Innocent Until Proven Guilty

[Timetells]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Crimson Glow,

I am not denying or accepting anything.

On one hand I cannot accept that my ancestors were guilty of such a heinous act without being 100% sure and on the other I cannot ignore if such a horrible act occurred.

I personally see merit in both views.

Hate to be redundant but the only solution I see is for the International community, or perhaps the UN to come and create a investigation body to research this. Let them go through archives in Turkey, Armenian, Russia etc and once gone through it all come forward and give a statement on their findings.

On that day, whichever way the committee would decide, I would support it. I would also venture to say that most Turks probably feel the same as I do. They just want to ensure they are not turning their backs on their own kind without being sure of guilt.

Like the original Post says 'Innocent Until Proven Guilty'.

Anyways, I hope I did not offend anyone, that definitely wasn't my intention.

I hope one day Turks and Armenians will come to terms with this and both people and nations will be able to move forward to a better future.

Time will Tell.

[Sip]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Like the original Post says 'Innocent Until Proven Guilty'.

And as the second post says (which apparently you didn't read or don't want to), the Turks already HAVE BEEN PROVEN GUILTY. Read the thread again otherwise you are going to go in circles here.

[Timetells]

Consider (part I)

Article written by Keith Watenpaugh: Deny the Armenian Genocide?

A lawsuit brought by the political activist lawyers Harvey A. Silverglate and Norman S. Zalkind, primarily on behalf of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, which demands that the denial of the Armenian Genocide be taught alongside the history of that genocide in Massachusetts’s public schools, is not about freedom of thought or expression, as they argue in their suit, but is just the latest in a series of clumsy attempts by the government of the Republic of Turkey and its surrogates to minimize, cover-up or deny one of the 20th century’s most brutal crimes against humanity.

At stake in this lawsuit is not only the right of the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to have their children learn about the Armenian Genocide and other massive abuses of human rights like the Middle Passage or the Great Hunger in a way consistent with established evidence, but whether or not their children’s classrooms can remain free from purposeful historical fabrication, crack-pot theories and the influence of foreign governments.

This case itself is predicated on one of these theories: the Armenian Genocide did not happen and therefore websites, primarily those created by the Turkish government, supporting that position should be included in the commonwealth’s human rights’ curriculum. But it is also based on a misunderstanding of how history and historians work and ignores the reality that only the Turkish government and a tiny handful of specialists, continues to hold that there was no genocide.

Thus, not only is this lawsuit an abuse of our legal system that mocks the value of open academic exchange and informed debate, it is an abuse of history.

Conversely, the Armenian Genocide is a fact of history.

During World War I, the government of the Ottoman Empire — which was allied with Germany and is the predecessor of the Republic of Turkey — used its military and irregular troops to mount a campaign of ethnic cleansing and deportation that resulted directly in the death of a large portion of the empire’s Armenian civilian population, many of whom were killed outright during initial round-ups or who later starved to death on the banks of the Euphrates River. Most were civilians living in Central Anatolia, far from any combat zone and were primarily unarmed farmers, shopkeepers, doctors or state employees and otherwise loyal citizens of the empire.

The historical consensus that it was a genocide, in the common understanding of the term, is based on a preponderance of evidence from various sources — including telegrams, eye witness testimony and documents introduced at a series of post-war war crime trials, and first-hand reports by European and American diplomats and missionaries. This evidence proves not just what happened, but establishes intent and culpability on the part of the Ottoman government. And it is important to recall the precedent set by the post-WWII trials at Nuremburg, which holds that responsibility for committing genocide rests not just on those who pulled the trigger or the lever, but also on those officials who created conditions of starvation or lawlessness in which mass death and extra-judicial killing took place.

Where mainstream historians differ are on issues of causes and effects, the specific numbers of deaths and the long-term impact of the genocide on Armenian survivor communities spread throughout the world, including a very large community in Massachusetts, as well as on political culture in Turkey. The fact that historians may debate particular elements of the genocide is not the same thing as a lack of consensus.

