Give a lie twenty-four hours start, and it will take a hundred years to overtake it.

[thinktwice]

Maybe some of you already know these but i'll remind you all...

"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

"...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 would condemn a prisoner on the evidence for the defence." C.F. Dixon-Johnson, British author, possibly paraphrased 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

"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.)

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)

"(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 you want to read everything about your so-called genocide check it out...

[TurKOnE]

"Give a lie twenty-four hours start, and it will take a hundred years to overtake it."

LOVE IT!!! fits excellently.

[eMachine]

maybe you just shouldnt bug armenians in their forums because you are being a good fun for them. isnt it?
whatever you write, whatever you share or advice, people just having fun, fun on you, whatever you write, with your english... maybe you just shouldnt share your opinions with armenians here as muslims. i mean just leave it

whatever you write, whatever you prove, everything begins again... it never finishes. whenever you write something serious, people has no idea and think about, then playing with your english, this is their childish side.

you will be best ball for to play while you are sharing your opinions. you shouldnt try to prove something, it does not works on armenians. if you want, you can do it in some world affairs boards...

[winoman]

haha - yeah - can you just imagine the many hundreds of disparaging quotes we can offer up describing the Turks. So what is your point? none. there is a greater context to all these quotes - and full discovery regarding all of them will more often then not turn the tables on you - so OK - gobbe gobble - changes nothing - these quotes are irrelevant for proving disproving the genocide. So NothinknotevenonceTurks - try again...oh and BTW I offer you this:

May 9, 2005

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Ankara, Turkey

Fax: + 90 312 417 0476
[email protected]


Dear Prime Minister Erdogan:

A few weeks ago, Your Excellency wrote to Armenian President Robert
Kocharyan, proposing a joint group, consisting of historians and other
experts, to study "the events of 1915." The purpose of this initiative would
be to "shed light on a disputed period of history and also constitute a step
towards contributing to the normalization of relations between" Turkey and
Armenia.

We would like you to know that a similar proposal was initiated as far back
as September 2001. At that time, the Zoryan Institute, in collaboration with
the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council (TABDC), represented by
Mr. Kaan Soyak, its President, developed the outlines of a proposal for a
historians' forum. This was done with the involvement of both Turkish and
Armenian scholars. The goal of the forum was to create a platform for
historians where a conceptual framework would be developed to discuss
historical facts, especially as they relate to the treatment of the
Armenians by the Ottoman authorities in the last days of the Ottoman Empire,
during World War I. The discussion would be free and open, enabling both
societies to deal with their past. The forum would also disseminate, without
censorship, information through seminars, colloquia, conferences, and public
discussions and would make available the archival and source documentation
for this subject through the broadcast media. At that time, Mr. Soyak let us
know that the Turkish Government was intimately informed about this
initiative, and that the TABDC was to take the proposal to the Turkish
government for its approval. Unfortunately, such approval was never
obtained, we believe, because "diverging interpretations of events that took
place during a particular period.continue to hamper the development of
friendly relations between" Armenia and Turkey today, as you note in your
letter.

In order to help reconcile these divergent interpretations, the two sides
must listen to and hear each other. As part of this process, a common body
of knowledge needs to be created, so that established facts can help
alleviate the polarization of opinions. This, in turn, will lead to the
"peaceful and friendly environment in which tolerance and mutual respect
shall prevail." Therefore, we at the Zoryan Institute urge your government
to take some simple steps to allow for a free and open discussion within
Turkish society, such as those listed below.

1) Facilitate critical scholars educating society about the events of
1915 from different points of view and not only from the government's
perspective.

2) Allow the broadcast of a series of lectures on this issue by
renowned Armenian, Turkish and/or third party scholars, who do not
necessarily reflect the government's official position, through Turkish
television networks, without any censorship, and with the accessibility to
the public for questions.

3) Allow Turkish academics and intellectuals, whose point of view
challenges the official version of what happened in 1915, to express their
ideas through public lectures, publications, and translations of Ottoman
archival materials, without fear of persecution by the state.

