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Ottoman soldiers pose in front of hanged Armenians in 1915 (AFP)
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, brazenly displaying a combination of meretricious arrogance, political expediency and historical amnesia, voted to recognize Ottoman Turkey's 1915 ruthless massacre of over one million ethnic Armenians as "genocide". Categorizing these acts as such is certainly justifiable, but it is also fair to wonder why the U.S. gets to determine this, considering America is guilty of its own genocidal crimes that have evaded proper classification.
Resolution based on politics not morality. Although the end result is just, please do not for a second believe the resolution was based on anything but political survival and greed. Members of this committee passed the bill not because they believe in the Armenian cause, but because they want to get re-elected. And though I do believe the Armenian lobby is fighting for the truth, there's no doubt they are quite a potent and influential lot as pointed out by former U.S. diplomat Lincoln McCurdy who is now the President of the Turkish Coalition of America:
In the United States there are nearly one million Armenian Americans, concentrated in a number of congressional districts, who support a lobby that spends an estimated $40 million annually on furthering its agenda, which revolves around recognition of an 'Armenian Genocide.'"
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is doing everything in his power to halt the bill in its tracks. But it's not as if Obama has some moral clarity the others lack considering in 2008 candidate Obama said: "as President I will recognize the Armenian genocide.". The only difference being that Obama is looking at the situation through a prism of geopolitical realism, and the reality is the U.S. needs Turkey's help in containing Iran's nuclear ambitions and needs Turkey's Incirlik military base for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Race murder by any other name... Back in Turkey, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the entire process a parody. Erodgan's assessment is spot-on, yet Turkey's knee-jerk defensiveness does not help their cause, especially when the world now knows the Turks underreported the actual number of Armenians slaughtered during deportation by at least half a million. What's even more impressive is how the Turkish government was able to keep the real figures hidden for generations. Putting aside the ulterior motives of U.S. politicians for a minute - let's be clear: it was genocide.
At surface it may appear to be a semantics pissing contest, yet the word "genocide" does carry a more heinous connotation than "slaughter" or "mass killing", for it signifies that much more flagitious underlying motives and objectives are at play. Attempting to rid the earth of an entire ethnicity is more psychologically twisted than standard warfare. Eliminating a population based on racist ideology is much worse than simply killing folks based on, say, imperialistic expansion or the protection of oil interests. About a year ago Christopher Hitchens wrote an article that could have been written yesterday about the wordsmithing game with respect to this slaying of countless Armenians:
Genocide had not been coined in 1915, but the U.S. ambassador in Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau, employed a term that was in some ways more graphic. In his urgent reports to the State Department, conveying on-the-spot dispatches from his consuls, especially in the provinces of Van and Harput, he described the systematic slaughter of the Armenians as "race murder." A vast archive of evidence exists to support this claim. But every year, the deniers and euphemists set to work again, and there are usually enough military-industrial votes to tip the scale in favor of our Turkish client."
American hypocrisy. The only thing more detestable than Turkey's persistent and immoral disavowals is America's self-righteousness. As said, there is no denying the atrocities certainly qualify as genocide, but anyone with the faintest appreciation of history should raise a brow at the American utter lack of self-perspective.
If the U.S. is going to raise such a ruckus and chastise a nation for crimes committed nearly a century ago, what about American crimes within the last 60 years? What about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? The dropping of two atomic bombs that wiped out a quarter of a million people may not meet the textbook definition of genocide but it exemplifies evil nonetheless.
What about the pacification campaign launched by the U.S. on the heels of the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) which claimed the lives of 1.4 million Filipinos? In November 1901, the Manila correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger reported:
The present war is no bloodless, opera bouffe engagement; our men have been relentless, have killed to exterminate men, women, children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents and suspected people from lads of ten up, the idea prevailing that the Filipino as such was little better than a dog...."