To ask our social studies and history teachers to give “equal time” to denial is akin to making them spend valuable moments in the classroom having students study those who would want us to believe that plantation slavery in the Old South wasn’t so bad, Japanese Americans in California were a serious security threat and had to be interned in camps, and that the Holocaust didn’t happen. Historians shouldn't have to teach these things in the same way that biologists shouldn't have to teach “intelligent design,” or that geographers shouldn't have to teach that the Earth is flat.

The irony is that in Turkey today, Turkish historians and intellectuals who publicly dissent from their own government’s denial of the Armenian Genocide are being arrested and tried on charges of “insulting Turkey.” This includes Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s most prominent author, as well as lesser known journalists and academics.

There is another way.

In mid-November, the Middle East Studies Association of North America, the world’s largest organization of specialists of that troubled region, voted to award F. Müge Göçek, a Turkish-American historical sociologist at the University of Michigan and Ronald Grigor Suny, an Armenian-American historian at the University of Chicago its Academic Freedom Award. The award was in part a recognition of their efforts to work together, use the tools of history and move beyond a sterile debate about whether or not the genocide happened to a more useful conversation about the shared past of Armenians and Turks and ways to prevent genocide in the future.

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Irfan Khawaja: How NOT to Discuss the Armenian Massacres (or anything else of consequence)

An article on the HNN homepage this week is a good illustration of moral sanctimoniousness overriding argumentative rigor. I found the article insulting in tone and in substance, and heartily think it ought to be responded to in kind.

A caveat before I begin: I personally have no specialized knowledge of the events of the Turkish-Armenian war, and have no worked-out position on whether or not it constituted a "genocide." Nor does anything in my worldview (or this post) require me to have such a position. I use the term "massacre" throughout simply to be neutral on the question of whether there was in fact an Armenian genocide. I am not denying or affirming the proposition that there was one. My claim is simply that it is not obvious that there was a genocide, and that anyone who wants to discuss the topic had better have an argument for what he wants to say. And the bolder his claims, the better his argument had better be.


Now consider the article in question.

1. The author begins by making reference to a lawsuit but doesn't bother to explain the particulars. How are we to judge the merits of
the suit if we're told nothing about the substance of the positions taken in it? The author clearly wants us to judge in the absence of information by railroading us into the belief that claims about the Armenian genocide are as obvious as claims about the sphericity of the earth. They aren't.

2. The author goes on to name unspecified websites as being historically deficient and unworthy of anyone's attention. As for what websites he has in mind, he doesn't tell us. Is it too much to ask someone lecturing us on the canons of historical inquiry for specifics on such an issue? (There is a technical glitch in the embedded links in the article, so it is possible that some of the websites are there but got messed up, in which case I'll happily rescind criticism #2.)

3. The author stakes his argument on the proposition that the events in question constituted a genocide--but doesn't bother to define the term "genocide". He then insultingly alludes to unnamed "specialists" who disagree that the term applies here, ignores their arguments as though argumentation were itself irrelevant, and tacitly equates specialists in Turkish history with partisans in the Turkish government, as though the two things--specialists and Turkish government propaganda hacks--were one and the same. To read such brazen incompetence and then be lectured about "how historians work" is a bit much. I wasn't aware, incidentally, that the fallacy of poisoning the well was a piece of historiographical methodology.

4. The author boasts first-hand knowledge of how "historians work." Well, for one thing, no historian worth his salt would have made the
mistakes I just enumerated in discussing a topic this controversial. But I'm curious to know: does the author think that e.g., Bernard Lewis and Guenter Lewy (aka "specialists") can be dismissed on the grounds that they aren't real historians? If their claims are so easily and obviously rebutted, wouldn't an actual point-for-point rebuttal be in order?

