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More denialists copy-pasting their bullxxxx?
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Okay, we'll play it your way.
The Relevance and Significance of the U.S. Archives
Unlike the three Entente Powers who were allies, Great Britain, France and Russia, the United States had the distinct advantage of having in wartime Turkey a network of consuls in such cities in the interior as Harput, Trabzon, Aleppo, Mersin (Adana), and, of course, in the Ottoman capital, Istanbul; at different times it also maintained consular agents in Urfa, Samsun and Erzurum. Therefore, the U.S. government was in a unique position to observe at close hand and record through these American diplomats and functionaries the events in question up to April 1917, when the U.S. joined the above-cited Allies to wage war against the opposing Central Powers and accordingly broke off diplomatic relations with Ottoman Turkey.
This fact renders the American archives highly relevant for the thorough study of Armenian deportations and massacres. That relevance is matched by the significance that attaches to the neutrality the U.S. government maintained for three years. During this period American representatives stationed in various parts of Turkey ended up becoming an invaluable resource as they were afforded the singular opportunity to document through the prism of neutrality the origin and evolution of a major case of centrally organized mass murder.
In questioning the reliability of the testimony provided by these American officials, aspersions are cast upon the latter's presumed sources, in the process blaming "missionaries," the incidence of "anti-Muslim bigotry," and above all, Ambassador Henry Morgenthau. Within the confines of this mind-set, it is as if the stories of the Armenian genocide are just an array of falsehoods maliciously fabricated by the representatives of the U.S. government who, in reckless disregard of the mandates of their official duties, deliberately misinformed and misled their superiors in Washington. Space limitations prevent tackling every one of these arguments, but a brief review of the deprecations leveled against Ambassador Morgenthau may suffice to exemplify the questionable premises of this attitude of discrediting the U.S. archives dealing with the fate of the Armenians in World War I.
What is at issue here is the nature, dimensions, and above all the outcome of the wartime treatment of the Ottoman Armenian population by the Young Turk regime in power during that war. Compared to this central concern, everything else remains incidental. Morgenthau's numerous reports to the State Department and his post-war memoirs unambiguously confront and tackle this central concern. As pointed out by a few detractors, he may have erred in some respects, blundered in other respects, and in the description of some events in his book he may have submitted to the impulses of his ghostwriter to embellish certain points, and yielded to the pressures of a superior at one point or other. But two paramount facts more than offset these shortcomings, which are endemic in all such cases. 1. In terms of authenticity and utmost reliability, his wartime reports take precedence over the import of his book. 2. Nevertheless, both source entities, i.e., the ensemble of his wartime reports, and his book, do converge in the crystallization of a quintessential theme that constitutes Morgenthau's central message: He emphatically confirms the genocidal intentions of the leaders of the Young Turk regime and equally emphatically affirms the reality of the intended genocidal outcome. He summarized his wartime findings by incorporating in his book a chapter that bears the title, The Murder of a Nation.48 These facts clearly signal the extraordinary value of the U.S. archives in terms of resolving the controversy on the Armenian genocide. Anyone who may have any doubts on this may consult the following references in the U.S. National Archives.
R.G. 59. 867. 4016/74 (July 10, 1915)
R.G. 59. 867. 4016/70 (August 11, 1915)
R.G. 59. 867. 4016/117 (September 3, 1915)
R.G. 59. 867. 4016/162 (October 9, 1915)
R.G. 59. 867. 4016/797.5 (November 4, 1915)
R.G. 59. 867. 00/798½ (November 18, 1915)
R.G. 59. 867. 4016/799.5 (December 1, 1915)
Moreover, Morgenthau's successor continued to report "the horrors of the anti-Armenian campaign" about which the U.S. Embassy was "in receipt of ample details." On Oct. 1, 1916, U.S. Chargé Hoffman Philip advised the State Department to "threaten to withdraw our diplomatic representative from a country where such barbarous methods are not only tolerated but actually carried out by order of the existing government." (R.G. 59.867.4016/297). Abram Elkus, the next U.S. Ambassador, on Oct. 17, 1916, in a cipher telegram reported to Washington that "...deportations accompanied by studied cruelties continue...forced conversions to Islam perseveringly pushed, children and girls from deported families kidnaped...Turkish officials have now adopted and are executing the unchecked policy of extermination through starvation, exhaustion, and brutality of treatment hardly surpassed even in Turkish history." (R.G. 59.867.4016/299).