According to a U.S. General's report, American troops were responsible for over 600,000 dead men, women and children on the island of Luzon alone, of which Gore Vidal wrote:
If this is not a policy of genocide (no dumb letters on the dictionary meaning of the word), it will do until the real thing comes along."
How can the U.S., as well as Europeans, condemn Turkey when the North American Indian population had been reduced from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to just over 200,000 in 1900? Professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado Ward Churchill described it as "vast genocide . . . the most sustained on record." Historian David E. Stannard wrote that Native Americans had undergone the "worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents non-stop for four centuries and consuming the lives of countless tens of millions of people."
Many will argue that most Native American deaths were caused by disease, yet there is no question the U.S. government set in motion policies aimed at eradicating entire tribes. At a minimum, the U.S. is certainly guilty of cultural genocide. There is hard evidence that suggests there was a deep-rooted ideological motivation behind these policies. Euro-Americans saw themselves as the torchbearers of civilization and saw Native Americans as obstacles who failed to cultivate the vast wilderness, thus their extinction was inevitable.
The prevailing thought was that natives needed to adjust to Euro-American society in order to survive, and this philosophy of assimilation resulted in the destruction of Native American culture. When assimilation failed, the U.S. passed legislation such as the Indian Removal Act of 1830 as a solution, which directly led to the infamous humanitarian disaster referred to by the Cherokee as the Trail of Tears, a forced death march that killed thousands.
This destruction of Native-American communities and culture was not by chance nor mandated by fate, but was a direct result of governmental policies and actions. Not unlike what the Turks did to the Armenians. There's nothing wrong with calling the Armenian massacre genocide, so long as we apply the same standard to our own historical sins.
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Comments
Mr M. Hughes,
How much did you get paid by the Turkish lobby to write this article? Never mind who made the U.S. judge and jury... certainly not for you to ask.
Cheers,
Read the entire article please which asserts: (a) is WAS genocide, (b) politicians did not pass resolution for love of Armenia, (c)as an American and voter, it is for me to decide. If we are to call it genocide, then call U.S. past transgressions the same.
One wonders what would happen if Germany suddenly decided that the Nazi Holocaust was not a genocide. Would Chancellor Merkel get away with it? Would Obama lobby that Germany should be allowed to get away with such an obscenity? Perhaps it's worth remembering that in 1939, Hitler asked his generals – before setting off into Poland to murder the millions of Jews in eastern Europe – a simple question: "Who now remembers the Armenians?" Well, Hitler got the answer he would have wanted from Obama this week.
The difference is Native Americans are not threatened and treated with continued hostility. Though they have not been given direct reparations,the US government has given them basic autonomy and many advantages over average citizen.
Today in Turkey, the son of murdered Armenian publisher of the Agos newspaper Hrant Dink, has been convicted under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code for reprinting the interview of his father who asserted that it was Genocide that befell the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia. Turkey has thus moved from its claim of being victim of the Armenian Lobby to its more historic role of bullying Armenians within its borders.
Micheal Hughes, another clown for the Turkish Circus.
I just wonder, is it because your job might be on the line if you spewed out the same Turkophile-style rhetoric against the Jewish Genocide? Yeah we all know you need your job badly, apparently some clown out there agree and gave you the one you have now.
So who made the US judge and jury in WWI?
So who made the US judge and jury in WWII?
So who made the US judge and jury in the Jewish Genocide?
So who made the US judge and jury in the Korean War?
So who made the US judge and jury in the Viet Nam War?
So who made the US judge and jury in Kuwait?
So who made the US judge and jury in Kosovo?
So who made the US judge and jury in Afghanistan?
So who made the US judge and jury in Iraq?
I think it's time for you to go back to your Turkish employers for further consultations, your entire article is impotent.
Mr. Hughes,
- what is unique about the Armenian Genocide is government-sponsored active denial which happens today (you might want to read an excellent intelligence report about this subject on splcenter.org).
- Do you recognize the difference between lobbying by foreign government and citizens of United States? (BTW, you should be very naive to believe the "facts" about the "Armenian lobby" given by Turks).
