The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

[RSNATION]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

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.53

Conclusion

In the history of human conflicts, including international conflicts with outcomes involving capital crimes, one may rarely see a perpetrator who, for a variety of reasons managed to escape punishment, voluntarily come forward and admit guilt. More often than not, such admissions are exacted either by total defeat and surrender at the end of a military conflict, or by circumstances affording a trial in a court of law where the availability of compelling evidence may preempt the possibility of routine denial. In the case of a capital crime of the type of genocide, power relations are of dual import. One needs superior power to overwhelm and decimate an impotent and vulnerable victim group but, perhaps equally important, one may proceed to deny that crime if in the aftermath of it one's power position continues to hold or even increases. The persistent and often truculent denial of the Armenian genocide for more than eight decades by the Turks and their few partisan advocates is a function of this type of power leverage. One remedy or antidote against this posture is less equivocation or verbal gymnastics, and more firmness of purpose that is anchored on the twin pillars of American democracy and civilization: truth and justice. For too long American men of politics, largely influenced by the guardians of military and commercial interests, have opted to accommodate, at almost any price, the Turks, some of whom these days are wont to brag that they are "the spoiled brats of the Americans!" But are commerce and politics and military procurement everything? Are there not thresholds which, when crossed, one should have the fortitude to say no and call the bluff in face of the type of warnings and threats for which the Turks have special aptitudes?
Political alliances as a rule are temporary arrangements and are, therefore, unstable combinations, always liable to transformation and even reversal. But a nation's ascendancy to a high level of self-fulfilment needs to be energized by a commitment to more abiding principles and ideals than the proclivities for dollar diplomacy and the skill to calibrate political interests that are often ephemeral.
America's destiny is foreshadowed in the legacy of such pillars of political idealism as Jefferson and Lincoln, who knew how to be mindful of the binding constraints of probity in the regulation of national and international affairs.
In the context of this essay it is worth focusing in particular on Jefferson, whose love for organizing a library was emblematic of his passion for accumulating and transmitting knowledge over many generations. He helped found the Library of Congress and, after fire destroyed its collection, he offered his own library to the Congress. Just as libraries are much cherished as fertile grounds for the pursuit of knowledge and truth, so are national archives. The resolution before the Congress will serve as a crucible for those Congressmen and Congresswomen who may prefer to adhere to the legacy of Thomas Jefferson by granting the mandate this resolution is seeking. Let the National Archives serve the lofty purpose for which they were created. Let the truth emerge, shine through and liberate us all from the ongoing scourge of a corrosive denialism.

Notes

1. Türkiye (Turkish newspaper in Istanbul), March 1, 1999. The interviewers are identified as Nihat Kakc and Hasan Ylmaz.

2. Joseph Pomiankowski, Der Zusammenbruch des Ottomanischen Reiches (The collapse of the Ottoman Empire). Graz, Austria, 1969, p. 160.

3. Ibid.

4. German Foreign Ministry Archives, A.A. Türkei 183/40, A25749, September 18, 1916 report, p. 25. This source contains Ambassador Metternich's reference. For the Venezuelan officer's account, see Rafael de Nogales, Four Years Beneath the Crescent. M. Lee, trans. New York: Scribner's, 1926, pp. 1, 72-97.

5. Ahmet Refik (Altnay), Iki Komite, Iki Ktal (Two committees, two massacres). H. Koyukan, ed. Ankara: Kekibeç Publications, 1994, p. 27.

6. Lewis Einstein, "The Armenian Massacres." Contemporary Review 616 (April 1917): 490.

7. Leslie A. Davis, The Slaughterhouse Province. An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide 1915-1917. Susan K. Blair, ed. New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas, 1989, p. 181.

8. Orgeneral Ali Fuad Erden, Birinci Dünya Harbinde Suriye Hatralar (Syrian memoirs of World War I), vol. 1. Istanbul, 1954, p. 122.

9. Alemdar (Turkish newspaper in Istanbul), March 15, 1919. Takvimi Vekâyi No. 3909, July 21, 1920, pp. 3, 4. The minister in question was Cemal.