4) In this respect, make unequivocally and publicly clear that Article
305 of the Penal Code, which criminalizes "acts against the fundamental
national interest," does not pertain to the "Armenian Genocide" issue, and
that individuals who say that the Armenians suffered a genocide will not be
persecuted by the state.

In its turn, Armenia should be willing to allow public access there to the
official Turkish point of view, in the same manner.

It takes considerable time to conceptualize new approaches to large
problems, which have eluded solution for generations. At the same time,
there are many useful, small, confidence-building steps that can be taken on
the road to finding that solution. Therefore, we strongly urge the Turkish
Government to accept the call of Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
for your two countries to establish diplomatic relations, with no
preconditions, as a first step to commencing dialogue. This would
demonstrate the sincerity of your government regarding the normalization of
relations between the two countries.


Dear Mr. Prime Minister, by such steps described above, you will help
accelerate the creation of bridges between various sectors of the two
governments and civil societies, so crucial for normalization of relations
and conflict resolution. We urge you not to miss the opportunity at this
juncture of accepting the outstretched hand of friendship from Armenia, as a
previous Turkish government missed during the early 1990s. Please be assured
that we at Zoryan Institute stand ready to support all earnest efforts to
promote Turkish-Armenian dialogue through our expertise and scholarly
resources.


Yours respectfully,


[signed]


Roger W. Smith, Chair, Academic Board of Directors


Cc: President Robert Kocharyan, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, Special
Advisor to UN Secretary General Juan Mendez

[TomServo]

Holdwater is a peon.

[TomServo]

So Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks, and Kurds must all be wrong. Shrug.

[winoman]

hm - well this is quite interesting (the cracks in the wall widen - eh?)

TDN
Friday, May 13, 2005

OPINIONS

To be able to understand the enigma called humanity, probably one has to
look at its extremes, hence the great significance of genocide.
Throughout history there have been massacres, enslavement and
destruction. However, genocide, which is an act committed with the
'intent to destroy' a specific group is a characteristic of the European
continent of which we are a part. The desire to prevent anti-Semitism
(that is, the kind of racism that led to the Holocaust) from resurfacing
on the stage of history ever again was one of the basic considerations
with which the European Union was founded.

Due to the Armenian problem we, too, have started learning about
genocide. The Halacoglu incident has taught us that according to Article
6 of the Genocide Convention only a competent court may decide whether a
certain incident constitutes genocide.

The genocide law created by the convention is a major intellectual
leap. Article 2, which provides a definition of genocide, especially, is
a legal masterpiece. To be able to understand it one has to read
hundreds -- if not thousands -- of pages.

Rafael Lemkin, the person who coined the word `genocide,' had
described the Armenian incidents as genocide. As an adviser to the U.N.
secretary-general he was in the group of persons who drafted the
convention. However, the scope of Lemkin's genocide description -- which
covered cultural and economic genocides as well -- was narrowed down in
the course of the deliberations and, in the end, only biological
genocide, destruction of groups, that is, human beings, came to be
considered the crime of genocide by the convention.

Lemkin had wanted to add `political group' to the groups to be
protected from genocide by the convention, namely, the national, racial,
religious and ethnic groups. The conference committee rejected that
proposal as well. In other words, the convention does not put into the
genocide category the massacre-type crimes committed against those
groups that wage a struggle with political aims, for example to gain
territory or independence. (my note - give it up freaks!)

Lemkin did not make any proposal for the inclusion of the motive
behind the `intent to destroy' in Article 2. The much-talked-about
phrase `as such' was inserted in the text of this article by the
delegations that negotiated the draft. According to the final version
of Article 2, killing with the intent to destroy a member of a given
group, not because of the `harmful' actions or behavior of that
individual but only because he or she is a member of that group, is to
be considered genocide. In other words, the genocide concept was shaped
on the basis of the Jews having been destroyed only because they were
Jews. That is, they were destroyed despite the fact that they had not
rebelled against the Germans; they had not collaborated with the Russian
Army to set up an independent state on part of German soil; and they had
not attacked German civilians. (my note - hey freak - NAZIs used the very same - untrue - argument that you use against the Armenians - and no one buys it - freak!)