- should the US condemn Iranian president Ahmadinejad for his active denial of Holocaust? What's the difference b/w "nere again" slogans and keeping silent on the Armenia Genocide and its active denial and other government-planned and implemented mass murders? Is it only the fact that "U.S. needs Turkey's help"?
Of course, if you are on foreign denialist government's payroll - I do not expect any honest answers form you.
Take care, Vardan
Armenian-Americans spend 40 million annually on lobbying? Are you serious? Why don't you do some research before quoiting those scum bags who's only mission is to cover up their ancestors crimes. How bout you do some research on how much Turkey spends annually lobbying our politicians not Turkish-Americans but Turkey. They even bribed Denis Hastert former speaker of the house to block the Armenian genocide resolution. Now there is a story for you.
Do not obfuscate the US's treatment of its Native American population with this resolution. American school curricula cover the Trail of Tears and other atrocities. In Turkey, there are laws under which its citizens are arrested for discussing the Armenian genocide. Our schools don't hide any facts about tragic Native American history, and nobody's arrested for discussing it. Armenian-Americans lobby for this resolution because they want Turkey to own up to its history. Turkey doesn't seem to be able to do that on its own. It needs a "push" from its allies, mainly from its most important ally, the US, to come to grips with its past. Figure out a better way for Turkey to acknowledge the genocide (that would be a far better article than this one), and the lobbying would likely stop. FYI, the protocols between Armenia and Turkey are not the answer although reported otherwise - the Armenian President has already stated that the fact of the genocide is not in question.
What Michael Hughes doesn't understand is the nature of the Armenian Genocide. What happened to the Armenians earlier during the Ottoman Empire with sporadic massacres oppression etc is similar to what happened to other minorities and indigenous peoples such as native American Indians. However, what happened in 1915 was a government orchestrated extermination campaign which killed a large amount of people in a very short time. The nature of this event is different and its the main reason why Raphael Lemkin felt compelled to coin the word 'Genocide'. America through an unprecedented humanitarian relief campaign helped save the many of the survivors. Hughes needs to understand howthe Armenian Genocide differs from other events and how it contributes to other genocides such as the Holocaust, Rwanda and Darfur.
This is probably why Americans intensely distrust, if not hate, career politicians who will do anything to win votes, campaign dollars, and elections. They will even play historian to sort out on complex human tragedies that took place 100 years ago in a far corner of the world. Career politicians like Berman, Schiff, Pallone, Rohrbacher, and the rest of those 23 yes votes will disregard truth, honesty, fairness, scholarship, and objectivity, as they seem to no scruples. They take malicious Armenian propaganda at face value, ram it through the Congress lying through their teeth while looking right into our eyes, defame a trusted, longtime ally and a true friend despite warnings from the state department, put our young men and women in uniform in harm's way... All for what? To get re-elected. As a result of their irresponsible actions, America lost, Armenia lost, and Turkey lost. They all lost a little something today. Armenian falsifiers in this country, however, along with dirty poli
Passage of the Turkey-Armenia protocols in the Turkish parliament is not thrown into disarray.
Rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia I also endangered by a self-serving move by irresponsible politicians designed only to appease a few greedy, arrogant, and deceptive Armenian extremists.
Turkey-USA relations and American interests in Iraq and Afghanistan may be negatively impacted.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted for an incredibly dishonest and racist resolution which seems to be penned by the Armenian lobby but known to be rammed through the political process via irresponsible politicians whose survival depend on the Armenian support. Chairman Berman seemed determined to pass the resolution as he extended voting time stretching the rules and even strong armed wandering members to come in and vote. As soon as the Yes votes surpassed the No votes by one, Berman called the passage and ended the voting.