5. In the most monumental absurdity of the whole piece, the author spends about nine paragraphs berating those who dispute the application of the term "genocide" to the Armenian killings-- then abruptly turns around in his last paragraph to inform us that that very issue that he brought up and spent the preceding paragraphs discussing, is ultimately a "sterile" one, and one that we should simply ignore! I almost wish I could agree: the most obvious inference to be drawn from that assertion would be to ignore the sanctimonious, fallacy-ridden and evidence-impoverished claptrap of the nine paragraphs that constitute 90% of the article. The problem is, the issue of genocide is far from sterile; it matters a lot, and it's a shame to see it discussed in this way.

What is particularly offensive about this article is the way in which it uses morality to subvert it. We are being asked to feel moral umbrage at those who need evidence before making up their minds, and those who would rather deal with objections head-on than hurl execrations at them. But in fact, the moral umbrage really ought to be felt the other way around. We ought to feel moral umbrage at the demand that historical judgments are to be made in the slap-dash way that this article exhibits.

I don't know whether the events of the Turkish-Armenian war constituted a genocide. It'd be nice to read an article that made an actual contribution to that debate.

--------------------------

Keith Watenpaugh Responds: So, Irfan: bereft of any real argument you are reduced to name calling, know-nothingism and name-dropping.

Amongst the worst and most irrelevant portions of your “rebuttal” is a reference to the Turkish-Armenian War. Certainly, you are aware that the Republic of Armenian did not exist until 9/1917 and was eventually destroyed by the combined forces of the Red Army and the nascent Republic of Turkey in 1922. The war between Turkey and Armenia happened long after the Armenian Genocide and did not cause it; the 3/4 million men, women and children who were killed by Ottoman regular or irregular forces in the ethnic cleansings of, or who died subsequently in sequestration or of starvation in Mesopotamia (1915-1917) were citizens of the Ottoman Empire, not in any form of rebellion and far from any active battle front or area of civil insurrection.

These are facts ignored by your vaunted experts. Though Bernard Lewis may refuse to use the word genocide, by in large accepts the facts of the period and G. Lewy, a retired political scientist specializing in European area studies who has made a career of denying not just the Armenian Genocide but virtually every other one this last century except the Holocaust. These are very bad examples of the “other side” of this argument, indeed.

FYI: the case referenced in the opening paragraph has been covered extensively by HNN: do a little searching and you’ll find it.

Do I really have to define genocide anymore – a word that has been part and parcel of the historical lexicon since it was first coined in during WWII?

You sometimes do good work and are prone to moments of fine thinking; but this isn’t your best effort.

Had we but time and worlds enough, I’d continue.

[Timetells]

Consider (Part II)

--------------------------

Comments by Manny Porter regarding original article written by Keith Watenpaugh & Iran's Response:

This is a very bad and irresponsible article and the response by Irfan Khawaja was wonderfully written, and necessary. Articles as this on an unproven Armenian genocide often present a hysterical tone, a pretense of taking the moral high road, and an absence of real facts. In these ways, this article delivers in spades.

The lawsuit described is not a judgment of history, but an attempt to ensure all aspects of a historical episode remain open. These aspects have been closed in Massachusetts (and so many other school districts of the United States) because this genocide has become a means for identification and a fetish for the Armenian diaspora. As they can't prove their claims historically, they attempt to manipulate politicians or school boards who are usually too quick to accommodate for various reasons. (e.g., filling of pockets, or intimidation tactics. Of the latter, charges of "genocide denial" are something few wish to deal with; consequently, many buckle under.)

