They come out of the woodwork don't they?

[Joseph]

Whenever the Genocide issue abounds

[Joseph]

Whenever the Genocide issue abounds

BOOKS: MARCH OF HORRORS: TRUTH IS THE FIRST WEAPON AGAINST GENOCIDE
by Deborah E. Lipstadt, The Weekly Standard

The Weekly Standard
September 11, 2006 Monday

Terrible Fate
Ethnic Cleansing in the Making
of Modern Europe
by Benjamin Lieberman
Ivan R. Dee, 416 pp., $27.50

Ethnic cleansing has changed the face of Europe. In 1913 Salonika was
a multicultural city with more Jews and Muslims than Greek Orthodox
Christians. By the middle of the 20th century it was a Greek city with
virtually no Jews or Muslims. Until the beginning of the 20th century,
Macedonia had been home to both Bulgarians and Greeks. In 1916 Greeks
fled. At the beginning of the 20th century the western sectors of the
Russian empire were heavily populated by Jews, who had lived there
for centuries. Within a few decades virtually no Jews lived in these
areas, or in many other parts of Europe.

The Polish port city of Gdansk was once a German city. Little, if any,
of the German presence is felt there today. Izmir used to be home to
a substantial Greek population. It no longer is. In eastern Turkey
there are scores of towns and villages once populated by millions
of Armenians. The Turks expelled them in acts of unprecedented
intensity. In what was the Austro- Hungarian Empire an exceptionally
diverse mix of peoples once lived. Little of that diversity is still
evident.

These changes were the result not of natural population movements but
of brutal actions, now termed ethnic cleansing. This is the subject
of Benjamin Lieberman's compelling book.

What motivates neighbor to brutally turn on neighbor? It may be
conflicting languages, religions, or national identities. Some
attackers consider it a chance for personal gain: Never underestimate
the lure of looting, or deriving perverse pleasure from driving
neighbors from their homes. There is yet another factor: history,
or more properly put, the rendition of history to which one portion
of the population has been exposed. While these stories of betrayal
and injustice may be true, others are greatly exaggerated or false.

As Lieberman demonstrates, ethnic cleansing feeds upon itself. As
the century progressed it became an increasingly familiar response to
political situations. People knew it, and considered it a legitimate
means of solving their perceived problems.

While the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust are probably the best
known of the century's atrocities, neither is a template for ethnic
cleansing, which has generally been used by weak governments to
deflect attention from genuine problems. In contrast, the Holocaust,
the Armenian genocide, and, for that matter, Stalin's treatment of
a host of minorities, were conducted by authoritarian regimes at the
height of their power.
The Holocaust is certainly not a template because, generally, ethnic
cleansing's objective is the removal of a segment of the population
through deportations, population transfers, and forced migration. The
perpetrators know that the result of these actions could be death,
even on a massive scale. However, their objective is not murder. In
contrast, Nazi Germany chased down every Jew it could find in order
to murder them. They did so even when the men and materiel used for
the killing could have been better deployed elsewhere.

The new Jewish Museum in Rome contains a letter written on a crumpled
piece of paper by a Jew as he was being deported from the Italian
capital. It is dated May 20, 1944. Rome was liberated on June 4th. As
the Allied forces were on Rome's doorstep, the Germans, rather than
throw all available resources to repelling the enemy, were deporting
Jews to Auschwitz. The letter writer never returned.

How might ethnic cleansing be repaired and prevented in the future?

Unless refugees are returned in short order to their homes, the chances
for resettlement are very poor. If they do return, there must be local
reconciliation projects, economic development, legal proceedings,
and effective guarantees of security. Those who have committed these
acts must be apprehended and tried in the appropriate legal setting.

Lieberman believes that historians from both sides of the conflict
must work together to create an accurate historical record. It may
well be research by historians--Turkish historians in particular--that
will compel Turkey to end its genocide denial. As Turkish historians
explore what their country did, it will become increasingly difficult
for the government to continue to hide behind historical fictions. But
it is not sufficient, Lieberman notes, for the historians to conduct
research. The broader public will have to accept its findings. Once
that happens, the policymakers will have no choice but to follow in
their wake.

