Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

[Emrah]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

Below is my answer to some of the questions/comments posted here!

“For the sake of argument, lets just assume what you say about Armenians is true. If we apply your logic to Ataturk, who also waged war against the Ottomans, then him and all his followers are guilty of treason against the Ottoman Empire. Of course, you choose to judge Armenians and Turks with different criteria, because you have been raised to believe that Ataturk is an infallible diety while being taught that Armenians are back-stabbing liars. Your bias in these matters is evident by your double standard.”

Ataturk was sent to Anatolia by the Ottoman Sultan himself, and during their last meeting, it is stated that Sultan said: “Pasha, you have a very important duty, you can save the empire!”. It is true that when Ataturk started Independence War in Anatolia, the Sultan issued an order to capture and hang him. But, you are missing the point that Istanbul and the Sultan were under the British control at that time, and they had no power. They were simply a puppet.

We are not being taught that Armenians are back-stabbing liars. On the contrary, just looking at this forum, I can find thousands of lines that are full of racism and hatred against Turkish people. But, I am trying not to judge a nation based on the actions of individual fanatics. If you do that, I would remind you of ASALA, who killed dozens of Turkish diplomats in Europe and USA and I would judge Armenian people based on those fanatics. Turkish and Armenian people live for hundreds of years in peace, and suddenly Turkish people commit genocide against Armenians during 1915s? Why?

On the issue of archives:

“The Turks first destroyed a large part of their own archives (even Ataturk admitted this)”

This is one accusation without a proof. You are using the savior of a nation against the nation he saved. That is a big contradiction itself.

Turkish archives are open. Anybody is welcome to have a look. We don’t have anything to hide. The reason we don’t have anything to hide is simple: These archives were Ottoman archives which were under British/Italian/French/Greek control during 1915s. They tried to find any evidence that would support the genocide claims of the Armenians. And rest assured, if they had found even a small proof, God knows what they would have done to Turkish nation.


“It has been waging a crusade against intellectuals and free thinking”.

Nobody stops you to discuss these issues in Turkey. Actually, one of the most prestigious universities in Turkey has conducted a forum on this. However, you go to jail in France and Switzerland if you say Armenian genocide did not happen. What kind of double standard is this? In every US elections, Armenian lobby threatens the candidates to recognize the so called genocide; otherwise they don’t support them by donations or votes. You tell me what kind of free thinking this is.

“Go read "Four Years Beneath the Crescent" by Rafael De Nogales, former commander of Ottoman forces who attacked Van.”

‘WOW” First, Van was an Ottoman City at that time. Even the fact that Ottomans attack their own city shows you had fought against the empire, and that pushes every government in the world to take actions. Second, Rafael De Nogales is not a Turkish name. How can this guy be a former commander of Ottoman forces who committed genocide?

“Many of us have visited Armenia many times. Stop pretending that you know something about Armenians--- you don't.”

Then tell us about the Armenians. I am living in USA for the last four years. At college, we had international fairs where everybody introduced their music, arts, food, dances, but Armenians introduced “the genocide” by distributing flyers full of hatred.

I am from the Middle Eastern part of Turkey; I have lived there for more than 20 years, so I know how Turkish people feel about Armenians. Believe me the so called genocide is not even the slightest concern for these people, because they are just trying to deal with the economic difficulties in Turkey.

“Name me someone who was arrested by Armenians for saying the genocide didn't happen”.

Armenia is a small country with a small population. Nobody would go to Armenia and say such things. Armenian lobby uses more powerful Western countries for this. For ex: France. Actually, a political leader in Turkey (Dogu Perincek) cannot go to Switzerland today, because if he goes there, he will be arrested since he publicly rejected the so called genocide.

“When the armed government of 25 million people turns on and exterminates an unarmed minority of three million old men, women, and children, it is hardly an "inter-communal struggle", "an ethnic feud", or "civil war"; it is nothing more or less than genocide.”

This number is immature at best. The population estimate of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 is about 19 million (wikipedia), including everybody (women, children, elderly). Ottoman army never attacked civilian Armenians or any other civilian nation for that matter. That is why they could rule such a large number of ethnic nations for hundreds of years. Actually, during 1915, Ottomans did not have a powerful Eastern Army, that’s why Armenians were deceived by western missionaries that they could easily capture Eastern Turkey and declare their own independent country.


“If you are so concerned with living standards in Armenia Emrah why don’t you open your boarders without preconditions. Armenian boarders have never been closed so what is your problem Turk.”

This is a racial sentence. It just shows your character and improves Prof. Ataov’s claims. I will not answer this.

