Condoleezza Rice: Drop Armenian Genocide Bill
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the big guns are still out against House Resolution 106 recognizing the Armenian Genocide which is or was scheduled to be put before the U.S. Congress for a full vote next month. As has been mentioned on this blog time and time again, such resolutions are not new and the outcome has to date always been the same.
That is, citing national security concerns and foreign policy objectives, whoever is in the White House — Democrat and Republican alike — kill such bills before they can reach the floor. Now is no exception, with AFP reporting that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is urging U.S. lawmakers to drop the bill because of a strategic relationship with the modern-day Republic of Turkey.
“This is a very delicate time with Turkey,” she told the House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, which voted two weeks ago to label the Ottoman Empire’s World War I massacre of Armenians as genocide.
“We have extremely important strategic interests with the Turks,” Rice said, appealing to the House as a whole not to vote on the controversial resolution.
“This was something that was a horrible event in the mass killings that took place, but at the time of the Ottoman Empire. These are not the Ottomans,” she said of the modern-day Turkish state.
Rice on Tuesday held talks with Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, and she told the House panel that she had urged both the Armenians and Turks to work together on bridging their historical differences. “But I continue to believe that the passage of the… Armenian genocide resolution would severely harm our relationships with Turkey,” the secretary of state said.
[…]
Some of the House members told Rice that the resolution was never intended to be a slight on Turkey itself. But in any case, support for the genocide tag appears to be waning in the full House following Turkey’s threat to cut off its logistical support for U.S.-led war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mrs Rice is wrong . The Congress should drop the HR 106 not because of the strategic interests of the US in Turkey, but because of the fact that nothing occurred in April 1915 onwards that could be called as “genocide”.
Comment by kubilay — October 25, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
Oh, haha, real creative suggestion kubilay. I suggest you get out of your sinking ship of denial now. Don’t you think if “there was no genocide” was a tenable position the administration and Congressional opponents would be all over it? Notice how not a single one of them have brought up a hint of doubt that it might not have been genocide, or suggested that idiotic “civil war” notion (though some of the more uninformed members of the press have- once this became a huge issue everyone with a blog or microphone suddenly found themselves Ottoman experts). Unfortunately some Turks might see the US’s refusal to use the g-word as vindication for their own ideas on what 1915 really was, but they should notice that those who refuse to use the word, for stated political reasons instead of historical, also refuse to dabble in the Turkish government’s inane opinion either.
Comment by Paul — October 25, 2007 @ 11:20 pm
I don’t think much more needs to be said other this, to be honest. Basically, the guy who invented the word did so with the Armenian and Jewish experience as its basis.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200710120004
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15264313
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Lemkin
Is there anything more than can be said given this fact?
Comment by Onnik — October 26, 2007 @ 12:29 am
Ottomans never had the “intention” to wipe out Armenians just because they were Armenians or Christians. Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire betrayed their own country, their own people and revolted against their own state, cooperating with the brutally invading Tsarist Russian troops the lands of the Ottoman empire by cutting the supply routes of the Ottoman Army intent to fight against the occupying Russian forces. They massacred in the rank and file of the Russian Army, almost half of the Muslim population of Van after which the “relocation Decree” of the Ottoman Government proclaimed and took effect.
On the other hand ,Jews were the good citizens of Germany, fought and died for their country-Germany in the First World War. That’s why the end solution of Jews in Germany during the 2nd World War is Genocide( another prominent act of genocide, in addition to Darfur, is the Algerian genocide committed by France. They outrooted the whole Algerian-Arab culture, as rightly confessed by the Algerian President though nobody took notice of his pronouncements except that of certain French Statesmen who contended that these issues ” should be left to the historians- typical Christian imperialist double standards)
Lemkin, a prejudiced Christian coined the word ” genocide” unconcious of what really happened in the year 1915 in Anatolia . He was probably inherently an anti Muslim, anti Turk of which he himself was unaware of. Such fixations by which the so called civilized Europeans invented the terms such as ” Turk’s head, tête de Turc” etc. exist even today.
Calling certain actions as ” genocide” is not a a matter of “Coffee House “gossip politics nor can it be utilised for the the defense of ill-conceived knowledge evolved through impartial information. The Shoa is subtantiated by the Nurnberg Trials. And what attributed to infamous Hitler’s famous saying is simply incorrect, a slander on Turks.
Shortly the Armenian ” genocide” claims is wanting of any international judicial backing. Trying to get the “genocide” accepted through the parliaments decisions of many countries may give self satisfaction to those pro-genocide claimers but they bear little value. The truth, if we are looking for it, will depend on earnest, rational and reasonable dialogue and discussion among the contenders of both parties, and by no means on slandering, intimidations, assasinations etc. as have been the practices of Armenian terrorists. Buying the votes of corrupt parliament members will not help in the long run. Even finding, buying “quislings” among the so-called Turkish historians such as Taner Akcam &co will not help!
I strongly believe that there so many reasonable, truth seeker Armenians in Armenia, Diaspora and Turkey, as I see them among my good Armenian friends.
We, Turks and Armenians must be ready to face the truth, but stop arguing that “my truth is the best and you have to submit, I know and I’ll speak; you will not”! Such behaviours sharpens the opposite feelings of the other party and leads to unforunate augmentation of dangerous nationalistic feelings among reasonable people.
