (having broken every treaty) and the ones significantly engaged in heartless slaughters, coupled with, at times, campaigns of systematic extermination.

For nearly a century, the Western World has wholeheartedly accepted that there has been an attempt by the Ottoman Turks to systematically destroy the Armenian people, comparable to what the Nazis committed upon the Jews during World War II. Many Armenians who have settled in America, Europe and Australia (along with other parts of the world, known as "The Armenian Diaspora") have clung to the tragic events of so long ago as a form of ethnic identity, and have considered it their duty to perpetuate this myth, with little regard for facts... at the same time breeding hatred among their young. As descendants of the merchant class from the Ottoman Empire, Armenians have been successful in acquiring the wealth and power to make their voices heard... and they have made good use of the "Christian" connection to gain the sympathies of Westerners who share their religion and prejudices.

Turks characteristically shun propaganda, and have chosen not to dwell on the tragedies of the past, forging ahead to build upon brotherhood — not hate. This is why the horrifying massacres committed upon the Turks, Kurds and other Ottoman Muslims by Armenians have seldom been heard. When such reports are heard, Westerners can be callously dismissive... Turkish lives are apparently as meaningless to them as Indian lives were to most early Americans.

(The following is an excerpt from Dr. Leon Picon, reviewing the book, "THE ARMENIAN FILE"):

How successfully the Turks could have warded off the resultant stigma through counter-propaganda will never be known. But it is certain that in 1922 Sultan Mohammed Vl put it quite succinctly and pointedly, when he told the American writer E. Alexander Powell:

“If we sent one, your newspapers and periodicals would not publish an article written by a Turk, if they published it, your people would not read it, if they read it, they would not believe it. Even if we sent a qualified person to America, to convey to you in your language, the Turkish point of view, would he find an impartial audience?” [Gurun, File, p. 37]

It's amazing that whenever the "Armenian Genocide" is referred to in Western media, journalists seem to fall all over themselves in presenting the perspective totally from the Armenian propaganda machinery. Whenever there is an attempt to present "the other side," the passage is usually preceded by "The Turkish Government claims..." Keeping in mind we all know how dishonest spokespeople from any government can be. (And reinforcing the erroneous view that only the Turkish Government objects to the Armenian version of history.)

"A lie travels round the world while Truth is putting on her boots" (Used by C.H. Sturgeon, famed English preacher of the 19th century)

No person of Turkish heritage would accept what the Turkish Government has to say about this issue, as the final word. Just like no person of Armenian heritage should care about what the Armenian side has to say. What every person needs to do is look at the facts. If there were REAL proof of government- sponsored evil planned against the Armenians, a people who peacefully lived with and prospered beside the Turks for over five centuries, it would be Turks crying out against such horrors before most everyone else... one's humanity and integrity should ideally supersede loyalty to one's ethnic tribe.

What Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda, swore by is unfortunately very true: If you tell a lie... especially a big lie... enough times, people will believe it. The often told "Armenian Genocide" tale... a tale told hardly with any opposition in nations sympathetic to the "Christian" Armenians... has been so ingrained within people's belief systems that any attempt to shed light on the actual truth is often violently rejected. Why, everyone knows those Turks were bloodthirsty savages!

"Give a lie twenty-four hours start, and it will take a hundred years to overtake it." (C.F. Dixon-Johnson, British author of the 1916 book, "The Armenians," appalled over the deceitful practices of his book's subject.)

"WHEN THE LEGEND BECOMES FACT, PRINT THE LEGEND." (From "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,"
as pointed out in Robert Wuhl's comedic history TV show.)
In other words, the "Armenian Genocide" myth has now been so drilled into our heads, even intellectuals are brainwashed, unable to summon critical thought. The genocide legend must now be sustained, and this legend keeps seeing print.