One final comment:

I feel sorry for those Armenians who died because of the deportation rule of the Ottoman Empire. The simple fact is Ottomans did not have any power during 1915s to fight with the Russian/Armenian armed forces (whose numbers reached around 200,000 according to British sources; I will give you the British source in my next post). Many people have died (nobody knows the exact number, but I believe 1.5 million is really an exaggeration) due to starvation, disease, and individual tribal raids. But, this is one side of the story only. It is just as true that Armenians have gathered, formed armed forces, invaded Eastern cities in Turkey including Van, killing and forcing Muslim population out of those cities (nobody even cares about their numbers), and fought side by side with the Russian army against the Ottomans. This is the simplest reason that started all of this. Now, you can ask why Ottomans did act against the Armenians and wanted them to deport country. The reason is this: In Ottoman Empire, Armenians were known as “millet-i sadıka”, which can be translated as loyal nation. They were treated separately from other foreign nations, and were given higher positions in the Ottoman Empire (for instance, the last foreign minister of Ottoman Empire is an Armenian). Ottomans felt so betrayed by the Armenians whom they felt of their own.

Sincerely,

[may]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

What do you expect may, you want me to speak well of someone who is idolized in your Anti-Armenian websites and accuses the whole Armenian race of lying? If you think I won’t attack his credentials anyway I can especially when his lies are posted on an Armenian website because some Turk feels like it then you are crazy.

Nothing personnel may, it is just that the way your government has made the ground rules and the conduct of your countrymen that influences my reactions.

I do not expect you to speak well of someone whose credentials you deny. Oppositely, I am expecting you to talk nasty -I do not mean personal insults- about him, reveal why he is a "charlatan". A website link is valid too, if you do not feel like summarizing. If you do, it will be highly appreciated.

And a reminder, whole Turkish race is accused with many things by many Armenians, including you, so the existence of accusations as the whole race should not surprise you. That also includes disregarding anything emerging from Turkish sources as forgery/lie/propaganda.

I am just challenging you to state your opinion with some additional info besides saying someone is a charlatan.

[may]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

Every sentence in Ataov's letter indicates that he is a charlatan. If I were to use a selection of coloured markers, and underline in one colour every lie it contains, underline in another colour every distortion, underline in a third colour every misrepresentation, in a fourth colour every example of duplicity and trickery, the entire letter would end up being underlined.

Bell, I'll still like to see the analysis of the letter. And, if you have time, why don't you give it a try and write something that will not lack what you think lacks in Ataov's letter.

I am not being sarcastic, if you think so. I really mean it.

[ArmSurvival]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

Ataturk was sent to Anatolia by the Ottoman Sultan himself, and during their last meeting, it is stated that Sultan said: “Pasha, you have a very important duty, you can save the empire!”. It is true that when Ataturk started Independence War in Anatolia, the Sultan issued an order to capture and hang him. But, you are missing the point that Istanbul and the Sultan were under the British control at that time, and they had no power. They were simply a puppet.

Okay, Ottomans were a puppet. I assume you believe Turkish revolutionaries are justified in taking a piece of the empire for themselves, but you justified the expulsion and murder of Armenians for doing the same thing on their own lands. You are employing a double standard.

Also, your view has an underlying assumption that Armenians were conducting widespread massacres of Muslims. There has yet to be solid evidence on this point, and it is your burden to prove it.

We are not being taught that Armenians are back-stabbing liars. On the contrary, just looking at this forum, I can find thousands of lines that are full of racism and hatred against Turkish people. But, I am trying not to judge a nation based on the actions of individual fanatics. If you do that, I would remind you of ASALA, who killed dozens of Turkish diplomats in Europe and USA and I would judge Armenian people based on those fanatics.

You're right, every nation has their share of extremists, and you shouldn't judge people based on that. The difference is, and it is a very important one: Our fanatics had no government backing, neither did they have any popular support. Your fanatics had government endorsement and aid. I'll assume you're intelligent enough to know why there is a significant difference between the two.

This is one accusation without a proof.

The Ottoman archives have been heavily censored and tampered with by the post-Ottoman authorities after WW1. Ataturk himself has admitted this fact when he said:

"At Lausanne centuries-old accounts were being regulated. It was surely neither a simple nor convenient task to find out way through such a mess of old, confused and rubbishy accounts... The Ottoman Empire, whose heirs we were, had no value, no merit... But we were not guilty of the neglect and sins of the past and, in reality, it was not ourselves from whom they ought to have demanded the settlement of accounts that had assimilated during past centuries. It was, however, our duty to bear the responsibility for them before the world."

Excerpted from Lord Kinross, Ataturk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal: Father of Modern Turkey, p. 418.

Nobody stops you to discuss these issues in Turkey. Actually, one of the most prestigious universities in Turkey has conducted a forum on this. However, you go to jail in France and Switzerland if you say Armenian genocide did not happen. What kind of double standard is this?

Don't be silly. The laws in Switzerland and France have nothing to do with the Armenian state, and they were only created in the last 3 or 4 years. Turkey, since its foundation in 1923, continues to put writers on trial every year for using the word genocide. Pamuk is just one example. Also, your extremists murder people like Hrant Dink (who was also brought to trial for speech crimes). Later the killer posed with policemen holding up a Turkish flag. Thats a totalitarian society.

Armenia is a small country with a small population. Nobody would go to Armenia and say such things. Armenian lobby uses more powerful Western countries for this. For ex: France. Actually, a political leader in Turkey (Dogu Perincek) cannot go to Switzerland today, because if he goes there, he will be arrested since he publicly rejected the so called genocide.

