Innocent Until Proven Guilty

[Timetells]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Anonymouse, I am not here to change people opinion. I don't know enough to make my own opinion yet, so how can I change others?

I came here to discuss things. There are many claims and counter claims out there and it gets very difficult sorting it out. I thought maybe I could meet some Armenians here who could help. Perhaps its was naive of me to expect this in a public forum such as this.

Whatever the case, this thread is here for everyone to see. I am certain people who read through it will notice I have had no bad intentions.

This will be my last post here.

If however any Armenians care to discuss this with me - please message me. Thanks.

[Կարմիր Բ]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Virgil,

Every person when born is innocent of any crimes. If a person commits a crime then they are held accountable for it, not their entire family and surely not future generations of their family. That is not justice.

Asking apologies from people just based on their race is racism.

Bollox

We are asking the person to recognize the crimes of his ancestors and give back the stolen house that he is living in. Nobody stated that he is the criminal.

If your father kills someone and steals his home then according to the judicial system his home will be returned to the rightful owners regardless if you, who is innocent, are living in the house as well. But if you refuse to do so, then you are just as thief.

[Selpak]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

timetless don't play the smart ass. you are not welcomed there. i recommend you to check other topics of the forum. get lost.

[Virgil]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

timetless don't play the smart ass. you are not welcomed there. i recommend you to check other topics of the forum. get lost.

Hmm...I think you should follow your own advice, your flag, your country, your people are the reason Armenians are facing this degrading slow death. Do you know how that feels like to die slowly? Dying slowly is the worst kind of death, it is a miserable existence. You should get lost and don't ever dare or think about posting here you peice of xxxx. Your avatar (i.e. flag of Turkish Republic AKA Ottoman flag during the Ottoman Empire) is a insult to the members of this forum, it was under that very same flag Armenians were brutally oppressed, murdered, and finally exterminated. Really, I don't want any sympathy from Turks and or "understanding", only a stupid man would reach out to the hand that tried to kill him, a gullible man dies once, a stupid man dies infinitly many times. There exists no middle ground to genocide resolutions, for your own concious you should be honest with yourselves.

[crusader1492]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Hmm...I think you should follow your own advice, your flag, your country, your people are the reason Armenians are facing this degrading slow death. Do you know how that feels like to die slowly? Dying slowly is the worst kind of death, it is a miserable existence. You should get lost and don't ever dare or think about posting here you peice of xxxx. Your avatar (i.e. flag of Turkish Republic AKA Ottoman flag during the Ottoman Empire) is a insult to the members of this forum, it was under that very same flag Armenians were brutally oppressed, murdered, and finally exterminated. Really, I don't want any sympathy from Turks and or "understanding", only a stupid man would reach out to the hand that tried to kill him, a gullible man dies once, a stupid man dies infinitly many times. There exists no middle ground to genocide resolutions, for your own concious you should be honest with yourselves.

I've expressed similar sentiments to the aformentioned Turk, but he insists on sticking around and polluting the sight with the eyesore also known as the Turkish flag.

[Crimson Glow]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

Timetells, did you even bother to read the links in my response to you? They give an excellent example of what I mentioned about Turkey's defense/excuses contradicting themselves. If you honestly want to know the details of this event, ask me a question about any particular part(s), and I'll try to address it as accurately, and with as much background info (so as to get a better understanding of the circumstances) as I can. I assure you, I can make most people's heads spin, Turks and Armenians alike.

For example, do Turks even know where this 300,000 Armenian deaths figure they always use came from? They site it constantly, but do they know why, or how it came to be? There is only one source that sites this number, and that is Talat himself. There is no documentation, or explanation of how he came to that figure, either. Yet, the bureau of Djemal, who provided the OFFICIAL OTTOMAN STATISTICS, the data for which was collected by Interior Minister Mustafa Arif, puts the death total at 800,000. This same figure is also given by Rauf Orbay, and MUSTAFA KEMAL HIMSELF in 1919. But this figure of 300,000 continues to be used by Turkey because no one, not even Armenians, have really pushed an inquisition as to sources.