Always the strongest lobby in Washington DC, the administration, was conspicuously absent this year in opposing the ill-informed, ill-advised, and non-binding resolution. Obama administration, unlike his predecessors Bush and Clinton, did not act until the very end. It was too little to late when Hillary Clinton finally made that call to Berman urging defeat of the resolution—perhaps afterthought triggered by Turkish President Gul’s phone call to Obama yesterday.
Also absent in opposing the racist and dishonest resolution was the Jewish lobby, arguably as a result of Erdogan’s strongly worded criticism of Israeli policies in Lebanon and Gaza.
Given the nonappearance of the above major players this year in the opposing side, it was expected that the deceptive and fraudulent resolution would easily clear the HFA. The race, however, was surprisingly close. So close, in fact, that Berman pulled all his dirty tricks out of the bag to extend the voting time to strong arm a few
Here is a case where America’s interests are trampled upon to appease a few loud constituents. Perhaps Berman, Schiff, Pallone and others pushing this racist resolution would care to share now with the rest of us their future response to the grieving families of the next group of US soldiers needlessly coming home body bags because they had to take more treacherous routes during evacuations due to closing of the safe route through Turkey by Turks outraged by the passage of this defamatory and fraudulent resolution.
Berman, Schiff, Pallone and others pushing this racist resolution can be proud of their misdeed now: they falsified history, demonized a friend and an ally, threatened a peace process, and hurt American interests, all in one shot. They deserve a medal: the most loyal servants of the hate-cultivating Armenian lobby. I am sure they will be properly rewarded now. When America has friends like these (yes-voting-politicians), who needs enemies?
This is a blow to American interests and those members of the HFAC who voted yes must be held accountable for putting Armenia’s interests over America’s to mindlessly serve a single-issue, polarizing, and vindictive ethnic lobby. The passage of this malicious Armenian propaganda, thinly veiled in a political resolution, will prove to be a devastating loss also to the arrogant and hateful Armenian diaspora lobby and aggressive, irredentist and boastful Armenia.
The man who coined the word "genocide", Raphael Lemkin (he wrote the UN's genocide treaty of 1948), said in a 1949 CBS TV interview that the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923 got him interested in the subject years before. Footage is in a PBS film by award-winning filmmaker Andrew Goldberg.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars has said repeatedly that the Armenian genocide was a "genocide." Too bad for Turks!
President Reagan (Proclamation 4838 in 1981) officially acknowledged the Armenian genocide, as did the U.S. House of Representatives (Res. 148 in 1975 and Res. 248 in 1984). This is for those of you who believe the mainstream's media disinformation campaign that the US has never acknowledged the Armenian Genocide. By the way, from 1915 to 1923 Turkey also exterminated the other indigenous Christian groups in the country: Greeks & Assyrians. Turks were not indigenous. They came from Mongolia and Central Asia only a few hundred years before.
Erg?n Kirlikovali - a paid member of Turkish-American association - notorious by his blunt racist trash thrown around on each internet forum touching upon the subject of Armenia. I think the guy deserves some Armenian funding too - as anybody reasonably intelligent reading his postings understands how hopelessly narrow-minded and sick is the narration he is trying to represent. Support Ergun!
While the intentions of Michael Hughes may seem innocent enough ("let's be clear: it was genocide"), his article - I'm assuming unwittingly - plays right into the hands of Genocide deniers!
First: it is the government of Turkey - a foreign entity - that is spending millions annually in Washington for genocide denial - and they seem to have gotten their message to Mr. Hughes quite well. The "Armenian lobby," sir, spends a fraction of what Turkish lobby spends ($40 million a year? that's a laughably high sum).
Second: the "Armenian lobby" consists of American citizens who, as voters, have the right to demand that their representatives reaffirm history and not sell their vote to a foreign (Turkish) lobby and the military-industrial complex. You seem to be oblivious that a foreign entity and the military contractors are merrily working to deny history.