You're using the term "Armenian Lobby" like its a worldwide organization, and its not. Each country has its own lobby and organization, which is fine-tuned to fit the politics of their country, and which is completely seperate from the Armenian state.

‘WOW” First, Van was an Ottoman City at that time. Even the fact that Ottomans attack their own city shows you had fought against the empire, and that pushes every government in the world to take actions.

You're jumping to conclusions. Read Nogales's accounts, and you will see how wrong you are.

Also, you're using your double-standard again: When its Ataturk doing it, the Ottomans are puppets and he has a right to overthrow the state. When its Armenians doing it, it is treason against the Ottoman state which gives every Turk the right to attack and murder Armenian civilians.

Second, Rafael De Nogales is not a Turkish name. How can this guy be a former commander of Ottoman forces who committed genocide?

Many Ottoman commanders were not Turkish--- If you know anything about WWI, you would know that the Ottoman army had many German and Austro-Hungarian officers serving in the army. However, Nogales was a Venezuelan-born mercenary who enlisted in the Ottoman army and rose in rank.

In every US elections, Armenian lobby threatens the candidates to recognize the so called genocide; otherwise they don’t support them by donations or votes. You tell me what kind of free thinking this is

"Armenian lobby threatens"? They "threaten" no one. Armenian lobby, like every other lobby in America, is free to endorse candidates who support their issues and vote for them. Thats the most basic part of democracy, which is obviously something new to you.

[hrai]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

The word "xxx" was replaced by xxx somehow by the website. FYI.

Perhaps the same should be done with the word turk.

Your arguments for denial of the AG are repeated here many, many times, unfortunately emrah in a way far better than your feeble attempts to justify the annihilation of a nation, the attempt to continue the work of hamidi/ottoman/nationalist butchers. Go back to your classroom and select the next in line to post here.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

Bell, I'll still like to see the analysis of the letter. And, if you have time, why don't you give it a try and write something that will not lack what you think lacks in Ataov's letter.

I am not being sarcastic, if you think so. I really mean it.

Red – lies
Green - distortion
Blue - misrepresentation
Purple - duplicity and trickery

Lies – these are blatant, out-and-out falsehoods, such as saying something happened when it didn’t, or saying someone said something when they didn’t, etc
Distortions - taking a truthful fact or a statement but twisting it so that it is now being maliciously used in a way not originally intended or given a meaning not originally intended.
Misrepresentations – trying to make out that something is actually something different, or hiding the true nature of something.
Duplicity and trickery – these are verbal manipulations, slight of hand trickery, such as the introduction of off-topic materials or other issues. They are designed to throw the reader off-course or distract him/her from the actual subject.

Some of the above overlap, of course. The quantity of duplicity and trickery reveal him to be a charlatan, in addition to being a run-of-the-mill propagandist. If there is specific text you think should not be in a particular category, then tell me and I will attempt to say why I think my categorisation is correct.

Dear Honorable Senator Feinstein,

I am a Professor of International Relations, and I received my
educational degrees from American schools, including a B.A., two
Masters and a Doctorate (Syracuse University, 1959).

I devoted three decades of my life, inter alia, to the study of
Armeno-Turkish relations, on which I published no less than eighty
books/booklets. Three of the most recent ones were printed in New
York. They are entitled: (1) Armenian Falsifications (2008), (2) What
Happened to the Ottoman Armenians? (2006), and (3) The British Blue
Books: Vehicles of War Propaganda, 1914-18. I shall do my best to mail
to you a copy of each of the last-mentioned three publications.
You may also be interested in knowing that I am presently on a rather
long speaking tour of the United States that will eventually total no
less than thirty-six public addresses, mostly in various universities
and a few meetings with some US Congress members, or their chief
advisors.
I have in my possession now the draft resolution pertaining to the
Armenians, prepared by a group of members of the House. I have also
seen your reply to Mrs. Nisan Giftgi on the same question.

Both the text, prepared by Mr. Schiff and co-sponsored by some other
House Members, and your private letter, reflect a totally one-sided
and biased approach that omits crucial facts and presents a distorted
picture that has no relation with the actual events in history. I have
no intention to take this opportunity to reply to the inaccurate
assertions, outright exaggerations and scandalous omissions. A proper
response can only be expressed in book form. You may consider that I
have done this in the eighty publications since the early 1980s.

I may underline here that it is the duty of scholarship to question
the validity of a mainstream idea. The idea in this case happens to be
a prejudiced attitude or the equivalent of a "trial" in your Congress,
where you as "prosecutors" and "judges" are trying to pass through a
"verdict", moreover in the name of the American people.

The draft resolution does not take into account any Turkish view. It
does not seem to have taken into any consideration even Armenian
confessions, expressed in memoirs, war histories, series of articles
and official communications, all describing how armed Armenians,
acting as independent units or in the ranks of Turkey's enemies,
killed Turks and other Muslims. Those Armenian and some third party
sources agree that both armed Armenians and their victims had reached
six-digit figures. There exist a host of reliable documents and
acknowledgements to this effect in published works as well as in the
archives of the interested parties. A total disregard of this wealth
of information goes to prove that the US Congress is not the place to
pass a verdict on this topic.