The genocide concept was born out of the concept of crimes against
humanity. `Crimes against humanity' were described in the Nuremberg
Principles (Principle 6c). According to that principle `murder,
extermination, enslavement and deportation' and ¦ `persecutions on
political, racial or religious grounds¦' committed against civilians
constitute crimes against humanity.

Yet, Article 2 of the Genocide Convention does not cite any grounds.
Naturally, those who had committed these acts of genocide had declared
the Jews to be a big threat to Germans, even to mankind. (my note - yeah - sound familiar) However, that
claim lacked the kind of rationality to be considered a cause or
grounds. In this context genocide was defined as a crime that did not
have any cause or rationale.

There is no difference in meaning (either in Turkish or in English)
between the words `extermination,' which is one of the crimes against
humanity, and `destruction,' which forms the basis for the crime of
genocide. Different words are being used for the purpose of showing the
enormous difference between genocide and crimes against humanity -- in
that the first one is a `groundless' crime whereas the second one has a
`rationale.' (my note - so your excuse is that you intended to destroy but not exterminate Armenians - and this should somehow make it OK? F'kin freak!)

In this context one could say that history is full of crimes against
humanity, whereas genocide is an exceptional case. (my note - yes so - and don't forget Lemkin used the Armenian case as one of his 2 prime examples - freak!)

Having the intent to destroy a given group only because it is `that'
group could be possible only with the anti-Semitism kind of racism. In
fact, racism can be understood only in that context. (my note - NOT - are you trying to claim that the only kind of racism is anti-semitism? not - freak!)

Nazi Germany subjected Jews to genocide because that idea was an
inseparable part of Nazi ideology. In other words, the main aim of the
Nazi project was to create a hierarchical European -- or global --
society by ensuring that the Germans would become the master race, that
the Slavs would be enslaved and that the Jews would be destroyed.
Implementation of that project would not be possible if the German
people had not been largely `immersed' in anti-Semitism ("Hitler's
Willing Executioners," D.J. Goldhagen). (my note - Pan-Turanism - freak! - and who is to say that other rational - even to usurp a former lowly group who had made great economic advances and was resented because they were not the dominant religions - etc and so on and so forth - FREAK!)

If the Holocaust were to be considered genocide, other incidents could
not be called genocide. The most one could do would be to identify
ethnic cleansing as a `crime against humanity,' as in the case of Bosnia
and Herzegovina and to call `genocide' the massacres committed in the
course of that ethnic cleansing.
(my note - so FREAK - you now admit to ethnic cleansing - but still not Genocide? Well f'kin freak as e hole - you did what you did and it was GENOCIDE f'ker!)
-----------
Copyright 2005, Turkish Daily News. This article is redistributed with
permission for personal use of Groong readers. No part of this article
may be reproduced, further distributed or archived without the prior
permission of the publisher. Contact Turkish Daily News Online at
http://www.TurkishDailyNews.com for details.

[winoman]

hahahaha - writing on the wall eh? Hpow to backpedal and rationalize eh?

(f'in freaks - just can't quite go there can they - you can see they are admitting - but offering up the lame excuse - provocation on the part of the Armenians - that is untrue and proven false - f'in f'in freaks!)

Gündüz Aktan: Facing up to the past (4)

TDN
Saturday, May 14, 2005
OPINIONS


'It is a kind of self-centeredness for any people to believe that what
has happened to them is the worst tragedy ever suffered by mankind'

(my comment - look at this now - they essentially admit - but are calling us self centered...for what? If you believe that Russians or Bulgarians ort such caused you harm - go ahead and make your case - in the meantime it is no excuse for failing to recognize your f'in crimes!)

