 "Photo: Courtesy of Chris Young")
Most people have little or no understanding about the history of the Armenian “genocide.” It happened before the Holocaust, carried out by the Turkish Ottoman Empire from 1915-1923, with an estimated death toll of 1.5 million Armenians. The House of Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing March 4th on the Armenian Genocide Resolution, which was passed with a 23-22 vote. Its potential for adoption now faces a decision from the House floor, which is unlikely because of the hearsay that the resolution will “alienate a NATO ally and trading partner”. Turkey condemned the resolution, stating that it accuses Turkey of a crime that was never committed and recalled their ambassador to the U.S. after the House Committee vote. Although the resolution seems to be unpopular, the Armenian Prime Minister welcomed the vote passed by the congressional panel and stated that this is “proof” from the American people and their devotion to universal human rights and “it is an important step” in prevention of crimes against humanity. France, Canada, Russia, Chile, Switzerland, and a dozen other countries have recognized the Armenian Genocide as well as the European Parliament.
The Armenian Genocide Resolution, H.RES.252, which was introduced March 17th of last year, calls upon the President “to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide, and for other purposes.” In Obama’s campaign he stated that he would “as president” recognize the Armenian Genocide. Now his Administration opposes the resolution and will “work very hard” to stop it from getting to the House floor. Sponsor of the resolution is Representative Adam Schiff [CA-29], and among 137 other cosponsors is Devin Nunes [CA-21]. The acknowledgements of the Armenian Genocide as U.S. Foreign Policy, is essential to the commemoration of the Armenian people and for the remembrance of U.S. opposition in the genocide.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars, IAGS, wrote a letter to the President in 2009 to recognize the Armenian Genocide, as “it was the template for all modern genocide.” The letter also states that, Hitler was so impressed with the Turkish extermination of the Armenian people that it shaped his own plans for genocide as he said to his military advisors in 1939, “who today, after all, remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?”
House of Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Howard Berman, said that as a world leader in promoting human rights, it is a moral obligation of the United States to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide. “At some point, every nation must come to terms with its own history,” said the Chairman. “It is now time for Turkey to accept the reality of the Armenian Genocide.” To allow a foreign government to intimidate and influence the American government to deny the massacre of millions of people is not what our country is about. Recognizing and reconciling with our past legacies, such as slavery and the treatment of Native Americans, has brought eternal values of human rights to our culture.
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I am Jewish and find this sort of denial insulting to all people who have suffered genocide.
And I want to ask the members of the American Congress::
Your sensitivity genocides, mass murders is appreciable. But while doing this, are you ready to be unbiased? Will you be able to discard all the prejudices the history has instilled you up till now? Will you be able to prefer scholar research rather than your prejudices? Will you be able to acknowledge the great massacres inflicted on the Turks and Muslims by the Armenians before and after 1915 and condemn the Armenians who slaughtered the Turks and Muslims and buried them into large holes and even threw alive children into these holes in the Eastern Anatolia?(see diary of Russian Lieutenant Colonel Twerdo-Khlebof 'I wittnessed and I Lived Through Erzurum, 1917-1918'; www.tsk.mil.tr/ermeni_sorunu/arsiv_belgeleriyle...).
(Ahmet Refik Altınay. İki Komite ve İki Kıtal. İstanbul, 1919;p.71-72; 321-23). So, I am afraid, it is actually you the members of the American Congress who should face himself and review his identity and missions!
Now I want to ask the Armenian diaspora:
‘If all the scholars of the world, including the international scholars of genocide, support your thesis of genocide, then WHY HAVE YOU SPENT THIS EFFORT TO FALSIFY ALL THESE DOCUMENTS? WHY HAVE YOU NEEDED LIES? WHY ARE YOU AFRAID OF DOCUMENTS SO MUCH? What is the reason of your strict resistance to present your thesisin historical commissions made up of historians from both sides and other countries?