The draft resolution is basically a product of the Armenian ethnic
lobby, well-organized and well-to-do but already facing a complaint
registered with the US Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue
Service, the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate.

I wish to come to your short reply to Mrs. Giftgy, in which you state
the following: "We must remember and recognize this tragedy to ensure
that it never happens again".

Your generalization, which misses the point entirely, is misleading in
ways more than one. It is a rationalization that may comfort you but
actually helps to hide the origins of genocide. Unless you are able to
accept the correct diagnosis of the true source of this brand of
crime, massacres will occur, thanks in part to such incorrect
assessments.

I shall put aside the fact that you are virtually under the arrest of
carefully-selected justifications, with absolutely no mention of
opposing documentation. You have never become a part of scholarly
debate on that issue. For instance, a prominent British source
(Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, Dictionary of the First World
War) recorded that between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians were living in
Turkey in 1914, and that the Armenians "slaughtered an estimated
120,000 non-Armenians while the Turkish Army was preoccupied with
mobilization." It adds that the armed Armenians attacked the Turkish
quarters of the Ottoman city of Van in April 1915, and proclaimed
there a government of their own, seceding in the process this province
from the State. This was the beginning of Armenian massacres, pillage
and rape directed against the non-Armenians.

Notable Armenians (such as the first Prime Minister of independent
Armenia Hovhannes Katchaznouni, K. Serope Papazian), British
functionaries (Captain C.B.Norman, A.G.Hume-Braman, Sidney Whitman)
and men-of-letters (C.F. Dixon-Johnson, Bernard Lewis, Roderic
Daveson, Andrew Mango, Norman Stone), Russian officers (General
Mayevski, Lieutenant-Colonel Tverdo-Khlebov, Captain I.G. Plat,
Dr.Khoreshenov), American academics (Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, William L.
Langer, Stanford J.Shaw, Justin McCarthy, Heath W. Lowry, Edward J.
Erickson, Guenther Lewy), men from legal professions (Samuel A. Weems)
and many others do not share the mainstream opinion about the
"innocence" of the Armenians. You may kindly familiarize yourself with
such sources. Fact-finding in history demands that all relevant parts
of the truth is taken into consideration.
Let me come back to your misleading generalization that you intend to
end genocide by punishing the Turks. I have to underline that genocide
is a product of racism; and racism was born and rose in certain parts
of the Western world. It is an offshoot of a particular level in the
development of the capitalist society; it is the result of an advanced
stage of a certain mode of production. It is like a hand and a glove
with the process of colonial and imperialist exploitation.

One may believe to be "different" from the "other", in terms of
racial, ethnical or religious background. But when this difference is
regarded as innate and unchangeable, and moreover, justifying a sense
of superiority over the other, then, one is confronted with a racist
attitude or a set of beliefs, which also expresses itself in the
practices, institutions and structures which help to justify it.
Racism theorizes about human differences and things badly about
another group. It proposes to establish an order, a permanent group
hierarchy believed to reflect "laws of nature" or even God's
preference. This is what the British, French, German, Spanish, Dutch
and, the Americans have done in various parts of Asia, Africa, and
Latin America.

Racism has two components: difference and power. It originates in the
mind that regards "them" as different from "us", and the difference is
supposed to be permanent and unbridgeable. Government-sanctioned
segregation, colonial subjugation, exclusion, enslavement and genocide
may follow that racist orientation. White supremacy, Christian
selectivity, and anti-semitism are the result. The Blacks, the
Muslims, and the xxxs were tolerated as long as they stayed in "their
place". In some Western societies, racism was fully worked out,
elaborately implemented, and carried to its extremes.

There is no racism in the Turkish psyche. It has never been a part of
the Turks' social, political, and psychological set-up. They are the
ones who recognized the Orthodox, Armenian, xxxish, Catholic, and
Protestants as separate peoples with the right to worship in their own
way, built their own religious structures, elect their own
representatives and be led by them, go anywhere within the large
confides of the State, indulge in any kind of profession or work, and
eventually join the State administration. This is known, dear Senator,
as the famous "millet" system about which you give no hint of having
accumulated sufficient knowledge. The Turks achieved all that when
Europe was fighting religious wars, when Cromwell was pursuing his
Catholics, the French butchering their Huguenots, and others subduing
the Calvinists.

The Turks recognized the Armenians as a separate community as early as
1461 when the Christian centers virtually excommunicated this
Gregorian people for centuries. Consequently, the Ottoman Foreign
Minister only a year before the outbreak of the First World War was an
Armenian – Gabriel Nouradoungian. Would Hitler appoint a xxx to be his
Minister of Foreign Affairs? Did even the Weimar Republic do that?
Antisemitism, thus, is a disease of the Western societies. Hitler did
not learn anything from the Turks. There was enough racism accumulated
in Germany, Austria, and in some other Western nation-states. They
were the ones who gave to the world racist theoreticians – for
instance, Gobineau in France, Chamberlain in Britain, Nietzche in
Germany, and the Social Darwinists in the United States.