Gündüz AKTAN

Facing up to the past and apologizing to the injured party is the latest
fad in our day. Germany and some other European countries have done this
regarding the Holocaust. Now the Armenians and the Western countries
that support them are demanding that we, too, take that path.

Leaving alone the calculations involving political interests, one
could say that if one faced up to the past, took the responsibility for
it and apologized, that move would satisfy a psychological need on the
part of the genocide victims.

It is a kind of self-centeredness for any people to believe that what
has happened to them is the worst tragedy ever suffered by mankind. In
this context, the Armenians set as a condition the acceptance of the
term ´genocide¡ -- so as to allow us to share their grief. Yet, the
amount of pain felt by individuals or groups is not related to whether
or not the incidents had been genocide.

In the case of the Holocaust, it may have been easy to apologize
unilaterally since the Jews were absolutely the innocent party, having
done the Germans no harm at all. They had not even defended themselves.
However, in other cases, the losing (and, consequently, supposedly the
more acutely suffering) side in a political struggle had inflicted
suffering on the other side. Therefore, the pain has to be shared --
albeit asymmetrically. This is what the Armenians are avoiding. (my comment - not/wrong/you are lame - etc)

For erring individuals it would be a meaningful act to admit a mistake
and to apologize to the victim. It would not be as meaningful, as some
are inclined to think, for an entire society to do the same due to
events of the past. Confessing and apologizing 90 years after the
incidents, that is, no less than three generations later, could be
possible only with the assumption that society has a collective
continuity that is not time bound. That assumption is not realistic. (myu comment - OK they are admitting it - but now say it is meaningless to apologize...yeah thats what this is saying...and they deny the continuity with the Otttoman/CUP - if this is their shied it is an awful thin one that is pierced with spit...)

The kind of society that considers itself to be the victim ´knows¡
about its sufferings due to the ´memory¡ passed down from one generation
to another. And this ´transmitted memory¡ leads to exaggeration of the
incidents and forgetfulness about one's own mistakes. (my comment - prove it - self - serving speculation on your part - freaks!)

Future-oriented societies such as ours, on the other hand, tend to
forget about the persecution they have undergone. That, in turn, causes
an unequal situation when it comes to feeling the pain caused by the
incidents of the past. In such a case confession and apology could cause
the incidents to be moved even further away from historical reality. (my comment - yeah right - what a story...oh we forget about the wrongs done to us...not - freaks!)

EU societies believe that if one admits one's responsibility in the
Holocaust and apologizes, that will effectively prevent a recurrence of
incidents of that kind. That is not a highly realistic expectation,
either. (my comment - hm - yeah so this is your excuse for not admitting now - what kind of morons do they hire at your paper? oh yeah - FREAKS!)

What lay at the roots of the political culture that led to the
Holocaust was a thousand-year-old (maybe even older) current of
anti-Semitism. To prevent the recurrence of these incidents, a kind of
catharsis would be needed. In other words, one would have to make a
profound analysis of the culture in question to identify the
pathological part of it and then cut it out. Yet, no such work is under
way. They are hoping that this extremely well-rooted current would
disappear one day as a result of confession and apology. That is not
realistic. (my coomet - look freaks - Jews were most integrated and least persecuted in Germany as compared to any other European nation - before their freaks - the NAZIs showed up....yeah think about it just a bit why don't ya....freaks!)

Societies that confess and apologize come to believe that they have
rid themselves of their own crimes; they start claiming that the same
crime had been committed by other societies as well. In reality, that
means that they are now projecting onto new targets -- the Turks and
Turkey, for example -- the unwanted parts of their identity they had
once projected onto the Jews via anti-Semitism.

Is it accidental that anti-Semitism and racism are on the rise in
Germany and in many other societies? Anti-Semitism exists even in places
where there are no Jews left anymore -- for example, in Poland. Is the
recognition of the ´Armenian genocide¡ by Poland's Parliament completely
unrelated to this bizarre anti-Semitism there? In other words, the same
old illness is continuing in a new form though it has lost its
intensity. (my comment - WTF - equating recognizing the AG WITH anti-semitism - f'in freaks!)