What kind of a truth are you seeking? The one which exists or the one you want to imagine?
And here are evidences about the Armenians who returned to their houses: These Armenians cooperated with the French and English armies and fought in these armies individually wearing their uniforms. Here are archive evidences: *Boghos Nubar Pasha: ‘In 1919 and 1920, when the Kemalists attacked to the French soldiers, the Armenians made war for France in Maraş, Haçin, Pozantı and Sis. The French succeeded to take back Antep, by the help of the Armenians. Therefore, the Armenians are an ally of France’ (USARCHIVES NARA T1192. Roll 4.860J.01/431).*A decision made by The American Committee for the Independence of Armenia which was presented to the Lausanne Conference on January 16, 1923: ‘As the minister Bellet declared, the Armenian legionelles (lejyonerler) joined to France after being promised that autonomy would be introduced to Cilicia and therefore they occupied Cilicia in 1918 (carrying the flag of France) . (US ARCHIVES NARA T1192. Roll 4. 860J.01/562).
*In an article published in Der Neue Orient Magazine, it was reported that the number of Armenians in Ottoman Armenia was thought to be 470 000 (including those who lived in İzmir and İstanbul but excluding the Armenians who escaped to Caucasia). Additionally more than 30 000 Armenians lived in Adana and 40 000 in Aleppo (Der Neue Orient May 1919, p.178) *The Armenian population in Cilicia (Çukurova) was reported as 218 000 in a document dated July 1920 (US ARCHIVES NARA, Mikrofilm No: T 1192R 2;860J.01/395. Appendix. From Acting High Commissioner Dulles to the Foreign Minister). * In a memorandum presented by Bogos Nubar Pasha, chief of the Armenian delegation in Paris Conference which started in December 1918, it was announced that 150 000 Armenians were given financial support and taken to Cilicia from Syria, by the French government (US ARCHIVES NARA T1192. Roll 4.860J.01/431).
8) The most dramatic lie is about the outcome of the Armenians who were relocated. Because the majority of these Armenians returned to their homes.
Because, on December 18, 1918, a law which let the Armenians return to their homes and claim their properties was issued by the Ottoman State. Here are non-Ottoman evidences:*In a report prepared by the Armenian Patriarchate in 1921, the Armenians who lived on the Ottoman territory in Anatolia, Middle East and those who returned to their previous locations were shown as 644 900. It was added that the Armenians who became Muslim, who were hidden and who did not encourage to return their homes were not included but they were assumed to be 20 000 (US ARCHIVES NARA, Mikrofilm No.T1192, Roll8; Department of State Papers….,860).
The third claim about Atatürk was put forward in Yeni Binyıl newspaper on 8 October 2000. According to this claim in his speech in Turkish Grand National Assembly, on 24th of April 1920, Atatürk condemned the leaders of Jön Turks for their genocide policies. After the research of the speech records of Turkish Grand National Assembly in both open and secret sessions, it was proven that Mustafa Kemal did not make such speech.
One of the last claims about Atatürk was put forward by European Parliament, Foreign Affairs Committee’s report on Turkey on 22nd of November 2001. In the footnote of this report claimed that Mustafa Kemal gave a speech in Turkish Grand National Assembly on 10th of April 1921, in which he said Jön Turk regime followed genocide policy against Armenians in the First World War. After the research of the speech reports of Turkish Grand National Assembly, it was seen that Mustafa Kemal did not speak in Turkish Grand National Assembly in April 1920. He even did not attend any session of Assembly during April 1920.
6) Falcified allegations of speeches attributed to Atatürk: The first claim about Atatürk was that he was one of the witnesses, who supported Armenians in the “Court Martials” in İstanbul. In this claim, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was confused with the Chairman of the “Court Martials”, Mustafa Kemal, whose nickname was Nemrud. During the trials in İstanbul, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was in Ankara as a leader of the national struggle. James H. Tashjian, the Armenian editor of the Armenian periodic ‘The Armenian Review’ stated that Mustafa Kemal, then a Pasha, never appeared before such a tribunal, nor did he render such a statement (The Armenian Weekly Boston, Mass, USA, March 20, 1982 and The Armenian Review Volume thirty five, Autumn 1982); however James H. Tashjian was fired from his work later on.