10. According to German Interim Ambassador to Turkey, Radowitz, 1.5 million Armenians died and 425,000 survived. A.A. Türkei 183/44. A27493, October 4, 1916 report. The German parliamentarian, Foreign Office Intelligence Director, and later Cabinet minister, Erzberger, estimated 1.5 million victims. A.A. Türkei 183/42, A13959, May 27, 1916 report. German major Endres, serving in the Turkish army, estimated that "1.2 million Armenians perished in Turkey during the war." Die Türkei. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1918, p. 161. Austrian Vice Marshal Pomiankowski declared that "approximately one million Armenians perished," [n. 2], p. 160. Austrian consul at Trabzon and Samsun, Dr. Kwatkiowski, reported to Vienna on March 13, 1918 that "in round figure 1 million Armenians were with studied cruelty deported from the six eastern Anatolian provinces as well as from Trabzon province and Samsun district. From these only a fraction could escape death." Austrian Foreign Ministry Archives 12 Türkei/380, ZI.17/pol. Austria-Hungary's Adrianople (Edirne) consul Dr. Nadamlenzki reported that from the entire realm of the Ottoman Empire, including its European part, by October 29, 1915 "already 1.5 million Armenians were deported." 12 Türkei/463, Z.94/P.

11. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Historical and Legal Interconnections Between the Armenian Genocide and the xxxish Holocaust: From Impunity to Retributive Justice." Yale Journal of International Law 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 504.

12. Arnold Toynbee, Experiences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 241, 341.

13. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in German and Austrian Sources." In I. Charny, ed., The Widening Circle of Genocide. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Pub., 1994, pp. 77-125.

14. British Foreign Office Archives, FO 371/7882/E4425, folio 182.

15. FO 371/6503/E6311, folio 34.

16. Harbord Report to the U.S. Secretary of State, "American Military Mission to Armenia." International Conciliation, CLI (151), [New York] (June 1920): 280, 281, 282.

17. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and Its Contemporary Legal Ramifications." Yale Journal of International Law 14, no. 2 (Summer 1989): 297.

18. Ibid. pp. 304-307.

19. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal." International Journal of Middle East Studies 23, no. 4 (November 1991): 563.

20. Ibid.

21. Takvimi Vekâyi no. 3604, p. 219, right hand column. The verdict was issued on July 5, 1919 and the text of the conviction and sentence rendition was published on July 22, 1919.

22. Takvimi Vekâyi no. 3771, p. 2, left hand column. Conviction was announced on January 13, 1920, the text of the conviction and sentence rendition was published on February 9, 1920.

23. Takvimi Vekâyi no. 3616, p. 3, left hand column. Conviction was announced on May 2, 1919, the text of the conviction and sentence rendition was published on August 6, 1919.

24. For example, author Ulrich Trumpener was denied such permission. Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968, Preface, pp. viii-ix; Stanford Shaw, on the other hand, had all this time free access to the same archives. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Vol. II, Reform, Revolution and Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977, Preface, pp. viii, xvii.

25. Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette), no. 20163, May 12, 1989, Cabinet Council's no. 89/14028 decision, pp. 1-6; the three conditions are contained in article 10, subsections a and b.

26. In an interview with the editor of an Armenian newspaper in the United States, Ara Sarafian, a doctoral candidate of history at the University of Michigan, recounted the vexing problems of this type he had in the Yldz archives in Istanbul. Three prominent authors, Justin McCarthy, Kemal Karpat, and Mim Kemal Öke, known for their works categorically denying the Armenian genocide, had had free access to the documents of this archive. When Sarafian proposed to check some of their published claims, statistical figures and other data, he was invariably prevented from doing so by a variety of pretexts, including the occasional assertion that no such documents exist, or that they can not be found. In one particular instance involving Karpat's treatment of the Yldz Perakende collection, Sarafian tried to check some material cited by Karpat, but was told that the collection was "closed" and had never been "open." Hairenik, (May 13, 1993): 5. A summary of that account also appeared in Zeitschrift für Türkeistudien issue no. 1 (1993).