Those leftist-turned-liberal intellectuals in Turkey who do not know
about the genocide issue and are in no hurry to become well versed in it
accept these projections as the truth without any questioning. They
think what happened in 1915-16 was genocide according to Article 2 of
the [Genocide] Convention. They want us to confess and apologize. Their
stance is similar to the Jewish Haskala intellectuals who easily
admitted to each and every projection Christian Europe had made onto the
Jews. It must not be forgotten that these Jews' inability to defend
their own identity played a great part in their becoming victims of
genocide. (my comment - yes = please document for us where the Armenains were able to disrupt even one "deporation" convoy - or such - freaks!)

Our ´intellectuals¡ suffered from a major trauma in the hands of this
state. For this reason they are against the founder of this state,
Ataturk, and the Union and Progress Party, from the ranks of which they
believe Ataturk had sprung. They identify themselves with the Armenians
because they believe Armenians were the victims of genocide perpetrated
by Union and Progress circles. Thus, they see their own nation as a
´genocider¡ despite the fact that Turks have been -- not counting the
Jews -- subjected to more acts of genocide than any other nation.
(my comment - hahahahahahaha - oops...yeah right...)

When will this masquerade come to an end?

-----------
Copyright 2005, Turkish Daily News. This article is redistributed with
permission for personal use of Groong readers. No part of this article
may be reproduced, further distributed or archived without the prior
permission of the publisher. Contact Turkish Daily News Online at
http://www.TurkishDailyNews.com for details.

When will this masquerade come to an end?

-----------
Copyright 2005, Turkish Daily News. This article is redistributed with
permission for personal use of Groong readers. No part of this article
may be reproduced, further distributed or archived without the prior
permission of the publisher. Contact Turkish Daily News Online at
http://www.TurkishDailyNews.com for details.

[winoman]

Another Turk speaks up

2005-05-10

By Zafer Senocak

In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Germans not only stood before
the ruins of their fragmented country. They also, in the light of the crimes
committed under National Socialist rule, stood before moral ruin and the
question of guilt, which after a relatively short phase of repression, led
to unprecedented historical scrutiny.

But what happens when instead of a culture of remembering, a culture of
repression and denial is established? How can two societies, one at home in
the culture of memory and the other in the culture of repression, come to
terms with one another.

The current debate surrounding the Armenian victims of Turkish deportation
and extermination in 1915 reflects the impossibility of this sort of
understanding. Many Turkish public figures and associations in Germany react
to the accusations of genocide with old patterns of repression that are so
thoroughly internalised that to abandon them would be like abandoning one's
very self.
This is no starting point, either for a dialogue with German society, which
is discussing this problematic chapter of Turkish history ever more openly,
or for the families of the victims who for decades have been seeking
recognition for their suffering.

This fact alone is monstrous enough. Imagine this for a moment: Your own
family is driven from its home, and in the process most of them lose their
lives, are massacred in cold blood. But the survivors and their children
then have to spend decades trying to bring the rest of the world, not to
mention the perpetrator nation, to recognise the suffering and injustice
inflicted on them. The accusation from the Turkish side that the Armenian
diaspora has purely nationalist motivations is downright shameless, given
that the Turkish establishment refuses to even lift a finger in
acknowledgement of these people and their personal histories.

Acknowledgement can neither be replaced by a public discussion of the events
in Anatolia, nor by parliamentary debate, and certainly not by an
international dispute between historians. The very fact that people are
calling for historians to debate the issue reveals coldness and distance,
which is part of the problem, not the solution. The archives are open, they
say, as if historical truth could be accessed solely through archives.
Historical truth is not a physical quantity that can be measured with a
mathematical formula. It is hidden in the memories of every individual
person. If these memories are subjected to a permanent process of
repression, there is no truth, only lies and falsification.
In the 21st century, Turkish society will no longer be able to afford this
rotten foundation of repression and crude historical falsification if it
wants to be invited into the circle of Europeans. The Turks cannot demand
that others come to terms with their histories when they themselves are only
willing to believe in a version they invented.
But virtually everything that has come out of the Turkish media in Germany
in recent weeks bodes ill. Instead of a serious debate on the issue, they
are concerned with capitalising on Armenia's history of suffering because it
is ideally suited to exploit Turkish nationalist feeling. But when this
takes place in Germany, it is not only dangerous but unbearable.

