US Response to Genocide- Reading for Bog Post Due Sunday by 3pm
Directions are on the website under blog posting. This will be on your narratives as a grade
Multiple Perspectives on Armenian Massacres of 1915
www.usdiplomacy.webs.com
______
The following document (save items in {curly brackets}) comprises pages 27-31 of the booklet What Every Armenian Should Know, which was written by Dr. Dennis R. Papazian and published by the Armenian Research Center in 1991. The booklet is still available for purchase from the Armenian Research Center for $5, postage included.
If you want to reply to falsehoods on the Armenian Genocide, you can find the answers below. Use them to construct your own letters. Save this booklet for reference.
------
1. Forget the Armenian Genocide. Why should we be concerned with something that happened 75 years ago and 8,000 miles away?
Genocide is a crime against humanity, and there is no statue of limitations on genocide -- not even one 75 years old.
The fact that a major crime against humanity takes place 8,000 miles away from the United States makes it no less a crime. Was Hitler justified in killing Jews because he was 5,000 miles away? Should American troops not defend Saudi Arabia because Saddam Hussein is 9,000 miles away?
It was the old Ottoman Empire that committed the crime, but present-day Turkey becomes an accomplice after the fact by its expensive campaign of denial, denial not only for itself but for the old Ottoman Empire. This principle of becoming an accomplice by the cover-up of a crime is part of the rule of law.
------
By all means, Genocide is a crime against humanity. It is, in fact, the most deplorable of crimes... all the more reason why it would be the responsible and ethical thing to do to get one's facts straight before claiming there was a genocide.... as far as Genocide is defined by the U.N. convention on genocide. Nobody is arguing there was great suffering and massacres of Armenians. Unfortunately, Dr. Papazian probably doesn't utter a peep about the suffering and massacres (at the hands of Armenians) of Turks and other Muslims. (I didn't order his booklet, but something tells me he would prefer to overlook the murders committed by Armenians, who acted much more in the spirit of genocide when they had the upper hand.)
Ah. So I see present-day Turkey is merely an "accomplice" in this alleged crime; the Ottoman Empire pulled the trigger, and today's Turkey is driving the getaway car. Does anyone know of an incidental, small-fry accomplice who has been the target of such a Ah. So I see present-day Turkey is merely an "accomplice" in this alleged crime; the Ottoman Empire pulled the trigger, and today's Turkey is driving the getaway car. Does anyone know of an incidental, small-fry accomplice who has been the target of such a colossal campaign of defamation, hate and even assassination? (Armenian terrorists murdered many present-day, innocent Turkish diplomats and their family members in the 1970s and 80s, along with others who happened to be in the way.)
Denial is the right of a party accused of a crime who knows they did not commit the crime. Because someone is accused does not make that someone automatically guilty. I don't know what the Turkish government spends to defend the truth in its "expensive campaign of denial," assuming the financially-troubled Turkish government has so much money burning a hole in its pocket to spend in such a manner. (I am aware the Turks spend considerable dollars as grants to American universities, which doesn't guarantee them anything. They also pay big fees to individuals in lobbying circles to try and counter the exceptionally powerful Armenian and Greek lobbies.) I don't even know where these expenditures go... are there full-scale ads, TV programs and movies being produced to defend the Turkish viewpoint? (Especially against all the ads, TV programs and movies presenting the Armenian viewpoint?) The only rebuttals I'm aware of are mainly made by ordinary Turks, whenever there is another unfair charge against the Turks, in the unending stream of charges. Are there actual figures to prove this "expensive campaign," or is Dr. Papazian playing fast and loose with the facts? If anybody is spending money on this issue, it's definitely the Armenians. Armenians Act; Turks React.