Germany's postwar entry into the "family of nations" was hastened by
its strategic geographic importance in the Cold War. However, that
reentry would not have been as swift or complete had Germany not openly
acknowledged and made amends for the unspeakable horrors committed by
both the Nazi leaders and millions of Germans during World War II. Its
willingness to face its past was certainly not complete. Perpetrators
were given light sentences or never prosecuted. Slave laborers found
it difficult to receive compensation. Nazi-era judges continued in
their posts. Medical doctors who participated in gassing experiments
went on to distinguished careers in Germany.

These failings notwithstanding, Germany did not shrink from
acknowledging the deeds it had committed and making some restitution
for them. This certainly facilitated the healing process.

This is a painful book to read. Many people will recoil from the
repeated tales of looting, physical persecution, and death. That
would be a mistake. The only hope for an end to this terrible march
of horrors is for people--particularly Europeans--to understand and
acknowledge it. As Lieberman notes in his conclusion, "arriving at
a new understanding of history" will not resolve all problems, but
it will increase the chances that different groups will be able to
live in peace together.

Deborah E. Lipstadt, professor of Holocaust Studies at Emory, is
the author, most recently, of History on Trial: My Day in Court with
David Irving.

[Joseph]

1. The Aremenians revolted against the Ottomans when the Ottomans were fighting a war and at the worst state they could be.
2. The Armenians rose up against the Ottomans and sided with the Russians and French.
3. The Armenians drew FIRST BLOOD. They attacked Muslims, Kurds, and any Citizen of the Ottoman Empire.
4. The Armenians built up an army of weapons provided by Russians and French
5. The Aremenians killed Turkish and Kurdish woman and Childhren and laeft their bodies laying in the streets of VAN to rot.
6. The Russians, French and English USED the Armenians to desicrate the remains of the Ottoman Empire.
7. The Ottomans decide to protect their other citizens they had to move a third of the Armenians to other areas of the Empire. 500 000 were moved. 390 000 made it safely to their new homes.
8. The Armenian gangs etc fighting alongside the russians (150 000 of them) kept moving towards the East of Turkey, killing all Turks as they made their way across the country.
9. The Russians decided to return to their homeland. Leaving the Armenians to fend for them selves.
10. The Turks came back and fought back for their lands. The Armenians were driven back. (and killed during this time.)
11. All peace treatys were signed. None of them ever raised the Armenian doctrine. France and England did not even thank the Armenians for anything. They did not even acknowledege their presence!!!

This is a revot. A failed one at that. You tried, I give you that, but you failed.
Now go and live with it. No Genocide. A massacre yes, but lots of Turks and Kurds and other Muslims died during these years.

Accept your destiny!

This refutes all your arguements:

http://www.armeniangenocide.com/forum/showthread.php?t=631&highlight=Distortions

[Joseph]

The Armenian Deaths were the Result of a Rebellion and Inter-Communal Fighting?

The cornerstone of the Turkish Government's policy of denial is that what happened during WWI was inter-communal violence and the result of the Armenian rebellion. It was communal infighting if the organised attack by an empire's army on an unarmed minority can be described as such. In August 1914, all Armenian men between the age of 20 and 45 were conscripted in the Ottoman Army. How could the remaining unarmed Armenian population of mainly women, children and elderly people even contemplate an armed struggle against a majority population backed by a mighty empire, and ally of the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires? The consensus among German and Austrian officials who were in Turkey at the time was that there was no general coordinated rebellion by the Armenian population.

In a seventy-two page report to Berlin (September 18, 1916), German Ambassador Count Wolff Metternich wrote:

"There was neither a concerted general uprising nor was there a fully valid proof that such a synchronized uprising was planned or organised."

