I've waited long to write this article but decided to do it special for all Armenians around the world. History and especially Turkish history have fascinated me alot since my childhood so it was not coincidence that I collided on the question if the Armenian genocide occured or not. Many Armenians are taught to believe it and Turks were taught that Armenians were all backstabbers. When I did some research on the Armenian genocide I thought it happened since most Western sholars agreed with it untill I started to examine the documents very clearly. In this articlle I will dissect 7 misconceptions that Armenian use to convince other people that the Armenian "genocide" happened. I will try to post so many pictures and sources I can that has to do with this subject. You will see most pictures and documents in my next article.( http://politicsbykubi.blogspot.be/2014/06/the-armenian-issue-archivessourcespictu.html )1) Amount of Armenian DeathsThe Armenian genocide like most Armenians and other people believe is an event where the Ottoman Empire tried to exterminate 1.500.000 million Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire.This is the first lie I've encountered. Where the fuck do people get these numbers from ? I've done some research and found some interesting sources.
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| Armenian sources |
If we look to for example Armenian sources (the Armenian patriarch), we can conclude that there were 1.018.000 million Armenians living in the provinces of Erzurum, Van, Bitlis, Mamouret Ul Aziz, Diyarbakir and Sivas in 1912.These were the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire were the deportations found place. Note that these reports don't include Izmir and Istanbul which were also populated with several wealthy upper class Armenians, so this picture doesn't represent all Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. The total estimated total Armenian population in the whole Ottoman Empire was about 1.200.000 if we believe Ottoman Sources (see picture below), French sources speak of around the 1.300.000 million Armenians.
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| Ottoman sources |
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| French sources |
Now the number of deaths they assert oscillates between 1.5-2 million. But the best contemporary estimates by Armenians or their sympathizers were 300,000-750,000 (compared with 2.4 million Ottoman Muslim deaths in Anatolia but they can all burn in hell since nobody gives a fuck about them). Further, not a single one of those deaths necessarily falls within the definition of genocide in the authoritative Genocide Convention of 1948. It requires proof that the accused was responsible for the physical destruction of a group in whole or in substantial part specifically because of their race, nationality, religion, or ethnicity. A political or military motivation for a death falls outside the definition.Immediately after the war, when events and memories were fresh, Armenians had no incentive to concoct high casualty figures or genocidal motivations for their deaths. Their objective was statehood. Armenians were encouraged by the self-determination concept in President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, (while conveniently forgetting that they were a minority in Eastern Anatolia (see map below) where they hoped to found a new nation). Armenian leaders pointed to their military contribution to defeating the Ottomans and population figures that would sustain an Armenian nation.
Boghus Nubar, then Head of the Armenian Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1919), wrote to the French Foreign Minister Stephen Pichon: "The Armenians have been, since the beginning of the war, de facto belligerents, as you yourself have acknowledged, since they have fought alongside the Allies on all fronts, enduring heavy sacrifices and great suffering for the sake of their unshakable attachment to the cause of the Entente...." Nubar had earlier written to the Foreign Minister on October 29, 1918, that Armenians had earned their independence: "We have fought for it. We have poured out our blood for it without stint. Our people played a gallant part in the armies that won the victory."When their quest for statehood shipwrecked on the Treaty of Lausanne and annexation by the Soviet Union in 1921, Armenians revised their soundtrack to endorse a contrived genocide thesis. It seeks a "pound of flesh" from the Republic of Turkey in the form of recognition, reparations, and boundary changes. To make their case more convincing, Armenians hiked the number of deaths. They also altered their story line from having died as belligerents against the Turks to having perished like unarmed helpless lambs.Vahan Vardapet, an Armenian cleric, estimated a prewar Ottoman Armenian population of 1.26 million. At the Peace Conference, Armenian leader Nubar stated that 280,000 remained in the Empire and 700,000 had emigrated elsewhere. Accepting those Armenian figures, the number of dead would be 280,000. George Montgomery of the Armenia-American Society estimated a prewar Armenian population of 1.4-1.6 million, and a casualty figure of 500,000 or less. Armenian Van Cardashian, in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1919, placed the number of Armenian dead at 750,000, i.e., a prewar population of 1.5 million and a post-war figure of 750,000.After statehood was lost, Armenians turned to their genocide playbook which exploited Christian bigotries and contempt for Ottoman Muslims. They remembered earlier successful anti-Ottoman propaganda. United States Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire during the war, Henry Morganthau, was openly racist and devoted to propaganda. On November 26, 1917, Morgenthau confessed in a letter to President Wilson that he intended to write a book vilifying Turks and Germans to, "win a victory for the war policy of the government." In his biography, "Ambassador Morgenthau's Story," Morgenthau betrays his racist hatred toward Turks ("humanity and civilization never for a moment enters their mind") and unconditional admiration for Armenians ("They are so superior to the Turks intellectually and morally.").