From what I know about this case, it was brought by two American high school teachers and a student. Watenpaugh states the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) is primarily behind the effort; I understand they are also involved, but I don't know to what degree, and neither does the author. What the author is doing is equating ATAA with the government of Turkey. That is strange, because the organization represents Americans of Turkish origin, which is a different entity than what the author describes as "the influence of foreign governments." Would the author similarly describe organizations representing Armenian-Americans, such as AAA or ANCA as representative of the government of Armenia? I have a strong feeling he would not. (My understanding is that it is illegal for foreign governments to operate on U.S. soil.) This is but one example of the author's bias. (Here's a news article giving a better idea of the case: http://www.boston.com/news/education...ide_is_taught/)

Another party in the case is the ACLU. "We are simply insisting that both sides be allowed to have a
place at the table," lawyer for the plaintiff, Harvey Silverglate, has been quoted as saying. Watenpaugh appears to have a little contempt for Silvergate, and describes him as a "political activist." I see through a search that Silvergate is usually described (in other sites) as a lawyer dealing in "civil-liberties," like the ACLU. One sounds negative, the other positive. Civil liberties and giving the other guy a fair shake is what America is all about.

Watenpaugh is prone to make statements having nothing to do with the facts; he states flat out it was the Ottomans' intention "to mount a campaign of ethnic cleansing and deportation." When civilians are relocated to another part of the nation, "deportation" is not the correct term; the USA did not "deport" its Japanese during WWII, but temporarily resettled them -- exactly as the Ottomans did (And emphasis on the word, "temporarily"; read the Ottoman documents). The notion that the Ottoman government deliberately set upon to murder the Armenians is at the very heart of whether this history was a genocide or not. If there is no factual evidence, coming right out and accusing a party of murder is not an ethical mode of behavior.

The evidence that Watenpaugh offers boils down to "eye witness testimony," and "first-hand reports by European and American diplomats and missionaries." These people were as biased as they come, after an indoctrination of intensely one-sided "Terrible Turk" propaganda. We cannot quickly accept the testimony of sources that are bitterly hostile, possessing a religious and racial bigotry. Particularly if the testimony is hearsay. Not one "eye witness" ever saw an actual massacre. (Not to say Armenians weren't massacred. The question is, was it the central government who massacred them, or parties that took matters onto their own hands? Is My Lai a "genocide"?)

If the "eye witnesses" saw anything, it was suffering and dead. Most of the Armenian mortality resulted from famine and disease. One cannot draw the conclusion these people were deliberately murdered, when far more Muslims died in the same manner. These lives were and are never spoken of, because the bigots in question have deemed them to be far less valuable.

Watenpaugh points out dead Armenians "on the banks of the Euphrates River." One Western eyewitness -- a genuine one, for a change -- was so angered by the omnipresent and false anti-Turkish propaganda, that he wrote an article entitled, "The situation of the Armenians: By one who was among them." The Swedish officer, H.J. Pravitz, travelled up and down the Euphrates at the time of the events, and reached a far different conclusion. (http://www.turkx.info/portal/art.php?artid=20)

As his "preponderance of evidence," Watenpaugh cites "post-war war crime trials." These were kangaroo courts, held by lackey Ottomans under enemy occupation. The British thought they were such a farce, they dismissed these courts' findings entirely when the British held their own "Nuremberg," the Malta Tribunal. Although the British searched far and wide between 1919-1921, every accused was released at the end without trial, because even the British could find no evidence. Malta is highly important, as far as disproving this genocide.

Yet Watenpaugh sinks to the embarrassment of actually pointing to "telegrams." These must have been the ones that were forged, and have been proven to be forgeries, prepared by Aram Andonian and friends. Yes, there are some notorious Armenian historians who still vouch for their authenticity, such as Vahakn Dadrian. But as Guenter Lewy pointed out, Dadrian has an agenda, and has shown himself to make statements that simply are not backed by solid evidence. The idea is to detract, and deceive... and those such as Dadrian are successful, because those as Watenpaugh simply choose to accept surface explanations without desiring to dig deep, beneath the surface.