Mark Boyadjian: Hrant Dink has not been convicted for reprinting the interview of his father who asserted that it was Genocide that befell the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia; but because of an article he wrote himself in the Armenian language newspaper Agos published in Turkey where he called the turks "people of dirty, poisened blood". Regardless of his being Armenian this was an offense under Article 301 and he has been convicted, as several turkish journalists have also been in other cases-for different reasons under the same Article.
Here in Turkey we live in peace with our Armenian-Turkish citizens who are hardworkers (just like us, ordinary turkish citizens who work hard to earn a living) and who, after a busy day, find less time than their rich Armenian-American relatives to speculate on history and to obstinate in hate. There are also thousands of illegal workers coming from Armenia to Turkey to earn their bread. Ask them where is the reality. In history or in the kitchen?
Dear Mr Hughes,
It seems that your dislike of the Congress and "Washington lobbyists" has made you blind to the fact that US non-recognition of the Armenian Genocide is one manifestation of the large, quite insidious Turkish Genocide Denial Machine (no one, on the other hand, works to deny the American-Indian Genocide).
I can understand your advocacy for Congressional restraint on non-binding resolutions, but you are mixing one issue (genocide denial) with another (less involved government).
In the process, Genocide Deniers the world over thank you for that (I can't imagine that you are delighted). Should we expect to hear from you next time Congress commemorates the memory of Holocaust victims, sir?
After travelling to both countries and getting an earful about this issue, and then finally sitting down to read several perspectives for myself, I arrived at the conclusion that "genocide" is really an issue of labeling and that really, both sides are wrong. This is very much an issue of "my side, your side and the truth". Both sides committed atrocities and both sides have tried to re-write history, neither one being objective. Don't get me wrong, I feel a lot of warmth and love for both peoples- in all my years of travel nowhere else (except, ironically, these two states with no real diplomatic ties) have I seen such kindness and hospitality. These two peoples used to live side by side for centuries and still share so many of the same values, and both countries have plenty of intelligent historians who can work this thing out without any help from selfish, ignorant foreign politicians. Foreign meddling was a big factor in the horrors of WWI. Let's not repeat that mistake.
Sorry the Armenian Genocide is not in doubt. In fact The United States National Archives and Record Administration holds extensive and thorough documentation on the Armenian Genocide, especially in its holdings under Record Group 59 of the United States Department of State, files 867.00 and 867.40, which are open and widely available to the public and interested institutions. Turkey today not only denies the reality of the Armenian Genocide but also denies the current genocide in Darfur.
Mr. Hughes, your need to water down the Armenian genocide because the American Indians were forgotten victims makes no sense. With your logic one would naturally need to ignore the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodian genocides, in fact all of them. So please, next time specifically include the Holocaust in your rants and see how much credence your logic would muster with your audience. Lets see how much testicular fortitude you have or is it only geared for the Armenians?
bla bla bla,every jerkoff has an opinion but no one is willing to state facts.
According to international law this was genocide, now what happened to Native Americans, Jews, Phillippins, Cambodians, Africans, Assyrians, Greeks, and many many other people is another matter that shouldn't be ignored.
Obama and Clinton just went from lying scumbags to lowlifes like their turkish allies, and Armenian community will never forgive them for this.
I guess we need to consider the "holocaust" as well then huh? The U.S. seems to be sympathetic when it comes to the Jews, but any other race not as much. So if we are being far, and not going to have the "US" as a judge and jury of history, then we should be fair across the board, and not recognize the holocaust as well? This doesnt seem rational does it? Exactly, so the US as a democratic country should at least recognize what is right and recognize the Genocide. A "dictatorial" country like Venezuela has, shoudnt we?
I stopped reading after the first paragraph. I recognize Michael's brand of mental midgetry. Apparently, if I was a naughty boy and sped a few times and never got a ticket, I'm prevented from recognizing or objecting when someone else speeds. This kindergarden brand of morality becomes quite ludicrous when the players are sovereign nations.
Why are American congressmen judging the character of mass killings which occurred nearly a century ago halfway around the world?