And yet, the assault against Morgenthau continuous unabated. The Turkish ambassador's Memorandum describes him as a man who "sought to vilify the Ottoman Empire." His motives are questioned because in a letter to President Wilson he admitted that he wanted to go public with the evidence he had gathered during his ambassadorship on the fate of the Armenians and thereby "win a victory for the war policy of the government." Through the misuse of this quotation an important ancillary fact is being ignored, however. That letter was written on November 26, 1917, eighteen months after the Ambassador had left his post in Turkey and the material he proposed to use for his book was essentially of wartime provenance.
Given these facts, a brief review of the work (that is included in the ambassador's brief bibliography) of an author who has been leading the assault against Morgenthau may be called for. He is recognized as a principal source for the attempts to discredit Morgenthau and thereby give impetus to the Turkish endeavor to deny the Armenian genocide. The reference is to Heath Lowry who, by questioning the reliability of Morgenthau as a source, is believed to be trying to indirectly invalidate the Armenian genocide story that is anchored on the accounts of Morgenthau.
Lowry's preoccupation, if not obsession, with the goal to undermine the testimony of Ambassador Morgenthau apparently has driven him to remain fixated with the image of a few ailing trees - the purported flaws of Morgenthau's book - thereby ignoring the robustness of the forest - the fundamental truth about the extermination of the Ottoman Armenian population punctuating the book as a whole. Lowry observes, for example, that a particular passage in Morgenthau's book cannot be found in his diary, the accounts of which avowedly are reflected in his book. Suspecting contrived fictiveness, he promptly accuses Morgenthau of "slander." In that passage Talât is reported to have declared to Morgenthau, who once more had tried to intercede on behalf of the Armenians, that "We are through with them. That's all over."49 Yet, German ambassador Bernstorff in his memoirs quotes Talât almost in identical terms. As Bernstorff wrote, "When I kept pestering him about the Armenian Question, he once said, 'What on earth do you want? The question is settled, there are no more Armenians?'"50
Moreover, Lowry in his further effort to disparage Morgenthau reproduces excerpts from a letter by George Schreiner who, for nine months in 1915, had served as Associated Press correspondent in Turkey. In those passages Schreiner attacks Morgenthau for being critical of the Turks and some of their leaders. And yet his book, itself, has many accounts of atrocities committed against the Armenians, who "are going through hell again. I have heard that some have been burned alive...Massacres are said to continue...that shocking phase of barbarity....It is out in the open, in the waste places, that the worst comes to pass...My efforts to do my duty [to get out a story on the Armenian outrages] have prejudiced the Turkish censors against me."51 So much for Lowry's quest for discernment with respect to rectitude and forthrightness.
Despite all this, however, Lowry felt constrained to make an admission at the end of his respective booklet. He declared that Morgenthau's "wartime dispatches and written reports...submitted to the U.S. Department of State," rather than his book are "the real" material on which to base any pertinent study, including the wartime Armenian experience.52 It may, therefore, be appropriate at this juncture to end this segment of the discussion with the adducing of excerpts from a nine-page "Private and Confidential" letter Morgenthau sent to Secretary of State Robert Lansing on November 18, 1915. The significance of these statements is accented by the fact that for unknown reasons they are excised from the printed version of the document in the respective volume put out by the State Department in 1939. These excerpts succinctly encapsulate Morgenthau's verdict on "the Murder of [the Armenian] Nation."
I am firmly convinced that this is the greatest crime of the ages...massacres accompanied with rape, pillage and forced conversions...Unfortunately the previous Armenian massacres were allowed to pass without the great Christian Powers punishing the perpetrators thereof; these people believe that an offense that has been condoned before, will probably be again forgiven...It was a great opportunity for them to put into effect their long cherished plan of exterminating the Armenian race and thus finish once for all the question of Armenian reforms which has so often been the cause of European intervention in Turkish affairs.53Comment
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The Numbers Game again and again and again and again and again and again and again...
Ottoman, this is called the favorite Turkish numbers game.
This is what we call tallturkishtale.cum copy/paste bullxxxx and we've seen it a thousand times.
It's not important how many Armenians were killed, what's important is that the entire Armenian population living in Western Armenia was wiped off.
100,000, 200,000, 300,000 1,000,000, 1,500,000 or 2,000,000 is of lesser importance in terms of the gravity of the crime.
Just know that there was NEVER an official census. Everything was according to estimations and the Turks being the minority always understated the number of the Christians under Ottoman yoke.
Just think about the list of 2200 working churches prepared by Ormanian in 1912, with location and priest names.
Just think about the number of only missionary schools for Armenians:
"...look at the statistical account of the American schools as of 1913, the year preceding World War I: 10 colleges, with 1,748 students; 46 boarding and high schools, with 4,090 students; 3 theological seminaries, with 24 students; 8 industrial schools; 2 schools for the deaf and the blind; and 369 other schools directly or indirectly connected with the American Board, with 19,361 students. By the end of the war, in 1918, most of these schools had ceased to exist.