Turks and Armenians share many cultural values, they are not very different from each other, and this closeness must not be allowed to fall victim to inhuman antagonistic behaviour which renders itself to the misuse of exploiters of circumstances.
Comment by kubilay — October 26, 2007 @ 2:04 am
According to this guy’s blog I’ve been following in many Armenian genocide-related threads over the past week or two, he refutes that by saying flat out that Lemkin was incorrect and was misled by faulty evidence. He claims now thanks to (insert list of the same old-same old Lewis, McCarthy & Co. list) we know the truth and that Lemkin was wrong.
http://mvdg.wordpress.com/
I guess if you are going to be stubborn, there are ways around the otherwise ironclad fact that genocide was created with the Armenian example in mind. Denialists will be denialists and not even the most blatant truths will change that it seems.
Comment by Paul — October 26, 2007 @ 2:17 am
That’s not true. Murtha, for instance, said: “I don’t know whether it was a genocide or not.”
If you make sweeping statements like that, you should be able to back it up Paul. Otherwise, make them less sweeping.
O, and yes, it was a civil war - the Armenians rebelled against the Ottomans, seized the city of Van, for instance, the list goes on and on. The Armenians collaborated with the Russians against the Ottomans. There’s no use in denying that.
Exactly.
Preach it! The bully tactics of the Armenian lobby should be exposed.
And - it’s terrible what happened to many Armenians, but it’s also terrible what Armenian militias did to Ottoman (Turkish) Muslims.
Perhaps it’s time for both sides to aknowledge that they made each other suffer, and move on.
Comment by Michael van der Galiën — October 28, 2007 @ 10:34 pm
That’s not true. Murtha, for instance, said: “I don’t know whether it was a genocide or not.”
Wow Michael, that’s a resounding ring of support for the Turkish thesis right there. I am taken aback at it’s strength and confidence.
Murtha, who is a member of the Turkish caucus and has always been an outspoken supporter of the country because of his military interests, clearly is saying there that he is not well-versed in the events and so cannot speak on whether it was a genocide or not. Or it’s a weasel-phrase to avoid having to either deny that it was one or speak with confidence that the ‘jury is still out’. Either way, I suggest Mr. Murtha spend five minutes looking into the research that has been done. Feigning ignorance does not reflect well on anyone.
“and yes, it was a civil war - the Armenians rebelled against the Ottomans, seized the city of Van, for instance, the list goes on and on. ”
Which is why your list ends there. The citizens of Van were suffering under an oppresive Ottoman governor who had it out for them. Meanwhile notice how Van is the one and only event you ever bring up at your blog, etc. as evidence that Armenian revolutionaries “took over cities”. The events of Van are described as if Armenians everywhere were behaving in the same manner and everyone was throwing over their town governments and wreaking havoc. I’m astounded that someone could remain so historically ignorant for so long- I don’t get how people continue to claim the Armenian population was in outright revolt all over the empire despite there being no notice to it or other examples you can even bring up. There’s no there there, and yet you continue to trot out this dead horse and pretend it can stand.
And the notion that “Armenians were traitors to their government”, the same government which had massacred them in huge numbers since 1894, the same government which had recently adopted pan-Turkic policies and wanted a “Turkey for the Turks”. The notion that sick decrepid empires deserve loyalty from their second-class citizens and that only their subjects are able of committing treason, as opposed to the fact that their government had long ago betrayed them and multiple times, is absurd and sets a dangerous precedent.
Comment by Paul — October 29, 2007 @ 6:58 pm
Relying on someone who has no idea about the country is the science. If you support what I said you are an objective man, If don’t you are most probable paid by Turks. If you prove what you say it is a lie, but If you support my lie you are the good guy. What I see from all these Armenian arguments and their web pages exactly this. Go and check it. So what kind of physcological mode is this. Think about it. If you know someone like this how you would called him? Do you know someone like this, think about it.
Comment by Memduh — November 3, 2007 @ 1:36 am
Question for the realities. Do you know how many soldiers that ottoman empires had in 1915? May be you know at the time of 1915 ottoman empire had different battle fields, for example, yemen, saudi arabia, syriya, algeria, egypt, palestain, iraq, balkans, caucassasus, in another terms almost 10 different places. Now let us ask the question again, how many soldiers ottoman had in this places. Is there anybody who knows this fact. I know non of you had any wonder to learn this fact. As you may not know in 1921,1922 Turkey had an army in total 92.000 soldiers. That means that ottoman even had a little army at this time. Now the question who killed this 1.5 million armenians, children, women or elder people. All the statistics says another story here.
Comment by memduh — November 3, 2007 @ 1:41 am
As you all know that statistics is true lier. When I ask the question of what was the population of ottoman and armenians in it in 1915. I am sure that there is not going to be a clear and satisfying answer for this. when you say almost extinct the armenians, I have to ask where is today’s armenian population coming from today. And how much should be their population in 1915 to reach this number today. When you make a calculation that you will easily see that, with an almost extinct population today’s armenian population all over the world should be around 2 million not 8-10 million. This means that almost extinct is almost lie. They immigrated to different places all over the world. Look at the numbers first. Don’t be so naive. Where is rational US people who believes science.
Comment by memduh — November 3, 2007 @ 1:46 am