People who are "not telling the truth" could do so because they fervently believe they are telling the truth... not because they consciously desire to "lie." For example, Ambassador Morgenthau must have believed in the villainy of the Turks not only because his trusted Armenian aides were telling him fabricated stories (he trusted his Armenian secretary enough to help write his own letters and/or memoirs!), and not only because the biased U.S. Consuls were filling his ear with wild tales fabricated by their own trusted Armenian aides and the zealous missionaries, but because Ambassador Morgenthau already had a pre-existing negative disposition toward the Turks. The Turkish stereotype of being cruel and inhuman is so strong, an alternate meaning of the word "Turk" in English dictionaries means "cruel and inhuman." This is why any Westerner's account of the so-called "genocide" was suspect; not because they were necessarily liars (although a number of the missionaries were flat out lying, since religious fervor has a way of distorting minds), but because the second-hand accounts they had been hearing were so readily believable, based on their strong prejudices. This prejudice is exactly what the Armenians were counting on (and still are counting on), in pulling the wool over the eyes of Westerners.
By the same token, Western accounts that fly totally in the face of the Armenian "Genocide" are comparatively much more reliable. Why? Because almost all Westerners have grown up with a negative impression of Turkey and the Turks. Since the Crusades, the Turks have been regarded as the enemy (and not without reason; when the Ottoman Empire was at the height of its powers, Western Europe cringed in fear of the Empire's westward expansion; did you know the croissant was invented by the Austrians — and not the French — as a way to put the bite into the Turkish crescent, during one of the times the Turks were at the gates of Vienna?). It would take a mighty strong and honorable Westerner to shake off his or her deeply-rooted biases against Turks and Muslims; therefore, Westerners who argue against the "Genocide," especially around the time of World War I, would have absolutely no reason to not tell the truth.
Take for example the case of Americans Captain Emory Niles and Mr. Arthur Sutherland. The only reason why they were sent to eastern Anatolia was because of American sympathy for the Armenians. To their surprise, the people they discovered to be suffering were not the Armenians, but the Turks! In "Death and Exile: The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims, 1821-1922 ," Professor McCarthy writes, "...Despite their prejudices, they reported evils perpetrated by Armenians."
"Anyway, who are the Turks to accuse the Americans of lying?"
Translation: the Turks are less than human, and have no right to defend themselves against false accusations. Thank you, Dr. Papazian, for holding back your racial hatred and your regard for the Turks as less than human, so that you could make your points in a scholarly and objective fashion.
"The Armenian American community is just like Enron! They have poured millions of dollars into trying to buy American politicians." — Samuel Weems
2. What have Americans to do with the Armenian Genocide?
America was the first country to recognize the Armenian Genocide and continued to recognize it until misguided officials sought favor with the Republic of Turkey by joining in an ugly, and quite unnecessary, distortion of history.
The Armenian Genocide was witnessed by hundreds of American missionaries in the Ottoman Empire who worked among the Armenians and have testified to their destruction by the Ottoman government.
The Genocide was also witnessed by American consular officials, stationed in the areas inhabited by the Armenians, who reported it to the American ambassador in Istanbul.
The American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., confronted the Young Turk leaders, and then he telegraphed the American Secretary of State calling the Turkish action an attempt at "racial extermination."
The American Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, wired U.S. Ambassador Morgenthau to continue the strongest possible protest to the Ottoman government on behalf of the Armenians.
The Armenian Genocide was well-reported in the American press, and the U.S. Senate held hearing which affirmed its reality.
President Woodrow Wilson agreed to draw the boundaries of a free Armenia and sent a message to Congress asking for permission to establish a U.S. mandate over the new state.
[I ask this] "Not only because it [the mandate] embodied my own convictions and feeling with regard to Armenia and its people, but also, and more particularly, because it seemed to me to be the voice of the American people expressing their deep sympathies. At their hearts, this great and generous people [the Americans] have made the case of Armenia their own. The American people raised millions of dollars to aid the victims of the Genocide. Our older citizens will remember aid to the "starving Armenians."
President Herbert Hoover wrote in his Memoirs:
Probably Armenian was known to the American school child in 1919 only a little less than England ... of the staunch Christians who were massacred periodically by the Mohammedian (sic) Turk, and the Sunday School collections of over fifty years for alleviating their miseries. . . .