On that same token, do Armenians know where the 1.5 million figure they always refer to comes from? Turks like to say this number has continuously inflated over the years. While this is true, it is only because the initial numbers were relying on what was being disclosed by Turkey. Slowly, info of what Germany's archives (Turkey's co-conspirators) stated got around. A Februrary, 1916 (not even a year after the genocide was under way) Foreign Office report (Volkswirtschaftliche Studien in der Türkei), a May 27, 1916 report by Foreign Office Intelligence Director Matthias Erzberger, and an October 4, 1916 report by German Interim Ambassador to Turkey Wilhelm Radowitz clearly state the death totals to be 1.5 million. It is believed that these estimates are higher than those of allied forces because Germany had direct access to the death sites.

By the way, the problem with this whole international committee approach is....there is no debate on this issue outside of Turkey, really (besides Israel, hypocritically enough). So how are they going to bring unbiased representatives, or researches to look into this subject? They'd need to find historians that still consider this a debate, and unless they're of Turkish decent, that's rather difficult to do. And if they're of Turkish OR Armenian decent, bias becomes an issue.

Also, I assure you, most Turks do NOT feel as you do. Even if a committee were formed, and their findings sided with Armenians, all hell would break loose. This isn't about "getting to the bottom of the truth". Even most nationalist Turks know the genocide happen, but there are 2 major reasons why they will never accept it:

1. It's a psychological blow to the Turkish psyche to know that the nation they're so very proud of resides on soil that was obtained at the cost of over a million innocent people's lives. To go from the "country of progress", to one that would join the tarnished ranks of the Nazis is devastating indeed, and hard to accept.

2. The issue of compensation. Not only do they have to suffer this embarrassment, but to add insult to injury, there would be reparations in the form of money and land, another huge no-no on Turkeys list of pet peeves.

In other words, denial of the Armenian genocide has very little to do with actually believing it didn't happen, and far more to do with pride and politics. Any how, my offer still stands on answering any questions you have.

[Sip]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

I am making a prediction ...

The next post by Timetells is going to be along the following lines:

"I don't know enough to make my own opinion yet. There are many sides to this."

[crusader1492]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

I am making a prediction ...

The next post by Timetells is going to be along the following lines:

"I don't know enough to make my own opinion yet. There are many sides to this."

Since I'm a nice guy, I'll save (the broken record) Timetells some effort and repost one of his many vacuous entries that corresponds to your prediction...

Your welcome Timetells

Again, I do not deny anything or accept anything, instead I have chosen to explore and find out more. I think those of you who cling to your views with no consideration of the 'other' view are simply adopting what has been handed down to you by your parents etc which ironically is the same for Turks on this matter. Thus, any logical person who truly wanted to engage in meaningful discussion on this must realize that this is one of the primary reasons why this has never been solved and these two people after almost 100 years have yet to still make peace.

As hard as it may be, people need to take the emotionality out of the picture and try to remain objective and open minded to the other side. Ask yourself, if I was Turkish, would I accept easily that my forefathers committed the most heinous acts imaginable? Of course not, nobody could, so instead of disrespecting the culture and history some of you claim is so important, why not try to bring justice by at least in a civil and constructive manner talk to people who are willing to engage you on this topic.

[ArmSurvival]

Re: Innocent Until Proven Guilty

The Special Organization, which developed between 1903 and 1907, only adopted its name in 1913. Under the direction of Enver Pasha and the command of many talented officers, the Special Organization functioned like a special forces outfit. Philip Stoddard, the author of the only full scholarly study of the group, called it "a significant unionist vehicle for dealing with both Arab separatism and Western imperialism." At its peak, it enrolled about 30,000 men. During World War I, the Ottoman command used it for special military operations in the Caucasus, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. In 1915, for example, Special Organization units seized key oases along the Ottoman line of advance against the Suez Canal. The regime also used the Special Organization to suppress "subversion" and "possible collaboration" with the external enemy. However, according to Stoddard, this activity targeted primarily indigenous nationalists in Syria and Lebanon. The Special Organization, he maintained, played no role in the Armenian deportations.[26]

Many of the allegations linking the Special Organization to massacres are based not directly on documents but rather on the sometimes questionable assumptions of those reading them. Dadrian has been among the most prominent scholars making assertions for which the original sources do not allow.