Watenpaugh makes sarcastic comparisons such as, "Japanese Americans in California were a serious security threat and had to be interned in camps, and that the Holocaust didn’t happen." He betrays his lack of historical knowledge if he believes the Armenians did not rebel, and did not pose a serious security threat (unlike the WWII Japanese Americans), when their nation was facing a life and death struggle, besieged by powerful enemies on multiple fronts. Armenian leaders at the time, such as Boghos Nubar, flatly admitted Armenian belligerence. And if Watenpaugh is putting this alleged genocide on an equal plane with the very unique Holocaust, then he is doing a terrible disservice to the memory of real victims, whose only crime was to belong to an "ethnic" group.

Yes, many Armenians who died were innocent, just like many Turks who died were innocent. However, when Armenian leaders made the decision to traitorously rise up, of course, there were going to be consequences. If WWII's Japanese Americans were proportionately as sizeable as Ottoman-Armenians (especially if the U.S. was besieged on all fronts and in danger of extinction), and there was a general uprising with massacres of fellow Americans, hitting the U.S. Army in the back, in hopes of creating a "Greater Japan," you can bet the response would not have simply ended with a "deportation." (Not incidentally, the 1948 U.N. Convention does not recognize those who have chosen to ally themselves politically, as the Armenians did with the Entente Powers, in order to qualify as a genocide.)

Since Watenpaugh evidently has an academic reputation to preserve, he ought to be extremely careful with his facts. In his response to Irfan Khawaja, he again blows it by stating: "Certainly, you are aware that the Republic of Armenian did not exist until 9/1917 and was eventually destroyed by the combined forces of the Red Army and the nascent Republic of Turkey in 1922."

(Interestingly, the first country that recognized Armenia was the Ottoman Empire, and Avetis Aharonian expressed his deep gratitude at the time.) If Watenpaugh is implying that Turkey was in cahoots with Russia, as Armenian propaganda is quick to claim, he had better look again. In the 1923 Manifesto of Hovhannes Katchaznouni, the first Prime Minister of Armenia, we see the blame for this war fell upon Armenia. ("...there remains an irrefutable fact. That we had not done all that was necessary for us to have done to evade war. We ought to have used peaceful language with the Turks...This was the fundamental error. We were not afraid of war because we thought we would win... When the skirmishes had started the Turks proposed that we meet and confer. We did not do so and defied them.")

After Armenia got mopped up, the Soviet Union took advantage and stepped in, and Armenia's government willingly joined the communist cause, betraying her friends in the West. As with the "genocide," if one wishes to make certain conclusions (in this case that Turkey and the Soviets were "combined" against Armenia), then it is imperative to not neglect the facts.

Irfan put it beautifully when he wrote this foolish article "is an insult to the intelligence of [the] readership."

[ArmSurvival]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

I have read about those trials, they were at best incomplete and inconclusive.

Typical denialist mentality, "all your evidence is incomplete and inconclusive". Do you mind telling us how the 1919 International Military Tribunal in Istanbul was "incomplete and inconclusive"? It was an international court where Turkish generals and governors during WWI gave personal testimonies about the planned genocide by the CUP. Can you also tell us how the thousands of pages of American, British, French, German, and Austro-Hungarian testimony by their soldiers are "incomplete and inconclusive"?


Do you really want me to directly quote generals and soldiers who were in the Ottoman army, or in the German or Austrian military (their allies)? Should I post quotes from Turkish cabinet ministers and parliament members who gave the personal testimonies? Maybe this will help you mold a more accurate view of the events.

[Anonymouse]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Typical denialist mentality, "all your evidence is incomplete and inconclusive". Do you mind telling us how the 1919 International Military Tribunal in Istanbul was "incomplete and inconclusive"? It was an international court where Turkish generals and governors during WWI gave personal testimonies about the planned genocide by the CUP. Can you also tell us how the thousands of pages of American, British, French, German, and Austro-Hungarian testimony by their soldiers are "incomplete and inconclusive"?

These are direct questions. Do not evade them please.

[Timetells]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Anonymouse,

I am not evading anything - if that were the case then what purpose would there be in my being here?