The Turks, on the other hand had saved the whole of European xxxry
from total extinction during the Inquisition in 1492. Turkey was a
place of refuge for all of those running away from Russian autocracy,
the failure of the 1830 and the 1848 Revolutions, the setback of the
progressive political movements in Hungary, Poland, and elsewhere and
of course the onslaught of Fascism in Italy, and Nazism in Germany.
Likewise, the Turks made no contribution to racist theories, but
presented to world civilization the celebrated Renaissance men such as
Sinan the Architect, Yunus Emre the great humanist poet, and Ibni Sina
whose book on medicine was utilized as the basic text book in all
schools of medicine in Europe for 300 consecutive years.
But the Catholic missionaries from France and Protestant missionaries
from the United States came to Ottoman Turkey to "teach" the Gregorian
Armenians that they were "superior" to the Muslim Turks, by virtue of
the fact they happen to be Christians. An American Protestant
missionary (A.W.Williams) and the president of the Armenian Patriotic
Alliance in New York (M.S. Gabriel), in their joint book, printed in
Chicago as late as 1896, or only four years before our entry into the
twentieth century, wrote the following on the Turks: "... the Turk is
not a member of the best human race- the Indo-European, or Arian, like
the Armenians. The Turk does not belong even to the next best of
races, the semitic...the Turk is a wild beast to be caged. [We] beg
pardon of the hounds, hyenas...and all wild beasts for using their
names in simile or metaphor..." It is unfortunate that racist
publications have become the teachers of a number of parliamentarians
and conditioned them, along with the organized and politicized
propaganda of the Armenian pressure groups who are so active in
Washington, D.C.

However, such an assault on the Turks, and their views represents
something like a lynch mob. One should note that such an attitude may
well augur the advent of a new form of a totalitarian society.

You are merely helping the Armenians to redefine their identity as a
group of "victims". In Freudian terms of psychology, this form of
selection is called "the egoism of victimization" that totally
disregards the bloodshed and the trauma that the so-called "victims"
have caused to others. Such a distorted version of events contradicts
what actually happened in history. Throughout the First World War
there was a non stop news coverage in the Western Allied press on the
Armenians. Non of the attacks, destruction, murder, massacre, theft,
pillage, and rape by the Armenians were ever reported. There was even
a law against such reporting, on the basis of "aiding the enemy". In
the meantime, however, the Ottoman Armenians had joined hands with
Turkey's enemies who provided that minority with weapons, ammunition,
military training, uniforms, logistics, lines of communications, and
money.

Self-styled leaders may try to convince themselves and mislead others
that if their selected "scapegoat" is punished, things will be right.
This will never be the case, so long as the actual breeding source of
genocide, which is racism, remains as it is in some Western societies.

Best wishes,

Türkkaya Ataöv
Professor of International Relations

[hrai]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

Red – lies
Green - distortion
Blue - misrepresentation
Purple - duplicity and trickery

Lies – these are blatant, out-and-out falsehoods, such as saying something happened when it didn’t, or saying someone said something when they didn’t, etc
Distortions - taking a truthful fact or a statement but twisting it so that it is now being maliciously used in a way not originally intended or given a meaning not originally intended.
Misrepresentations – trying to make out that something is actually something different, or hiding the true nature of something.
Duplicity and trickery – these are verbal manipulations, slight of hand trickery, such as the introduction of off-topic materials or other issues. They are designed to throw the reader off-course or distract him/her from the actual subject.

Some of the above overlap, of course. The quantity of duplicity and trickery reveal him to be a charlatan, in addition to being a run-of-the-mill propagandist. If there is specific text you think should not be in a particular category, then tell me and I will attempt to say why I think my categorisation is correct.

Dear Honorable Senator Feinstein,

I am a Professor of International Relations, and I received my
educational degrees from American schools, including a B.A., two
Masters and a Doctorate (Syracuse University, 1959).

I devoted three decades of my life, inter alia, to the study of
Armeno-Turkish relations, on which I published no less than eighty
books/booklets. Three of the most recent ones were printed in New
York. They are entitled: (1) Armenian Falsifications (2008), (2) What
Happened to the Ottoman Armenians? (2006), and (3) The British Blue
Books: Vehicles of War Propaganda, 1914-18. I shall do my best to mail
to you a copy of each of the last-mentioned three publications.
You may also be interested in knowing that I am presently on a rather
long speaking tour of the United States that will eventually total no
less than thirty-six public addresses, mostly in various universities
and a few meetings with some US Congress members, or their chief
advisors.
I have in my possession now the draft resolution pertaining to the
Armenians, prepared by a group of members of the House. I have also
seen your reply to Mrs. Nisan Giftgi on the same question.

Both the text, prepared by Mr. Schiff and co-sponsored by some other
House Members, and your private letter, reflect a totally one-sided
and biased approach that omits crucial facts and presents a distorted
picture that has no relation with the actual events in history. I have
no intention to take this opportunity to reply to the inaccurate
assertions, outright exaggerations and scandalous omissions. A proper
response can only be expressed in book form. You may consider that I
have done this in the eighty publications since the early 1980s.