[RSNATION]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

Conclusion

In the history of human conflicts, including international conflicts with outcomes involving capital crimes, one may rarely see a perpetrator who, for a variety of reasons managed to escape punishment, voluntarily come forward and admit guilt. More often than not, such admissions are exacted either by total defeat and surrender at the end of a military conflict, or by circumstances affording a trial in a court of law where the availability of compelling evidence may preempt the possibility of routine denial. In the case of a capital crime of the type of genocide, power relations are of dual import. One needs superior power to overwhelm and decimate an impotent and vulnerable victim group but, perhaps equally important, one may proceed to deny that crime if in the aftermath of it one's power position continues to hold or even increases. The persistent and often truculent denial of the Armenian genocide for more than eight decades by the Turks and their few partisan advocates is a function of this type of power leverage. One remedy or antidote against this posture is less equivocation or verbal gymnastics, and more firmness of purpose that is anchored on the twin pillars of American democracy and civilization: truth and justice. For too long American men of politics, largely influenced by the guardians of military and commercial interests, have opted to accommodate, at almost any price, the Turks, some of whom these days are wont to brag that they are "the spoiled brats of the Americans!" But are commerce and politics and military procurement everything? Are there not thresholds which, when crossed, one should have the fortitude to say no and call the bluff in face of the type of warnings and threats for which the Turks have special aptitudes?
Political alliances as a rule are temporary arrangements and are, therefore, unstable combinations, always liable to transformation and even reversal. But a nation's ascendancy to a high level of self-fulfilment needs to be energized by a commitment to more abiding principles and ideals than the proclivities for dollar diplomacy and the skill to calibrate political interests that are often ephemeral.
America's destiny is foreshadowed in the legacy of such pillars of political idealism as Jefferson and Lincoln, who knew how to be mindful of the binding constraints of probity in the regulation of national and international affairs.
In the context of this essay it is worth focusing in particular on Jefferson, whose love for organizing a library was emblematic of his passion for accumulating and transmitting knowledge over many generations. He helped found the Library of Congress and, after fire destroyed its collection, he offered his own library to the Congress. Just as libraries are much cherished as fertile grounds for the pursuit of knowledge and truth, so are national archives. The resolution before the Congress will serve as a crucible for those Congressmen and Congresswomen who may prefer to adhere to the legacy of Thomas Jefferson by granting the mandate this resolution is seeking. Let the National Archives serve the lofty purpose for which they were created. Let the truth emerge, shine through and liberate us all from the ongoing scourge of a corrosive denialism.

Notes

1. Türkiye (Turkish newspaper in Istanbul), March 1, 1999. The interviewers are identified as Nihat Kakc and Hasan Ylmaz.

2. Joseph Pomiankowski, Der Zusammenbruch des Ottomanischen Reiches (The collapse of the Ottoman Empire). Graz, Austria, 1969, p. 160.

3. Ibid.

4. German Foreign Ministry Archives, A.A. Türkei 183/40, A25749, September 18, 1916 report, p. 25. This source contains Ambassador Metternich's reference. For the Venezuelan officer's account, see Rafael de Nogales, Four Years Beneath the Crescent. M. Lee, trans. New York: Scribner's, 1926, pp. 1, 72-97.

5. Ahmet Refik (Altnay), Iki Komite, Iki Ktal (Two committees, two massacres). H. Koyukan, ed. Ankara: Kekibeç Publications, 1994, p. 27.

6. Lewis Einstein, "The Armenian Massacres." Contemporary Review 616 (April 1917): 490.

7. Leslie A. Davis, The Slaughterhouse Province. An American Diplomat's Report on the Armenian Genocide 1915-1917. Susan K. Blair, ed. New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas, 1989, p. 181.

8. Orgeneral Ali Fuad Erden, Birinci Dünya Harbinde Suriye Hatralar (Syrian memoirs of World War I), vol. 1. Istanbul, 1954, p. 122.