Lewy's reasoning is very vague. He simply says that Dadrian is only making assertions and is deviating from the meaning of the sources, but if you actually read all his sources they are quite clear. Here are two examples:

"The Armenian deportee convoys were subjected to massacre and plunder (katl u garate maruz) as set up by Ittihad Central Committee member Bahaeddin Sakir." - Munir (Akkaya), Governor-general of Erzurum province, 1918.

As you know, the man who he is referring to, Bahaeddin Sakir, was the head of the Special Organization. Another first-hand source:

"The Special Organization brigands were active in carrying out assaults and attacks (taadiyat ve tecavuzat) against Armenian deportee convoys... these exceedingly shameful misdeeds include also gendarmes who are attached to these brigands and are operating under the name of Special Organization (bilhassa Tesklati Mahsusa nami altinda tureyen...)" - Hasan Tahsin, Governor-general Erzurum province, 1914-1916.


I'm afraid Lewy has to do more reading on the subject before he pretends to be an expert.

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

Well there is no point in you being here (by your own logic), because you clearly evaded one of my questions:

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"?

Incase you don't know what I'm referring to by soldier testimonies from the nations mentioned, let me introduce you to some more first-hand quotes from people who actually witnessed the events (as opposed to quack historians who clearly have a selective memory when it comes to sources):

Friedrich Kress Kressenstein, Major-General July 1914. Cheif of operations, Turkish General Headquarters; later Chief of Staff of Turkish IV-th Army in Syria and Palestine, September 1917, Commander in Chief of 8th Army, Palestine; June 1918 Chief of German Imperial Delegation in the Caucasus:

"The Turkish policy vis a vis the Armenians is clearly outlined. The Turks have by no means relinquished their intention to exterminate the Armenians. They merely changed their tactic. Wherever possible, the Armenians are being aroused, provoked in the hope of thereby securing a pretext for new assaults on them" - German Foreign Ministry Archives, 5 August 1918.

Colonel Stange, Commander of the 8th Regiment consisting mostly of convicts released from the prisons of the Ottoman Empire to enroll in the Special Organization, as killer bands:

"The Turks did have a plan [to destroy the Armenians] that was conceived a long time ago."

"The deportation and destruction of the Armenians was decided upon by the Young Turk Committee in Constantinople." - German Foreign Ministry Archives, "Secret" report by Stange who sent it to the German Military Mission to Turkey headquarters in the Ottoman capital on 23 August 1915.


Rafael de Nogales, Inspector of Cavalry, 2d Turkish Army:

"There can be no doubt that the massacres and deportations took place in accordance with a carefully laid-out plan for which the responsibility lay with the retrograde party, headed by the Grand Vizier Talaat Pasha and the civil authorities under his orders. They aimed to make an end first of the Armenians, then of the Greeks and other Christians, Ottoman subjects in the Empire" - Four Years Beneath the Crescent, Muna Lee, transl. (New York, 1926), pg. 136.


Notice that I'm using German sources (they were allies of the Ottomans). Here is some more, this time from the Ottomans' other ally, the Austrians:

Joseph Pomiankowski, Divisional General, Vice Marshal, Military Plenipotentiary in wartime Turkey:

"The gruesome destruction of the Armenian nation in Asia Minor by the Ittihadist government was an act which was barbaric and which to the highest degree outraged all human senses..."


Lewy's claim that Dadrian did not understand the original sources is laughable at best. It is quite clear from the first-hand sources as to what took place on the ground during that time. I have many more quotes, in case you were wondering.