The nation accused of committing genocide no longer exists. Every government official who plotted the murders and almost certainly every soldier or civilian who committed a murder is dead. Whether or not the actions technically constituted “genocide” does not affect the obvious brutality and inhumanity of the killings.
ndependent.co.uk, by Robert Fisk -- Once more we have to forget the Armenian Holocaust – the first of the 20th century – in order to appease the Turks. Bill Clinton did it.
George W Bush spinelessly caved in to the Turkish generals. And now our favourite Nobel prize winner – another brave president who promised to acknowledge the Armenian genocide if he was elected and then declined to do so – went whinging and whining to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington and pleaded with them not to tell the truth about the savage rape and murder of 1.5 million Armenian civilians by the Turks in 1915. Good for the committee that it did not give in. But it will do no good.
Mr Hughes,
I am sick and tired of your constant spinning of the despicable rimes Armenian genocide. you only shows that you are willing to play your despicable games with the innocent victims of the horrific crime. SHAME ON YOU. you deserve to be called for what your are a bought and paid turkish STOOGE. May God judge you and your evil turkish paymasters what you justly deserve in the afterlife.
Israel.
Thank you, Mr. Hughes. You are nobody's stooge.
There is no proof of an "Armenian genocide". The legal notion of "genocide" needs intention to exterminate a people; such an intention is absent in Ottoman policy. The Armenians of Istanbul, Edirne, Smyrna, Kastamonu, Antalya, Marash, Aleppo, as well as several thousands of civil servants, artisans, catholics, etc. were spared from forced displacement. Unlike the shameless lies of Armenian propaganda, the displacements exhibited a great deal of variation that depended of many factors, including the geography, the epidemiologic situation and the attitude of local officials. Turkey published many documents, some translated into English, showing that Ottoman State's policy was to insure an orderly process of displacement, that many persons who betrayed the orders were punished.
you are just another plain old turkish paid whore, Michael Hughes.
you troll like idiotic and naked turkish propaganda for "brazenly displaying a combination of meretricious arrogance, political expediency and historical amnesia" is truly stunning.
your lowlife kind will burn in worst recesses of hell. the blood money you're getting form the genocidal turks will stay stuck in your throat and suffocate your dirty mouth.
Congrats michael , you are now an official turkish stooge.
an offical turkish concubine at the dirty turk's harem now.
congratulations to you, again.
The Armenian Americans who post openly racist messages, here and elsewhere, show only that they have no argument to support "genocide" claims, and that their activism is based on racism. In France, at least two Armenian forums were closed because complaints for provocation to racist murder and defamation.
Michael Hughes,
I once again fail to see the importance of your argument.
So what if America recognizes a case of genocide?
You basically say that America committed genocide, so therefore we cannot see another case of it and say, "Hey, yea, it did happen"?
So what if Germany decided to recognize it? Then what? Because they were once responsible for one of the greatest atrocities ever, they cannot recognize this one?
America has long recognized the atrocities against Native Americans, we, America do not for one second ignore this fact. I think it is fair to say that I can speak for the majority of Native Americans, being that I am Native American, in that America has, as a people, moved on.
For all intent and purposes, Natives see ourselves as Americans, and realize we are also Native Americans as a people as well. Yet, we are at peace, we know the past, and we also know America as a nation embrace us. Just look around, we are everywhere, our people, our art, our hist
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history, our culture. It is held up as a precious jewel to be cherished.
So, Michael Hughes, when America speaks, it represents its entire people, its Native Americans included, and therefore have a right to step up and say, “Hey, it happened!”
So, to answer your sarcastic pseudo question: Who made the U.S. judge and jury of Armenian Genocide? Being human gives us that right; you should try it some time.
Read historians who are not manipulated by hidden forces
If the Ottoman Armenians wanted to kill them they would exterminate all Armenians.
Today thousands of Armenians fleeing their country for refuge in Turkey.
There is no logic to all this
it's weird, NO?
Turkey is a land of welcome
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