9. Alemdar (Turkish newspaper in Istanbul), March 15, 1919. Takvimi Vekâyi No. 3909, July 21, 1920, pp. 3, 4. The minister in question was Cemal.

10. According to German Interim Ambassador to Turkey, Radowitz, 1.5 million Armenians died and 425,000 survived. A.A. Türkei 183/44. A27493, October 4, 1916 report. The German parliamentarian, Foreign Office Intelligence Director, and later Cabinet minister, Erzberger, estimated 1.5 million victims. A.A. Türkei 183/42, A13959, May 27, 1916 report. German major Endres, serving in the Turkish army, estimated that "1.2 million Armenians perished in Turkey during the war." Die Türkei. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1918, p. 161. Austrian Vice Marshal Pomiankowski declared that "approximately one million Armenians perished," [n. 2], p. 160. Austrian consul at Trabzon and Samsun, Dr. Kwatkiowski, reported to Vienna on March 13, 1918 that "in round figure 1 million Armenians were with studied cruelty deported from the six eastern Anatolian provinces as well as from Trabzon province and Samsun district. From these only a fraction could escape death." Austrian Foreign Ministry Archives 12 Türkei/380, ZI.17/pol. Austria-Hungary's Adrianople (Edirne) consul Dr. Nadamlenzki reported that from the entire realm of the Ottoman Empire, including its European part, by October 29, 1915 "already 1.5 million Armenians were deported." 12 Türkei/463, Z.94/P.

11. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Historical and Legal Interconnections Between the Armenian Genocide and the xxxish Holocaust: From Impunity to Retributive Justice." Yale Journal of International Law 23, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 504.

12. Arnold Toynbee, Experiences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969, pp. 241, 341.

13. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "Documentation of the Armenian Genocide in German and Austrian Sources." In I. Charny, ed., The Widening Circle of Genocide. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Pub., 1994, pp. 77-125.

14. British Foreign Office Archives, FO 371/7882/E4425, folio 182.

15. FO 371/6503/E6311, folio 34.

16. Harbord Report to the U.S. Secretary of State, "American Military Mission to Armenia." International Conciliation, CLI (151), [New York] (June 1920): 280, 281, 282.

17. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law: The World War I Armenian Case and Its Contemporary Legal Ramifications." Yale Journal of International Law 14, no. 2 (Summer 1989): 297.

18. Ibid. pp. 304-307.

19. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal." International Journal of Middle East Studies 23, no. 4 (November 1991): 563.

20. Ibid.

21. Takvimi Vekâyi no. 3604, p. 219, right hand column. The verdict was issued on July 5, 1919 and the text of the conviction and sentence rendition was published on July 22, 1919.

22. Takvimi Vekâyi no. 3771, p. 2, left hand column. Conviction was announced on January 13, 1920, the text of the conviction and sentence rendition was published on February 9, 1920.

23. Takvimi Vekâyi no. 3616, p. 3, left hand column. Conviction was announced on May 2, 1919, the text of the conviction and sentence rendition was published on August 6, 1919.

24. For example, author Ulrich Trumpener was denied such permission. Germany and the Ottoman Empire 1914-1918. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968, Preface, pp. viii-ix; Stanford Shaw, on the other hand, had all this time free access to the same archives. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Vol. II, Reform, Revolution and Republic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977, Preface, pp. viii, xvii.

25. Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette), no. 20163, May 12, 1989, Cabinet Council's no. 89/14028 decision, pp. 1-6; the three conditions are contained in article 10, subsections a and b.

26. In an interview with the editor of an Armenian newspaper in the United States, Ara Sarafian, a doctoral candidate of history at the University of Michigan, recounted the vexing problems of this type he had in the Yldz archives in Istanbul. Three prominent authors, Justin McCarthy, Kemal Karpat, and Mim Kemal Öke, known for their works categorically denying the Armenian genocide, had had free access to the documents of this archive. When Sarafian proposed to check some of their published claims, statistical figures and other data, he was invariably prevented from doing so by a variety of pretexts, including the occasional assertion that no such documents exist, or that they can not be found. In one particular instance involving Karpat's treatment of the Yldz Perakende collection, Sarafian tried to check some material cited by Karpat, but was told that the collection was "closed" and had never been "open." Hairenik, (May 13, 1993): 5. A summary of that account also appeared in Zeitschrift für Türkeistudien issue no. 1 (1993).

7. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Turkish Military Tribunal's Prosecution of the Authors of the Armenian Genocide: Four Major Court-Martial Series." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 32.

28. Kamuran Gürün, Ermeni Dosyas. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1983, pp. 221-222.The English translation is in The Armenian File. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985, pp. 212-213.

29. Erden, Birinci Dünya Harbinde [n. 8], p. 217. The brigands involved were Major Ahmed and Lieutenant Halil in whose belongings were found, among other things, "blood-stained ornamental gold coins." (p. 218).

30. Ziya akir, Yakn Tarihin Üç Büyük Adam (The three great men from the recent past). Istanbul: A. Sait Pub., pp. 57-59. Falih Rfk (Atay), Zeytinda (Mount Olive). Istanbul: Ayyldz, 1981, p. 67. It should be recognized in this respect that not only IVth Army Commander Cemal in Syria and Palestine, but also IIId Army Commander Vehib Paa in eastern Turkey, despite their strong ties to the Ittihad Party, refused to embrace the secret genocidal agenda of the party's top leadership and whenever they could they tried to resist and discourage the attendant massacres. In 1916, for example, Vehib court-martialed and hanged a gendarmery commander and his accomplice for organizing the massacre of some 2,000 disarmed Armenian labor battalion soldiers. He subsequently issued a proclamation threatening similar swift retribution against any and all who might be tempted to attack and harm the Armenians in the process of being deported. Ariamard (Istanbul), December 10, 1918. Cemal Paa acted similarly. In 1916, for example, he executed a gendarmery officer on charges of rape and assault. Austrian Foreign Ministry Archives, Consul Ranzi's February 15, 1916 report to Vienna. 12/463. No. 4/P.

31. See a brief account of these operations of post-crime liquidation, including those undertaken by the Kemalists in Vahakn N. Dadrian, "A Twist in the Punishment of Some of the Arch Perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide." The Armenian Cause 10, no. 2 (May 1993): 2E-5E.

32. Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate Archives, Series 17, file Ho, pp. 37, 38, and p. 163 of report no. 67 relayed to the Interior Minister by one of the four commissions which Minister Talât had sent to Anatolia to investigate the abuses committed against the Armenians in the course of the deportations. For more details on this subject see Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Armenian Genocide and the Pitfalls of a 'Balanced' Analysis. A Response to Ronald Grigor Suny." Armenian Forum no. 2 (Summer 1998): 123-124.

33. Dadrian, "The Turkish Military Tribunal's" [n. 27], p. 39.

34. Ahmed Emin (Yalman), Turkey in the World War. New Haven, 1930, p. 221. The author had close ties with the Young Turk leaders during the war and spent eighteen months with most of them in detention in Malta after the war before being released in October 1921 under the exchange program negotiated between the British and the insurgent Kemalists.

[RSNATION]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

7. Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Turkish Military Tribunal's Prosecution of the Authors of the Armenian Genocide: Four Major Court-Martial Series." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 32.

28. Kamuran Gürün, Ermeni Dosyas. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1983, pp. 221-222.The English translation is in The Armenian File. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985, pp. 212-213.

29. Erden, Birinci Dünya Harbinde [n. 8], p. 217. The brigands involved were Major Ahmed and Lieutenant Halil in whose belongings were found, among other things, "blood-stained ornamental gold coins." (p. 218).