The defamation of critical voices by these press organs has by now lost all
journalistic sense and assumed the dimensions of a campaign. Once again it
is becoming clear that the majority of Turkish politicians and their lackeys
are utterly indifferent to the real concerns of Turks abroad. They view them
as a mass that can be manoeuvred to serve their own ends, however stable
they are. They see them as peasant victims, who can be shifted back and
forth, and abandoned at any point. The nationalistically-charged mass seems
to consent to this. It is not their integration into German society that is
important, nor their establishment and upcoming cosmopolitan orientation,
no, the only thing of relevance is nationalist ethos.

This is an unbearable state of affairs, which if it persists, does not augur
well for German-Turkish relations. German acceptance of Turks in Germany is
already minimal. The consequences of further alienation are virtually
impossible to estimate.

Sensible voices in Germany still capable of rational analysis are not
entirely absent. The Turkish Union in Berlin-Brandenburg, the TBB, has
refrained from jumping on the nationalist bandwagon. This should be welcomed (my note - are you aware of their position? Well it is acknowledgement of the Genocide - full and total!) wholeheartedly, even if it means that the campaign now being launched
against this organisation will probably cause irreparable damage to the
Turkish population. The instrumentalisation of genocide, for whatever end it
might be, is always morally despicable and casts a dark shadow on those who
practise it. This applies in particular to politicians who serve the
interests of the so-called healthy understanding in Turkish society, to
which the denial and repression of genocide belong.
This instrumentalisation is not only morally despicable, it also deforms
those who practise it. Because by doing so they are treading in the
footsteps of the perpetrators. In the same way, a society which represses a
crime of such dimensions, which stubbornly refuses to feel guilt or
responsibility, is in no way immune to a repetition. The lynch-mob
atmosphere that has raised its head in recent weeks on Turkish streets
against minorities and other-minded individuals, does not - as one might
expect - awaken any bad memories, because such memories have been
deliberately erased.
All these events substantiate one fact: the scale and effect of the Armenian
genocide has yet to be understood by the Turks. What is lacking is not only
a rational analysis but a compassionate heart and an awareness of
responsibility, which would make many discussions completely superfluous.
For example, whether one categorises the events as genocide or massacre and
expulsion. A row over terminology cannot erase victims from memory or
history. A society that is unwilling to remember remains imprisoned by the
mistakes of the past. This verdict is much harsher that any judgement that
could be passed by some government.

*****

This article was originally published in German in the taz on 28 April 2005.

Zafer Senocak, born in Ankara in 1961, has lived in Germany since 1970,
where he has become a leading voice in German discussions on
multiculturalism, national and cultural identity, and a mediator between
Turkish and German culture.

[winoman]

Washington Times, DC
May 8 2005

Forum: Bitter remembrances of Armenia

Last Tuesday's Commentary contribution by Turkish Ambassador O. Faruk
Logoglu was a vivid reminder the Turkish government still rigidly
clings to its unseemly denial of the Armenian massacres of 1915, the
first genocide of the 20th century, even as it seeks admission to the
European Union.
Moreover, the ambassador seeks sympathy for Turks as if they were
equally wronged. It was all a result of wartime diseases and famine
and "the Armenian revolt in the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman
Empire, in which hundreds of thousands of Turks and Armenians died."
And then this, an astonishingly mendacious thing to write: "We should
.. acknowledge the grief and sadness felt by present generations of.
Armenians over the terrible losses suffered by their parents and
grandparents. The same compassion must be extended to the Turkish
people."

