Turkey Still Denying Genocide
Turkey has recalled its ambassador in protest of a House resolution that recognizes Turkey’s massacare of Armenians for what it was: genocide. The Armenian Genocide saw the Ottoman Empire kill anywhere from 500,000 to 1.5 million Armenians and Ottoman Christians during forced round-ups and deportations, measures that are thought to have inspired Hitler. What happened needs to be recognized, whether or not Turkey wants to face it’s own history.
UPDATE: The issue was large enough to be front page news at the time and pull American’s into the international community. See New York Times articles from the era, using the search terms “armenians massacre”.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
okay someone help me out here…am I missing something? Why are we worried as a nation to classify these actions as genocide which happened 80 years ago. Is it to be equal or give the Armenians some sort of lip service to say that we are sorry for what happened to you. Its not going to fix anything. I doubt that anyone who was in power at the time of these atrocities are still remaining in power to accept their punishment. (While we’re at it, why don’t we try to prosecute the person who invented slavery?)
Besides, don’t we have enough other things to worry about today? I think we already have enough fires burning in the middle east, why start another one? Why not focus on the tragedies of today or recent times? Darfur, Sudan, Somalia, these types of crises where maybe we could still take action. Why not try to extinguish the hate and other issues related to racism in America?
October 11th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Well, being sorry for Armenians at that time is definitely good thing to do, and we should remember all of them. But, How about 2 million Turks died at the same period by Armenian terrorists? Turkey does not deny the massacre of Armenians, but Armenians deny their killings of Turkish people. Same terrorist groups who did the Turkish massacre are governing the Armenia right now! So, why not just sit down and remember and respect all human kinds suffered at that period instead of putting more weight on one side? Maybe I should chance the question, what do we really want from this senate hearings?
October 11th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Alog with Turkey, George Bush is dening the genocide… Now when Iranian Ahmadenjad questions genocide of Jews by German, the entire media was after him … Now Bush is doing the same… I gess Bush has become Ahmadenajad…now.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
“let the historian do the history work, and keep it clean from politics ” is the Turkey’s current position.
However any attempt to form a joint academic comity on the subject have been denied by Armenia so far.
Thus Turkey find the current senate resolution only as political, and will probably do everything in power to counter it.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Wait let me get this right, the Turks conquered Armenia around 1000AD, then waited 900 years while giving the right to Armenians to keep their custom, language, religion and judicial system and then when the Armenians finally said after 900 years “the Turks are not that bad” killed them all..Hmm, something is missing here.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
anon 2 - 2 million Turks? Where are you pulling that number from?
anon 3 - This has nothing to do with Iran’s denial of the Holocaust as an intimidation tactic.
anon 4 - Turkey is making it political. The simple statement of fact in and of itself is not political. It is Turkey’s denial and “offense” that is making it political.
anon 5 - Jews lived peacefully in Germany for many years and suddenly the Germans killed them, what happened there? The Ottoman Empire was on the decline and the growth of Ottoman Christians and Armenians and their identity stood in the way of Ottoman expansion and hold on power. To shore up waning holds on power, leadership promoted Turkish nationalism and superiority and stoked the same sentiments among Kurds, turning both against Armenians and Christians who would not fall in line with Ottoman and Muslim thought. It was a shift in political and cultural identity that promoted “ethnic cleansing” and led to genocide.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
How far back should we go to recognize and identify countries that inflicted genocide on a group of people? Are we going to put them up against the wall for international scrutiny? I’m not sure why our elected officials are spending our dime on this issue when we have MUCH more pressing dilemmas facing us.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Wow, obviously what happened in the Ottomon Empire over 80-90 years ago is a horrible thing. But tell me what good does it do to accuse the current Turkish government of genocide? While your at it, lets pass a bill condeming the Ottomon Empire’s siege of Vienna. Good grief. How far back do you want to go?
Turkey didn’t even have DEMOCRATIC RULE at that time. It was in complete turmoil. If you want to blame somebody, blame the government of the Young Turks, as they were called, who were in control at the time. They were also known as the Three Pashas: Enver Pasha, Talat Pasha, and Cemal Pasha. The sultan at this time has no real political power. They were the ones responsible. They have already been killed for thier actions and condemned by the next sultan, Mehmed V, who also condemned hundreds of others in the killings. They have already been blamed in international trials and court marshalled in thier own country all this almost 100 years ago.
Are we going to pass something against all our allies next? The French treated the Algerians horribly. The Soviet Union threw people in the gulags. The British and Australians could be accused of their genocide against the aborigines.
Turkey could just as well condemn the United States of genocide for our mass murder of the Native American peoples from the time we landed in Jamestown until the early 20th century. Or for our enslavement of African slaves.
This is a stupid stupid move by my Democratic Party. They are waisting tax payer dollars and time on this. If this is a cheap ploy to help get us out of Iraq, there are other ways we can do that without making more enemies than we already have.
As much as I hate Bush, he is actually being the sane one here.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
After begining of the World War I, Armenians started to attack Turkish town and kill Turkish people. Also they massacred Turkish ambassadors in Paris. Aren’t they genocide?
After the World War I, England made some investigations abour so-called Armenian genocide. Why don’t they support Armenian? Because they have evidence that both sides attacked each other and there was no genocide.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
“Wow, obviously what happened in the Ottoman Empire over 80-90 years ago is a horrible thing. But tell me what good does it do to accuse the current Turkish government of genocide?”
You haven’t read the resolution have you. the only ones saying this are the Turkish press. Are you in Turkey because no where else can this bizzare statement about the content of the resolution be found.
My sister called from Istanbul with the same bogus udnertstanding of trhe congressional resoltuon.
The only thing having to do with the the current govnerment ot Turkey is they are making MAKING IT WORSE.
This was a genocide. The resolution does not blame the Turkish people. The resolution came about because of the Turkish government’s campaign of denial around the world.
I am ashamed of this action by our government today — as are many Turks.
As far as 2 million Turks killed this number is almost entirely Ottoman military deaths and almost all fighting against foreign forces in places like Galipoli — where more Armenian soldiers serving in the Ottoman Empire died defending Turkey than did ethnic Turks!
Nihat
October 12th, 2007 at 2:11 am
This blogg seems to be infested with Turkish propagandists…
October 12th, 2007 at 4:25 am
I guess Armenian American lobby groups have paid pretty good money in the past and currently to the people who voted in favor of this resolution. Good job!
October 12th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Right… and Turkey has made no payments or threats to stop people from even DISCUSSING the genocide.
Also - lets get our facts straight here. There were roughly 70 Turkish diplomats killed after the genocide. Armenia never hides the fact that they had something to do with it. The Turks should learn - and learn well - from this. Let me also remind you all that the Ottoman Empire was overthrown by the government that rules you now. Were they overthrown because they were such nice people? I don’t think so. They were all people who were about to be tried for the genocide. OTTOMAN TURKS were hanging local gov’s of villages and towns as a response right afterwards. When the new regime took over they wanted to distance themselves with the attrocities,so what did they do? They ignored them.
Do your research people