I may underline here that it is the duty of scholarship to question
the validity of a mainstream idea. The idea in this case happens to be
a prejudiced attitude or the equivalent of a "trial" in your Congress,
where you as "prosecutors" and "judges" are trying to pass through a
"verdict", moreover in the name of the American people.

The draft resolution does not take into account any Turkish view. It
does not seem to have taken into any consideration even Armenian
confessions, expressed in memoirs, war histories, series of articles
and official communications, all describing how armed Armenians,
acting as independent units or in the ranks of Turkey's enemies,
killed Turks and other Muslims. Those Armenian and some third party
sources agree that both armed Armenians and their victims had reached
six-digit figures. There exist a host of reliable documents and
acknowledgements to this effect in published works as well as in the
archives of the interested parties. A total disregard of this wealth
of information goes to prove that the US Congress is not the place to
pass a verdict on this topic.

The draft resolution is basically a product of the Armenian ethnic
lobby, well-organized and well-to-do but already facing a complaint
registered with the US Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue
Service, the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of the Senate.

I wish to come to your short reply to Mrs. Giftgy, in which you state
the following: "We must remember and recognize this tragedy to ensure
that it never happens again".

Your generalization, which misses the point entirely, is misleading in
ways more than one. It is a rationalization that may comfort you but
actually helps to hide the origins of genocide. Unless you are able to
accept the correct diagnosis of the true source of this brand of
crime, massacres will occur, thanks in part to such incorrect
assessments.

I shall put aside the fact that you are virtually under the arrest of
carefully-selected justifications, with absolutely no mention of
opposing documentation. You have never become a part of scholarly
debate on that issue. For instance, a prominent British source
(Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, Dictionary of the First World
War) recorded that between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians were living in
Turkey in 1914, and that the Armenians "slaughtered an estimated
120,000 non-Armenians while the Turkish Army was preoccupied with
mobilization." It adds that the armed Armenians attacked the Turkish
quarters of the Ottoman city of Van in April 1915, and proclaimed
there a government of their own, seceding in the process this province
from the State. This was the beginning of Armenian massacres, pillage
and rape directed against the non-Armenians.

Notable Armenians (such as the first Prime Minister of independent
Armenia Hovhannes Katchaznouni, K. Serope Papazian), British
functionaries (Captain C.B.Norman, A.G.Hume-Braman, Sidney Whitman)
and men-of-letters (C.F. Dixon-Johnson, Bernard Lewis, Roderic
Daveson, Andrew Mango, Norman Stone), Russian officers (General
Mayevski, Lieutenant-Colonel Tverdo-Khlebov, Captain I.G. Plat,
Dr.Khoreshenov), American academics (Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, William L.
Langer, Stanford J.Shaw, Justin McCarthy, Heath W. Lowry, Edward J.
Erickson, Guenther Lewy), men from legal professions (Samuel A. Weems)
and many others do not share the mainstream opinion about the
"innocence" of the Armenians. You may kindly familiarize yourself with
such sources. Fact-finding in history demands that all relevant parts
of the truth is taken into consideration.
Let me come back to your misleading generalization that you intend to
end genocide by punishing the Turks. I have to underline that genocide
is a product of racism; and racism was born and rose in certain parts
of the Western world. It is an offshoot of a particular level in the
development of the capitalist society; it is the result of an advanced
stage of a certain mode of production. It is like a hand and a glove
with the process of colonial and imperialist exploitation.

One may believe to be "different" from the "other", in terms of
racial, ethnical or religious background. But when this difference is
regarded as innate and unchangeable, and moreover, justifying a sense
of superiority over the other, then, one is confronted with a racist
attitude or a set of beliefs, which also expresses itself in the
practices, institutions and structures which help to justify it.
Racism theorizes about human differences and things badly about
another group. It proposes to establish an order, a permanent group
hierarchy believed to reflect "laws of nature" or even God's
preference. This is what the British, French, German, Spanish, Dutch
and, the Americans have done in various parts of Asia, Africa, and
Latin America.

Racism has two components: difference and power. It originates in the
mind that regards "them" as different from "us", and the difference is
supposed to be permanent and unbridgeable. Government-sanctioned
segregation, colonial subjugation, exclusion, enslavement and genocide
may follow that racist orientation. White supremacy, Christian
selectivity, and anti-semitism are the result. The Blacks, the
Muslims, and the xxxs were tolerated as long as they stayed in "their
place". In some Western societies, racism was fully worked out,
elaborately implemented, and carried to its extremes.

There is no racism in the Turkish psyche. It has never been a part of
the Turks' social, political, and psychological set-up. They are the
ones who recognized the Orthodox, Armenian, xxxish, Catholic, and
Protestants as separate peoples with the right to worship in their own
way, built their own religious structures, elect their own
representatives and be led by them, go anywhere within the large
confides of the State, indulge in any kind of profession or work, and
eventually join the State administration. This is known, dear Senator,
as the famous "millet" system about which you give no hint of having
accumulated sufficient knowledge. The Turks achieved all that when
Europe was fighting religious wars, when Cromwell was pursuing his
Catholics, the French butchering their Huguenots, and others subduing
the Calvinists.