Describing the futile and spotty Armenian resistance, Dr. Max Erwin Scheubner-Richter (German vice-consul in Erzerum, in eastern Turkey), wrote in a dispatch dated December 6, 1916:

"They (the Turkish Leaders) were planning on fabricating, for the benefit of Allied Powers, and alleged revolution stirred up by the Dashnak (Armenian) party. They also planned to inflate the importance of isolated incidents and acts of self-defence by the Armenians and use it as an excuse to deport the targeted population which then would be massacred by escorting gendarmes and assorted gangs."

Turkish Historian Professor Halil Berktay, on October 9, 2000, during an interview with the Turkish newspaper Raidikal, stated:

"The activities of the Armenian guerrilla bands were generally localized, small-scale, and isolated."

Vice-Marshall Joseph Pomiankowski, Austro-Hungary's military plenipotentiary, who during the was was attached to Ottoman general headquarters, described the self-defence of the Armenians as follows:

"The Van uprising certainly was an act of desperation. The local Armenians realised that the general butchery against the Armenians had started and that they would be the next victims." Collapse of the Ottoman Empire (1928).


Chief among Turkish government distortions is the accusation that during the First World War Armenians sided with the enemy - Tsarist Russia. At the time historic Armenia was occupied by two empires - the Ottoman and the Russian. Since imperial Russia oppressed Armenians (just as it oppressed its own citizens), there was no love lost between the Armenians and Russians. Armenians were conscripted in the Tsar's army - just as their brothers were in the Ottoman army. Rather than acting as a fifth columnists, Armenians in Turkey were fighting their own brothers on the Russian side - to defend Ottoman Turkey. Its estimated that about 250, 000 Armenians were conscripted into the Turkish Army.

When Enver Pasha (the Turkish War Minister) was defeated by the Russians at Sarikamish, "It was Armenian soldiers who saved him from being killed or captured by the Czarist forces" ( David Marshall Lang and Christopher Walker, The Armenians: Report 32, Minority Rights Group, 1998). Moreover, Enver is on record for having "praised, in February 1915, the loyalty and bravery of the Armenian soldiers under his command." ( Christopher J. Walker, Armenia: The Survival of a Nation, London, 1980).

The Turkish government launched its genocide against the Armenians at least three months after the Armenian soldiers had been already disarmed, taken to labour camps and eliminated. Furthermore, in his book The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire (1992) Alan Palmer concluded:

"...neither group [the Dashnaks or Hunchaks political parties] had links with the Russian government, as Ottoman apologists claim."

[Joseph]

General Vehib Pasha, Commander of the Turkish Third Army, wrote in a deposition that was read during the March 29, 1919 session of the Turkish Government Court Martials:

"The massacre and destruction of the Armenians and the plunder and pillage of their goods were the results of decisions reached by Ittihad (the ruling party) Central Committee...The atrocities were carried out under a program that was determined upon and involved a definite case of premeditation."

Senator Resit Akif Pasha, President of the post-war State Council, declared in November 1918, during the debate on the Armenian massacres:

"While humbly occupying my post of President of the State Council, to my surprise, I came across a strange [combination] of official orders. One of them, the order for deportation, was issued by the notorious Interior Minister. The other, however, was an ominous secret circular issued by Ittihad's Cenral Committee. It directed the provincial party units to proceed with the execution of the accursed plan, Whereupon the brigands went into action and atrocious massacres were the result."

Mustafa Arif, Interior Minister of Turkey (1918-1919), in a Turkish newspaper interview in December 1918, stated:

"Unfortunately, our wartime leaders, imbued with a spirit of brigandage, carried out the law of deportation in a manner that would surpass the proclivities of the most bloodthirsty bandits. They decided to exterminate the Armenians, and they did exterminated them. This decision was taken by the Central Committee of the Young Turks and was implemented by the government."

Colonel Stange, Commander of the 8th Regiment of the Turkish Army sent (August 23, 1915) a secret report to the German military mission to Turkey, headquartered in the Ottoman capital, bringing to the attention of his German superiors the following facts:

"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 [Ittihad] Committee in Constantinople."