I am not privy to any archives, most of the information I get I read online. I try to be balanced in my research and explore both points of view. I do out of good intentions and getting to the truth. This is no easy task however as both sides make cases which are not easily refuted.

Regarding the tribunals:

http://www.meforum.org/article/748

On a side note, do any of you feel that territorial ambitions some Armenians have towards Turkey hinder efforts to have the genocide recognized?

[Anoush]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

On a side note, do any of you feel that territorial ambitions some Armenians have towards Turkey hinder efforts to have the genocide recognized?

Timetells:

That's exactly why Turkey does not wish to accept the Genocide recognition as they are afraid of two things:

1) that we will claim our monies, property belongings and an enormous amount of our left behind monies; and/or

2) that we will claim our 4 thousand year old anscestral lands back.

Sure that's the case; but that's too bad. After the second world war; when the Nazi's were succeeded and Germany paid every bit of gold and money, until the last cents to the surviving J[ews; did that hinder for Germany not to accept the haulocaust? Or how would they have felt if some important country was on the side of Germany to say well, the German and the J[ewish historians should get-to-gether to find out if the mass murders of the J[ews and the ethnic cleansing was actually a haulocaust or not? How would they have liked it? I don't think so.

Then why and why is Israel today is saying that Israel is on the side of Turkey 100% that the Armenian massacres should be resolved only by the turkish and the Armenian historians. For this is the stand of Jerusalem.

Where and where is the justice in this unjust world then????

The Turkish government is denying for many years now about the Genocide and giving mega slaps over and over again to our murdered martyrs. All our old and ancient monuments, churches and cemetaries are either left in a degrading fashion, they have made it into minarehs or stables. They are always concealing the fact that any Armenians lived on our thousands years long homeland. For that is the way they are teaching their people; to demolish cemetaries, to conceal any Armenian traces that existed in our homelands. And the only way all this will ever stop is by the law. There is such a thing as international law and by the acceptance of the Genocide, then it will become law. This is the only way to stop the unreasonableness of Turkey to say the least and their denyalist stand.

[Timetells]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

I respect and understand Armenians have a connection with the land as do Turks. Is it possible for two people to love the same land and work out an arrangement that didn't involve changing national borders?

As for discussion on this matter, the reality is Turks do not feel genocide occurred. Regardless of whether this is wrong or right the fact remains that there are efforts by both peoples - the Armenian Diaspora is active in getting it recognized through out the world and the Turks are active in countering them. I feel the logical and perhaps only solution would be for both people to come together and discuss and research everything in detail so that truth becomes clear.

I do think some of you are not understanding the Turkish view. As much as Armenian honor the memory of their ancestors - a quality that I greatly admire, the Turks are doing the same. Turks are not bad people bent on denying the truth but they do want to have it proven to them before they accept that such heinous crimes were committed by their ancestors.

People have to realize that it doesn't have to be Armenians vs Turks here. There is enough pain and hate and it sadly will continue for generations unless people start focusing on a solution.

Overcoming differences, age old hatred and animosity is not an easy feat. Sitting down at the table to discuss this is the hardest step but if a lasting solution is to be found then the process is necessary but the reward would be worth it.

We should not let the past limit the future. We should remember it and learn from it.

Last point I want to make to Anoush - I understand Armenians were in the lands of Anatolia far before the Turks were. Should the Turks there be relocated and moved then? If this is so, then could not the same argument be made for native americans?

Anatolia is the birth place of many great civilizations. Over time they have come and gone and like it or not we are the sons of Anatolia - both Armenians and Turks as well as others. The problems that plagues the Middle East is in large part due to the fact that for centuries various peoples lived, migrated to different places within the Ottoman Empire. Suddenly the Ottoman Empire collapses and new nation states take its place. Often these nations had to deal with other 'groups' living within the borders. The recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is a good example.

[Կարմիր Բ]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

We don't negotiate with terrorists.