The Turks recognized the Armenians as a separate community as early as
1461 when the Christian centers virtually excommunicated this
Gregorian people for centuries. Consequently, the Ottoman Foreign
Minister only a year before the outbreak of the First World War was an
Armenian – Gabriel Nouradoungian. Would Hitler appoint a xxx to be his
Minister of Foreign Affairs? Did even the Weimar Republic do that?
Antisemitism, thus, is a disease of the Western societies. Hitler did
not learn anything from the Turks. There was enough racism accumulated
in Germany, Austria, and in some other Western nation-states. They
were the ones who gave to the world racist theoreticians – for
instance, Gobineau in France, Chamberlain in Britain, Nietzche in
Germany, and the Social Darwinists in the United States.

The Turks, on the other hand had saved the whole of European xxxry
from total extinction during the Inquisition in 1492. Turkey was a
place of refuge for all of those running away from Russian autocracy,
the failure of the 1830 and the 1848 Revolutions, the setback of the
progressive political movements in Hungary, Poland, and elsewhere and
of course the onslaught of Fascism in Italy, and Nazism in Germany.
Likewise, the Turks made no contribution to racist theories, but
presented to world civilization the celebrated Renaissance men such as
Sinan the Architect, Yunus Emre the great humanist poet, and Ibni Sina
whose book on medicine was utilized as the basic text book in all
schools of medicine in Europe for 300 consecutive years.
But the Catholic missionaries from France and Protestant missionaries
from the United States came to Ottoman Turkey to "teach" the Gregorian
Armenians that they were "superior" to the Muslim Turks, by virtue of
the fact they happen to be Christians. An American Protestant
missionary (A.W.Williams) and the president of the Armenian Patriotic
Alliance in New York (M.S. Gabriel), in their joint book, printed in
Chicago as late as 1896, or only four years before our entry into the
twentieth century, wrote the following on the Turks: "... the Turk is
not a member of the best human race- the Indo-European, or Arian, like
the Armenians. The Turk does not belong even to the next best of
races, the semitic...the Turk is a wild beast to be caged. [We] beg
pardon of the hounds, hyenas...and all wild beasts for using their
names in simile or metaphor..." It is unfortunate that racist
publications have become the teachers of a number of parliamentarians
and conditioned them, along with the organized and politicized
propaganda of the Armenian pressure groups who are so active in
Washington, D.C.

However, such an assault on the Turks, and their views represents
something like a lynch mob. One should note that such an attitude may
well augur the advent of a new form of a totalitarian society.

You are merely helping the Armenians to redefine their identity as a
group of "victims". In Freudian terms of psychology, this form of
selection is called "the egoism of victimization" that totally
disregards the bloodshed and the trauma that the so-called "victims"
have caused to others. Such a distorted version of events contradicts
what actually happened in history. Throughout the First World War
there was a non stop news coverage in the Western Allied press on the
Armenians. Non of the attacks, destruction, murder, massacre, theft,
pillage, and rape by the Armenians were ever reported. There was even
a law against such reporting, on the basis of "aiding the enemy". In
the meantime, however, the Ottoman Armenians had joined hands with
Turkey's enemies who provided that minority with weapons, ammunition,
military training, uniforms, logistics, lines of communications, and
money.

Self-styled leaders may try to convince themselves and mislead others
that if their selected "scapegoat" is punished, things will be right.
This will never be the case, so long as the actual breeding source of
genocide, which is racism, remains as it is in some Western societies.

Best wishes,

Türkkaya Ataöv
Professor of International Relations

Bell, I'll post a reply just because this deserves to be repeated!

[Emrah]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

“Okay, Ottomans were a puppet. I assume you believe Turkish revolutionaries are justified in taking a piece of the empire for themselves, but you justified the expulsion and murder of Armenians for doing the same thing on their own lands. You are employing a double standard.”

You can’t be serious with the argument above. Turkish people were fighting for their country which was invaded and divided among Greece, Britain, Italy, France, Russia, etc. while the Armenians were trying to get a piece of Turkish lands as you put it so delicately. You cannot put Turkish and Armenians in the same category by any means. You did not have any lands. They were Ottoman/Turkish lands.

“You're right, every nation has their share of extremists, and you shouldn't judge people based on that. The difference is, and it is a very important one: Our fanatics had no government backing, neither did they have any popular support. Your fanatics had government endorsement and aid. I'll assume you're intelligent enough to know why there is a significant difference between the two.”

It is very interesting to see that you always come up allegations against Turkish state when it comes down to fanatics, but when it comes down to your fanatics, they are solely individuals. So, you are telling me that ASALA organized all those terrorist activities across the entire world without any help from Armenians. It is very hard to believe.

“The Ottoman archives have been heavily censored and tampered with by the post-Ottoman authorities after WW1. Ataturk himself has admitted this fact when he said: XXX”

What does the above statement prove actually? I don’t see any “censored and tampered” in those sentences. It says it was not easy to work with the Ottoman archives because they were old, confused, and rubbishy accounts, which is no surprise considering that hundreds of years of Empire was on the verge of collapse. That Turkish republic cannot be held accountable for past events, however Western countries made sure we paid for them. If it comes into, it only supports Turkish argument.