This web site will present evidence — mostly from Western sources (not easy to supply, as few Westerners cared about seeking out the truth back then... a situation which has barely improved with the passage of the years) — in as impartial a way as possible*, so that visitors can make up their own minds. (Assuming, of course, that the visitor is not beyond hope and not totally brainwashed, like most genocide-obsessed Armenians and their supporters... everything is a "lie" with them, no matter what the source.) Was there an Armenian Genocide? None of us who are rational and reasonable can say with absolute certainty. However, all we can rely on are cold, hard FACTS. Certainly, Armenians were killed as a result of massacres... often by their Muslim neighbors, in reprisal for the murderous acts committed by the Armenians (when they sided with the Russian enemy in hopes of carving out their own independence); but anybody who calls acts of massacres a "genocide" doesn't know the meaning of the word. (At least the way most of us perceive the meaning, as with what Hitler did to the Jews; the legal definition of genocide is essentially meaningless, and can be applied to almost any conflict.) If a genocide is how you like to describe what happened to the Armenians, then you need to refer to what American soldiers committed in My Lai as a "genocide."

Ironically, if anyone acted genocidally, with the intention of systematically wiping out people because of their ethnic or religious identity, it was the people who are traditionally accepted as the victims of this conflict. Another irony is that while Armenians have been doing their utmost to portray Turks as Nazis (in an effort to equate themselves with Holocaust victims, the one group best known to have fallen prey to genocide), Turks did their best to save Jews during World War II... while European Armenians actively supported the Nazi cause.

Since the Turkish perspective is attempting to undo nearly ninety years (and well beyond) of the unopposed one-sided view that has permeated Western minds, also having to contend with charges of "revisionism" and "denial"... defensiveness unfairly becomes part of the picture. While the aim of this site is to present mostly impartial views to get people to question what they have unthinkingly accepted, what this entails is that the Turks are put in the uncomfortable position of having to prove a negative — a difficult, if not impossible task... on the order of attempting to prove God does not exist. The issues are whether there was a state directed policy of extermination (that is, genocide... with the provision that there must be intent — backed up by tangible, no-buts-about-it evidence — as defined by the 1948 United Nations rule... and also whether Armenians constituted a political group, unprotected by another article from the U.N. Convention on Genocide)... and whether the Armenians and other minorities were the sole victims of massacres.

"(This) one-sided and unreliable information (about any people) after a long period of unchallenged time, would create hostility and hatred that would not be easily overcome.” (Cyrus Hamlin, co-founder of the American missionary college in Istanbul [Robert College], opining on anti-Turkish propaganda, late 19th-Century.)

If anyone is familiar with the 1957 movie "Twelve Angry Men" (based on a television play, starring Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb... later remade with Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott)... you might remember how eleven jurors accepted at the outset the "obvious" guilt of the young man on trial, perpetuated by the race of the accused. The message of the film was that things are not always what they seem... and the Henry Fonda character, through logic and facts, turned around the opinions of each of his co-jurors. Quite a task lay before him, since the other co-jurors were motivated by other factors instead of the pertinent one at hand (i.e., Justice), but ultimately truth prevailed... as will inevitably occur one day with the Armenian "genocide," once people put their prejudices aside, and look at the validity of the evidence offered on both sides. We are now in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, and the Turks are in the Henry Fonda role... and the Armenians are in the Lee J. Cobb role. (The one difference in the way our play will work out is that most Armenians will never accept that there was no genocide... as the genocide has become too much a reason for the Armenians' existence, and facts become irrelevant, or conveniently altered.)

Innocent until proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt should be the legal principle at work here, and ideally it should not be up to the Turks to prove that they did not commit genocide but for Armenians and their Turk-hating supporters to prove that the Turks did. This "trial" has already historically taken place, as you will soon see... and the resulting "acquittal" hasn't made any difference in the eyes of those who will condemn the Turks, regardless of the facts.

(*Regarding impartiality: this refers to most of the supporting documents presented on this site, particularly those from Western sources... since anyone with a Western background can safely be assumed not to have been raised with a love for Turks; after all, does the Western society exist that favors a glowing image of Turkey? My own writings [I'm Holdwater, by the way; glad to meet you] are often not impartially written... however, if you can prove to me that there definitely was an Armenian genocide, you would find me changing my tune pretty fast. Can you say the same about yourself, if you begin to be convinced what you have been led to believe all this time has mainly been a lie?)