30. Ziya akir, Yakn Tarihin Üç Büyük Adam (The three great men from the recent past). Istanbul: A. Sait Pub., pp. 57-59. Falih Rfk (Atay), Zeytinda (Mount Olive). Istanbul: Ayyldz, 1981, p. 67. It should be recognized in this respect that not only IVth Army Commander Cemal in Syria and Palestine, but also IIId Army Commander Vehib Paa in eastern Turkey, despite their strong ties to the Ittihad Party, refused to embrace the secret genocidal agenda of the party's top leadership and whenever they could they tried to resist and discourage the attendant massacres. In 1916, for example, Vehib court-martialed and hanged a gendarmery commander and his accomplice for organizing the massacre of some 2,000 disarmed Armenian labor battalion soldiers. He subsequently issued a proclamation threatening similar swift retribution against any and all who might be tempted to attack and harm the Armenians in the process of being deported. Ariamard (Istanbul), December 10, 1918. Cemal Paa acted similarly. In 1916, for example, he executed a gendarmery officer on charges of rape and assault. Austrian Foreign Ministry Archives, Consul Ranzi's February 15, 1916 report to Vienna. 12/463. No. 4/P.

31. See a brief account of these operations of post-crime liquidation, including those undertaken by the Kemalists in Vahakn N. Dadrian, "A Twist in the Punishment of Some of the Arch Perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide." The Armenian Cause 10, no. 2 (May 1993): 2E-5E.

32. Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate Archives, Series 17, file Ho, pp. 37, 38, and p. 163 of report no. 67 relayed to the Interior Minister by one of the four commissions which Minister Talât had sent to Anatolia to investigate the abuses committed against the Armenians in the course of the deportations. For more details on this subject see Vahakn N. Dadrian, "The Armenian Genocide and the Pitfalls of a 'Balanced' Analysis. A Response to Ronald Grigor Suny." Armenian Forum no. 2 (Summer 1998): 123-124.

33. Dadrian, "The Turkish Military Tribunal's" [n. 27], p. 39.

34. Ahmed Emin (Yalman), Turkey in the World War. New Haven, 1930, p. 221. The author had close ties with the Young Turk leaders during the war and spent eighteen months with most of them in detention in Malta after the war before being released in October 1921 under the exchange program negotiated between the British and the insurgent Kemalists.

35. For a review of these indices see Vahakn N. Dadrian, "Common Features of the Armenian and xxxish Cases of Genocide: A Comparative Victimological Perspective." In I. Drapkin, ed., Victimology: A New Focus, v. 4, Violence and Its Victims. Lexington, MA: Heath and Co., 1975, pp. 99-120; idem., "The Convergent Aspects of the Armenian and xxxish Cases of Genocide. A Reinterpretation of the Concept of Holocaust." Holocaust and Genocide Studies 3, no. 2 (1988): 151-169; idem., The Comparative Aspects of the Armenian and xxxish Cases of Genocide: A Socio-Historical Perspective." In A. Rosenbaum, ed., Is the Holocaust Unique? Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, pp. 101-135.

36. Edouard Calic, Unmasked: Two Confidential Interviews with Hitler. R. Barry, trans. London: Chatto and Windus, 1971, p. 81.

37. Gerald L. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany: Starting World War II, 1937-39. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980, pp. 610-12. The author is William Rand Kenan Jr., Professor of History, University of North Carolina. His conclusion is based upon his own research in the archives of Britain's Foreign Office, especially the papers of former British ambassador to Berlin, Neville Henderson, and the "detailed and careful articles that appeared in the scholarly quarterly issued by the Institute for Contemporary History in Münich in 1968 and 1971." See his piece "Hitler's Remark on Armenians Reported in '39." New York Times (June 18, 1985).

38. M. Cherif Bassiouni, Crimes Against Humanity in International Criminal Law. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1992, p. 176.

39. M. Cherif Bassiouni, "The Time Has Come for an International Criminal Court." Indiana International and Comparative Law Review 1, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 3-4. Bassiouni expresses a similar view in his most recent article, "From Versailles to Rwanda in Seventy-Five Years: The Need to Establish a Permanent International Criminal Court." Harvard Human Rights Journal 10 (Spring 1997): 58.