“Don't be silly. The laws in Switzerland and France have nothing to do with the Armenian state, and they were only created in the last 3 or 4 years”

So, you and Armenian state are against these laws? You did not want them to be passed; you did not lobby for these laws to be passed. If that is the case, I have no problem.

“Turkey, since its foundation in 1923, continues to put writers on trial every year for using the word genocide. Pamuk is just one example”

Orhan Pamuk is a writer who sold his country for his personal interests. He wanted to get the Nobel, and he said things that would please you. He is a sold man in every way. Whenever somebody says or does things that Western countries like, they are rewarded. Nobel was the reward of Pamuk. What a shame!

"Armenian lobby threatens"? They "threaten" no one. Armenian lobby, like every other lobby in America, is free to endorse candidates who support their issues and vote for them. That’s the most basic part of democracy, which is obviously something new to you”

You claim to be democratic, to be open to free thinking, and know democracy well. Yet, in every word I say, you are accusing me to have double standards, being non-intelligent (I have a PhD by the way), silly (my favorite one), a member of totalitarian society (you accuse a whole nation here), somebody who does not know anything about WW I. It is obviously clear that you cannot tolerate any opposing idea and you are certainly not democrat.

[Eddo211]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

To Mr. PHD:

............

Posted by EDDO211: “If you are so concerned with living standards in Armenia Emrah why don’t you open your boarders without preconditions. Armenian boarders have never been closed so what is your problem Turk.”

Posted by Emrah: This is a racial sentence. It just shows your character and improves Prof. Ataov’s claims. I will not answer this......................

I don’t understand; please explain which part of my post is racist. Is it the part about opening the boarders without precondition or is it because I asked you what is the problem (your major malfunction) in this regards Turk.

Tell me something Turk, why did you feel the need to post such Anti Armenian garbage on a AG website?

[hrai]

Re: Letter from Prof. Ataov to US Senator about Armenian-Turkish issue

You can’t be serious with the argument above. Turkish people were fighting for their country which was invaded and divided among Greece, Britain, Italy, France, Russia, etc. while the Armenians were trying to get a piece of Turkish lands as you put it so delicately. You cannot put Turkish and Armenians in the same category by any means. You did not have any lands. They were Ottoman/Turkish lands.

turkey was defeated in WW1 but not successfully invaded. Please read history, don't perpetuate this "war of independence" MYTH. The "dividing" of turkey you mention: Britain, Italy & France could not agree between themselves and the other Allies how turkey should be dealt with, Russia was actually totally out of the equation, professor, with the Civil War between Reds & Whites and had contracted away from even the 1914 borders. The landing of Greek troops at Smyrna was the catalyst for ataturd and his nationalists.
I suppose we could start a thread asking "If the Greeks hadn't landed at Smyrna, what would have become of ataturkj?"

It is very interesting to see that you always come up allegations against Turkish state when it comes down to fanatics, but when it comes down to your fanatics, they are solely individuals. So, you are telling me that ASALA organized all those terrorist activities across the entire world without any help from Armenians. It is very hard to believe.

Another denialist using ASALA and their activities in discussion about the AG.

What does the above statement prove actually? I don’t see any “censored and tampered” in those sentences. It says it was not easy to work with the Ottoman archives because they were old, confused, and rubbishy accounts, which is no surprise considering that hundreds of years of Empire was on the verge of collapse. That Turkish republic cannot be held accountable for past events, however Western countries made sure we paid for them. If it comes into, it only supports Turkish argument.

That's an interesting point of view which basically supposes that any criminal can simply change his name to abdicate any responsibility for crimes committed. I'm off to the bank now.

So, you and Armenian state are against these laws? You did not want them to be passed; you did not lobby for these laws to be passed. If that is the case, I have no problem.

These laws were passed by the countries themselves, as tends to be the case, it's not uncommon for denial to be included within them as an offence.
BTW, whilst not lobbying for them, I did want them passed, do you have a problem with that?

Orhan Pamuk is a writer who sold his country for his personal interests. He wanted to get the Nobel, and he said things that would please you. He is a sold man in every way. Whenever somebody says or does things that Western countries like, they are rewarded. Nobel was the reward of Pamuk. What a shame!

Who did he sell his country to and for what price? Do Armenians select Nobel prize winners? Are we seeing a little paranoia there, emrah? You're displaying the poor, isolated, persecuted turk here now. A common feature often seen is that many turks desire to be included into the "West" or be "European" but whenever anything happens which doesn't fit into their ataturk-boxed vision of the world, they shift their balance to being the muslim Middle-Eastern stronghold.

You claim to be democratic, to be open to free thinking, and know democracy well. Yet, in every word I say, you are accusing me to have double standards, being non-intelligent (I have a PhD by the way), silly (my favorite one), a member of totalitarian society (you accuse a whole nation here), somebody who does not know anything about WW I. It is obviously clear that you cannot tolerate any opposing idea and you are certainly not democrat.

Your history of WW1 seems to be fairly poor and probably would get you a fail in any "Western"/"European" examination.