"...Eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall." US Senator Robert Byrd, Senate Floor Remarks - May 21, 2003

BEFORE YOU GO ON, at your own speed...

... I'd like you to visit the following three pages. First, take a look at a brief background as to what went on, in an American professor's words... followed by an important scenario, the link for which is also provided at the bottom of the "background" page. Last, you'll be guided to what should be the often ignored end-all argument.

"Condemnation without hearing both sides is unjust and un-American"

Arthur Tremaine Chester, "Angora and the Turks," The New York Times Current History, Feb.1923

"Believing Armenophile publicity 'exaggerated, misconstructed, and abusive,' [Admiral] Bristol in early 1920 told [Rev.] Barton... that it was contrary to the American sense of fair play to kick a man when he was down and give him a chance to defend himself."

Joseph L. Grabill, "PROTESTANT DIPLOMACY AND THE NEAR EAST: Missionary influence on American policy, 1810-1927," 1971, p. 264

"...Matter sent to the papers by their correspondents in Turkey is biased against the Turks. This implies an injustice against which even a criminal on trial is protected."

Gordon Bennett, publisher, The New York Herald, circa 1915

"No Englishman worthy of the name would condemn a prisoner on the evidence of the prosecution alone, without first hearing the evidence for the defence."

C.F. Dixon-Johnson, British author, from his 1916 book, "The Armenians."

"There is no crime without evidence. A genocide cannot be written about in the absence of factual proof."

Henry R. Huttenbach, history professor who appears to support the Armenian viewpoint exclusively, as do... curiously... nearly all so-called "genocide scholars"; The Genocide Forum, 1996, No. 9

"It is... time that Americans ceased to be deceived by (Armenian) propaganda in behalf of policies which are... nauseating..."

John Dewey, Columbia University professor, "The Turkish Tragedy," The New Republic, Nov. 1928

Edward R. Murrow, journalist with integrity, from his "See It Now" CBS-TV broadcast of March 9, 1954, commenting on the "takeover" of the USA by the witch-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy... in words that could easily defend today's "genocide deniers":

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We ... are not descended from fearful men— not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

In what may be applied to the wide and mindless acceptance of the "Armenian Genocide," this great thinker also said ("This I Believe," 1951):

Except for those who think in terms of pious platitudes or dogma or narrow prejudice... people don’t speak their beliefs easily, or publicly.

"Unfortunately, if something is shouted loud enough, there are always those who believe it..." (ADDENDUM: Two thought-provoking and paraphrased quotes from the movie, Spider-Man 3, the first from Aunt May, who could have been addressing the Armenians: "Uncle Ben wouldn't want us to live for one second with revenge on our hands to poison us and turn us into something ugly." Second, from Peter Parker, who could have been addressing the mindless many who accept pro-Armenian claims at face value: "It's the choices that make us who we are, and we can always choose to do what's right.")

Comments showcasing genocide advocates' disrespect toward the science of objective history and the necessity for "revisionism" as better facts come along are expressed on the nose with this excerpt from the Sept. 18, 2006 NEWSWEEK Magazine's letters section, written by Michael Manhart:

"...People become enraged when science makes a decision or a discovery that they don't like. They don't like the change in Pluto's status. They don't like evolution. They don't like global warming. But the fact is that science is not about giving us answers we like or want. I sincerely hope someday we can abandon this childish and ignorant attitude toward science."

Another NEWSWEEK letter-writer (Ray Sachs, Sept. 25, 2006) could be talking about the blind dogma and harmful tactics of genocide-believers, versus one such as I who would change his mind if the factual proof were there:

"I have no problem with any religion as long as it remains about belief rather than absolute certainty. Belief is compatible with respect and tolerance for other beliefs. Certainty is an arrogance that leads to intolerance, disrespect and, all too often, terror and war."