Mr. Logoglu certainly knows better. Even the Turkish government
archives show how the Ottoman Turkish government planned and carried
out the massacres of the Armenians because of their race and
Christian religion, "ethnically cleansing" the heavily Armenian
provinces in the East and other parts of Turkey, including Istanbul,
with the loss of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian lives.
The ambassador mentions some Armenian revenge assassinations of
Turkish officials in the 1970s and '80s -- abominable events, to be
sure. He does not mention assassinations of guilty Turkish officials
more than a half-century earlier. The story of Soghomon Tehlirian
suggests why.
He shot and killed the former interior minister and planner of
the genocide, Talaat Pasha, in Berlin in 1921. Tehlirian's sisters
had been raped and his brother beheaded; his parents had died on a
death march that killed tens of thousands of Armenians. Before
shooting Talaat, he shouted: "This is to avenge the death of my
family."
He was exonerated by a German jury that found "the official
Turkish documents... proved beyond question that Talaat Pasha and
other officials had ordered the wholesale extermination of the
Armenians." I wrote about Tehlirian in my California weekly newspaper
almost 40 years later. I found him still careful to be as invisible
as possible for fear of Turkish reprisal (justified or not), and my
story said nothing of where and how he lived. He was buried by the
Armenians as a hero. We might have done something similar if an
American had assassinated Adolf Hitler.
Hitler, by the way, told his top generals as they prepared to
invade Poland and the Nazis pressed on with the Holocaust: "Who
today, after all, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Many Americans knew what was happening in 1915 and thereabouts
and tried to help, but too late. They included Theodore Roosevelt,
who criticized Woodrow Wilson for not sending troops into Turkey to
fight to save the Armenians. "The Armenian massacre was the greatest
crime of the war," he said, "and failure to act against Turkey is to
condone it."
That failure, he said, "means that all talk of guaranteeing the
future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense." America's
failure, he said, showed "our announcement that we meant 'to make the
world safe for democracy' was insincere claptrap."
Others who spoke out and raised funds for rescue of the Armenians
over the next few years included John D. Rockefeller, William
Jennings Bryan, Clara Barton, Julia Ward Howe, William Lloyd Garrison
Jr., Stephen Crane, H.L. Mencken, Ezra Pound and (despite Roosevelt's
words) Woodrow Wilson. They all knew this was genocide.
Henry Morgenthau, ambassador to Turkey during the massacres,
confronted the Turkish government about its treatment of the
Armenians and led our diplomats' valiant efforts to help Armenians
escape. He wrote when he left in 1916: "My failure to stop the
destruction of the Armenians had made Turkey for me a place of
horror."
Religious organizations speaking out included the Central
Conference of American Rabbis (which earlier appealed to Europe in
1909 to protect the Armenians from barbarism in Turkey), Protestant
missionaries (numerous in Turkish Armenia, witnesses to the
atrocities and sometimes rescuers and victims) and leading American
Catholics.
In due time, I hope, Turkey will be a member of the EU and by
then will have firmly emplaced democratic government and First
Amendment freedoms. But it would be another atrocity if that happens
before Turkey accepts, as any European nation should, its
responsibility for the massacres. Can we imagine Germany as a EU
member if it denied the Holocaust and asked equal sympathy for
Germans and Jews because of what happened?
America once stood tall in response to the Armenian massacres.
The pursuit of oil and influence in the Middle East changed that soon
after World War I. It was easier to end the humanitarian clamor.
Today some politicians even refuse (though not President Bush) to use
the word "genocide" lest they offend Turkey. Americans in general do
not even know of these atrocities, although in one of their finest
hours Americans had cried out for the Armenians and for holding
nations accountable for genocide.
Maybe Hitler was right. But I have many Armenian and Turkish
friends who do know (the latter silent just now, because of Turkish
suppression of the truth). I believe young people in Turkey may
change this some day if they have a chance, if they even learn what
happened.
Ambassador Logoglu believes this stain will just go away. We must
make sure lies do not corrupt history as they now corrupt the Turkish
government.

REESE CLEGHORN
Washington, D.C.