40. David Matas, "Prosecuting Crimes Against Humanity: The Lessons of World War I." Fordham International Law Journal 86 (1989-90): 86, 104.

41. Howard M. Sachar, The Emergence of the Middle East 1914-1924, New York: A. Knopf, 1969, p. 115. For details see his entire chapter IV, "The Armenian Genocide," pp. 87-115.

42. Albert Speer, Spandau: The Secret Diaries. Richard and Clara Winston, trans. New York: Macmillan, 1976, p. 43.

43. Bassiouni, Crimes Against Humanity [n.38], pp.168-185; Vahakn, N. Dadrian, "The Historical and Legal Interconnections between the Armenian Genocide and the xxxish Holocaust: From Impunity to Retributive Justice." Yale Journal of International Law 23, no.2 (Summer 1998): 504-505, and the section on " The Nuremberg Crucible," subsection B. "Nuremberg and the Legacy of Humanitarian Intervention Applied to Armenia," pp. 552-554; The United Nations War Crimes Commission, History of the United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Development of the Laws of War. London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1948, pp. 32-36, 45, 188-189, 192-197.

44. Dadrian, "Genocide as a Problem of National and International Law" [n.17], p. 224.

45. Varoujan Attarian, Le Génocide des Arméniens devant l'ONU, with a Preface by Nobel Laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel. Bruxelles: Éditions Complexe, 1997, pp. 88-93, 100-104, 109-110.

46. M. Cherif Bassiouni, "International Law and the Holocaust." California Western International Law Journal 9, no. 2 (Spring 1979): 229.

47. William W. Bishop, Jr., International Law. Cases and Materials. 3d ed. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1971, pp. 999-1000, "Charter of the International Military Tribunal."

48. Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story. New York: Doubleday, 1918, p. 301.

49. Heath W. Lowry, The Story Behind Ambassador Morgenthau's Story. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1990, p. 58. In Morgenthau's book [n. 48] it is on p. 392, but on pp. 337-8 and 342 Morgenthau quotes Talât in a similar vein.

50. Memoirs of Count Bernstorff. New York: Random House, 1936, p. 176. For similar comments see pp. 180 and 374.

51. George A. Schreiner, From Berlin to Bagdad. Behind the Scenes in the Near East. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1918, pp. 332, 333. See also pp. 32, 39, 208, 244, 327, 338.

52. Lowry, The Story [n. 49], p. 79.

53. U.S. National Archives, R.G. 59.867.00/798½, pp. 7, 8. In the volume put out by the State Department is: Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. The Lansing Papers, 1914-1920, vol. 1. Washington, D.C., 1939, pp. 766-769.

[TomServo]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

This is brilliant. It should be translated into Turkish.

[RSNATION]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

This is brilliant. It should be translated into Turkish.

Thanks man. It's a great synopsis and pretty much rips any revisionist argument to shreds. Maybe someday it will be translated into Turkish. My wife speaks Turkish so maybe I'll have her give it a shot.

[RSNATION]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

Thanks man. It's a great synopsis and pretty much rips any revisionist argument to shreds. Maybe someday it will be translated into Turkish. My wife speaks Turkish so maybe I'll have her give it a shot.

BTW, I though deniers were supposed to be banned?

[TomServo]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

I don't know why Dadrian hasn't done it himself. He speaks Turkish and Ottoman Turkish as well.

[garrgarr]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

I have never come across anyone who has taken this much time and effort to post all of this up. This is truly amazing, that one can be so determined about our heart breaking history. The amount of information here has left me speechless. Thank you for all of this, it's really a great feeling to see that there are people out there trying to spread the truth and helping us achieve the justice we deserve. God bless you, for all of this.. I really don't know what more to say.

[ARK]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

Good job, RSNATION! a very good post.

what is the source of the article(s)?

[garrgarr]

Re: The Key Distortions and Falsehoods in the Denial of the Armenian Genocide

Good job, RSNATION! a very good post.

what is the source of the article(s)?

they are all posted on page one under "notes!" about 50 of them if not more!!!!! go ahead take a look, everything is properly cited