The second claim was about the statement, which attributed to Atatürk, given to Los Angeles Examiner in 1926. However, it was proven that this claim, which was made by Armenians in various platforms, was false. There was no evidence that a Swiss journalist, who was called Emile Hilderband, came to Turkey. Moreover, it was not found a journalist named Hilderband in the documents of Swiss authorities.
The English seized all the Ottoman Archives and also all other archives in other cities, like those in Urfa Governer House. No evidence could be found neither in the Ottoman and English Archives. The Americans, whom the English applied, failed to find any proof in American Archives and reports of American Orthodox church or missioners either. Nor could Damat Ferit Pasha, then the Ottoman Prime Minister who was in absolute collaboration with the English could find any evidence. And, they had to make all these 144 Ottomans free in 1921, since they could not find any proof to be able to verdict them.
Can you imagine a genocide on which no kind of proof can be found, even when the members of this criminal government have been taken prisoners and when all her archieves are under control of the invader accusers and given under directory of an Armenian?
If The Blue Book, the telegrams of Aram Andonian and the diary of Ambassador Morgenthau (which had already been published then) were reliable proofs, why did the English, French and Americans not use them ?
Additionally, during the trial in Berlin of the Armenian assassin Soghomon Tehlirian, who had murdered Talat Pasha in Berlin on March 15th, 1921, none of the Andonian documents was allowed to be entered into the court proceedings as evidence (Dashnakists’ book Justicier du Genocide, 1981, p.213).
3)Diary of American Ambassador Morgenthau published in 1918. Professor Heath Lowry, an American historian from Princeton University displayed that the events depicted in the book depended on lies or half true events, by comparing the information Ambassador Morgenthau sent to American Foreign Ministry, with those written in the diary, in his book entitled ‘The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story’, in 1990.Moreover, after the Ottoman State was defeated in the 1st World War in 1918, the French and English invaders arrested 144 high level Ottoman veteran or civil officials including the ex-prime ministers, ex-deputies, governors and many newspapermen, and banished them to Malta Island, claiming that they were responsibles for the death of Armenians.
2) Aram Andonian’s book (The telegrams which were claimed to have been sent by Talat Pasha to order the massacre of the Armenians which were pressed in the book of Aram Andonian in 1920, in three languages): It was proven by both the Turkish and foreign historians that these telegrams were fake too.
After these telegrams were published in Daily Telegraph in England, in 1922, the English Foreign Ministry made a scrutiny and denounced that they were prepared by an Armenian association.
3)Diary of American Ambassador Morgenthau published in 1918. Professor Heath Lowry, an American historian from Princeton University displayed that the events depicted in the book depended on lies or half true events, by comparing the information Ambassador Morgenthau sent to American Foreign Ministry, with those written in the diary, in his book entitled ‘The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story’, in 1990.
Here are a few of the forgeries, lies and falsified documents on which the Armenian thesis of genocide depend:
1)The number of Armenians who were relocated: The number of the Armenians who were relocated was reported as 600-700 thousand by Bogos Nubar Pasha who attended to the talks of Sevres Treaty as a chief of Armenians; however this number is given as 1.5 million, 2 and even 2.5 million by different by some Armenian sources. However, 1.5 million was the total number of Ottoman Armenians including those who live in the West Anatolia (therefore who were not relocated) according to Encyclopedia Britannica’s 1910 edition which was edited by an English editor. It is another striking point that the total number of Ottoman Armenians was increased to 2.5 million in 1953 edition of the same encyclopedia which was edited by an Armenian editor.