(From: Yervant H. Hadidian, American Contribution to Armenian Culture, Armenian/American Outlook (New York: Joint Publication of the Armenian Evangelical Union and Armenian Missionary Association of America, Inc.) 9, no. 1:3-4.)
Since you are new on this site I paste these couple of quotes:
Jean Baptiste Tavernier, who traveled six times in the East in the period of 1632-1668 wrote in his notes that "the land stretching from Tokat to Tabriz is almost exclusively inhabited by Christians and this region used to be part of the Armenian Kingdom...That's why it's not surprising to come across fifty Armenians for every single Muslim".
Reis Efendi in his Risalesi, the official report for the Ottoman Ministry of Interior, prepared in 1778-1780, wrote that "the Armenians were the most numerous reaya-population in the Ottoman State". In numbers it should lie somewhere between 2.5 to 3 million, since the Greek population at the time must have been over 2 million.
There were at least 3 million Armenians (not counting the Islamized Armenians) living in Western Armenia and other parts of the Ottoman Tyranny before the genocide and it's no wonder, it's their homeland for thousands of years. They were the indigenous people of the land you occupy.Four things denialist Turks do when they are confronted with facts:
I. They change the subject [SIZE="1"](e.g. they copy/paste tons of garbage to divert attention).[/SIZE]
II. They project [SIZE="1"](e.g. they replace "Turk" with "Armenian" and vice versa and they regurgitate Armenian history).[/SIZE]
III. They offend [SIZE="1"](e.g. they cuss, threaten and/or mock).[/SIZE]
IV. They shut up and say nothing.
[URL="http://b.imagehost.org/download/0689/azerbaijan-real-fake-absurd.pdf"][COLOR="Red"]A country named Azerbaijan north of the Arax River [B]NEVER[/B] existed before 1918[/COLOR][/URL]Comment
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I have not given any numbers.My intention was not playing on numbers.I want to emphasize that i know Armenian people died, slaughtered.I accept it.
I am not playing chess with you.Honestly I only write what i think or believe.My readings,searches upto now says it was not genocide.My name is not Talat,Enver or Cemal.I was not here.May be I am wrong and you may be totally right.We have to find out the truth together.We all should be satisfied by the solution morally.
It's our responsible to all dead people.Without asking a question or telling my thought i can not understand or learn anything and go any further.
The cold insincerity of steel machines
Have consumed our euphoria
Transforming us into muted dreams
Dreaming of the day that
-SOADComment
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I am trying to believe you are sincere, but you just sound like other deniers, programmed and brainwashed by your fascist government, parroting the same story.Originally posted by Ottoman
If you REALLY are sincere, then PLEASE read some books about the Armenian Genocide, exactly those your government tells you not to, then come back and we'll see whether you still have doubts.
Examples online, free of charge:
The Blue Book.
Ambassador Morgenthau's Story.
Not free: buy, steal or borrow:
"The Burning Tigris" by Peter Balakian.
"Seninle Güler Yüregim", by Kemal Yalçin.
Lepsius' works.
Also see if you can find any of these almost one thousand titles, dealing ONLY with the genocide of 1894 - 1897 by Abdulhamid. when It was not war, but people died.
The truth is out there. The truth has one side.Originally posted by Ottoman
They say red is easier to memorize:
Armenians lived in their homeland for thousands of years, then the Turks invaded and after centuries of abuse they decided to empty Armenia of its indigenous inhabitants. As a result no Christian Armenians live in their ancestral home anymore. This is by definition called genocide, end of story.Four things denialist Turks do when they are confronted with facts:
I. They change the subject [SIZE="1"](e.g. they copy/paste tons of garbage to divert attention).[/SIZE]
II. They project [SIZE="1"](e.g. they replace "Turk" with "Armenian" and vice versa and they regurgitate Armenian history).[/SIZE]
III. They offend [SIZE="1"](e.g. they cuss, threaten and/or mock).[/SIZE]
IV. They shut up and say nothing.
[URL="http://b.imagehost.org/download/0689/azerbaijan-real-fake-absurd.pdf"][COLOR="Red"]A country named Azerbaijan north of the Arax River [B]NEVER[/B] existed before 1918[/COLOR][/URL]Comment
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How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?
How many deaths will it take 'til he knows that to many people have died?
The answer,my friend,is blowin' in the wind,the answer is blowin'in the wind."All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)Comment
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Dylan, coolOriginally posted by GavurGeneral Antranik (1865-1927): I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.Comment
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