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| Anti-Ottoman propaganda |
British Prime Minister Gladstone's histrionic figure of 60,000 Bulgarian Christians slaughtered in 1876 captured the imagination of the west. The true figure later provided by a British Ambassador was 3,500--including Turks who were first slain by the Christians.From 280,000-750,000, Armenians initially raised their death count to 800,000 to test the credibility waters. It passed muster with uninformed politicians easily influenced by campaign contributions and voting clout. Armenians then jumped the number to 1.5 million, and then 1.8 million by Armenian historian Kevork Aslan. For the last decades, an Armenian majority seems to have settled on the 1.5 million death plateau--which still exceeds their contemporary estimates by 200 to 500 percent. They are now testing the waters at 2.5-3 million killed as their chances for a congressional genocide resolution recede. It speaks volumes that champions of the inflated death figures have no explanation for why Armenians on the scene would have erred. Think of the absurdity of discarding the current death count of Afghan civilians in the United States-Afghan war in favor of a number deduced in the year 2109!Armenians have a genuine tale of woe. It largely overlaps with the tale of tragedy and suffering that can be told by Ottoman Muslims during the war years: 2.4 million deaths in Anatolia, ethnic cleansing, starvation, malnutrition, untreated epidemics, and traumatic privations of war under a decrepit and collapsing Empire.2) Peacefull law abiding Armenians ?
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Armenian rebels
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One of the stories I mostly encounter when I discuss with Armenians is that they always speak black and white about the issue, like if the Armenians were peacefull and innocent people who were brutally killed and raped by the Ottoman Army Which is quite funny since (most) Armenians participated in revolts against the Ottoman empire even before 1915. In 1896 the Van Rebellion began on June 3rd and the rebels planned to take the city and await reinforcements to pour in from Iran and hopefully they believed the Russian army would arrive to aid their Christian brethren. The report indicated that the Armenian Dashnak rebels were preparing for a rebellion months before, even informing the European consuls and diplomats so that they may report it to their media in hopes that it would bring military aid from Europe or Russia.On the night of June 2nd and 3rd Armenian rebels began to fire on soldiers near the Armenian Garden District. When news spread that soldiers were shot and wounded by Armenians, Kurdish tribes asked Sadettin Pasha to join the battle which would have created the massacres that would draw European intervention; hence, Sadettin Pashaordered them to stay away from the city. Sadettin Pasha was careful and did not want to immediately attack the rebel positions fearing a large loss of life of civilian population. Instead terms were offered to the rebels, and European consuls were requested to bear witness to the events so that rumors and false news of massacres would not be spread in Europe. Unfortunately, the Armenians knew they could not last, especially after the Ottoman soldiers took over one outpost very easily and news from Iran that the Armenian rebel forces in Iran would not be coming to help them. Eventually, the rebels slowly fled the city and as they escaped to Iran and Russia they attacked Muslim villages in the Van province. Sadettin Pasha and British Consul Williams reported that approximately 340 Muslims and 219 Armenians had been killed.The Van Revolt of 1896 FailedBut the rebellions didn't, when the Russians attacked the Ottoman empire during world war 1 Armenians started to revolt in high numbers to aid the advancing Russian empire.3) Armenian Women and Children Relocated, means Genocide?
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| The deportations |
One of the methods that Armenians tell that the Ottomans used to kill Armenians were "Death Marches" which seems pretty horrible if you hear it and watch those black and white pictures with exhausted and dead Armenians. What really happened during 1914-1915 is that Armenians started to revolt in order to aid the Russian army that was invading the Ottoman Empire, and like every country of that time the only solution was relocation of the Armenian population to a location far away from the Russians. There was no single demand to kill/exterminate the Armenian population. It was basicly just walking through harsh terrain in a time where there was famine and disease everywhere (while constantly being attacked by Kurdish tribes.) And please don't tell me that it were just Armenians that died of diseases, it's not that certain etnicities are immune. Another reason is why I don't get why Ottoman troops would give them 24 hours to prepare when they were planning to kill them ? Were they going to tell their fucking live while walking them to death ? Why you just fucking shoot them in their village for god's sake instead of walking with them hundreds of miles.In fact the Ottoman Empire combated infectious diseases in addition to the war because of Balkan wars and afterwards first world war. Because of increasing migrations to Anatolia after Balkan wars spread some epidemic diseases, such as cholera, typhoid fever, plaque, dysentery, syphilis. With the start of the First World War, malaria began to spread within civilian population as well as the military. The population fell from power because of illness and therefore could not process the land tax failed to pay taxes. Founded in 1914 with the fight against epidemic diseases was initiated by the Sıhhiye ministry. Quinine was formed as tablets which was imported from Germany by legal regulation and wasdistributed to the public by Ziraat Bank. However, malaria epidemic could not be prevented because of long war years, lack of population, insufficiency of the preventive methods and lack of quinine, and about three quarters of the population caught malaria and in four years 412.000 soldiers had malaria and 20.000 of them died despite of measures.4) Order to kill them ?One of the most popular lies that Armenians tell other people is about the Tehcir law, where they say "The order was giving the kill all Armenians." Well go fucking aheadn here you've got some documents from the Tehcir law, show me where the fuck stands that we ordered somebody to kill them ?
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Tehcir law
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The Tehcir Law (from tehcir, a word of Arabic origin in Ottoman Turkish and meaning "displacement," as defined by the Turkish Language Institute), or, officially, the "Sevk ve İskân Kanunu" (Dispatchment and Settlement Law)) was a temporary law passed by the Ottoman Parliament on May 27, 1915 authorizing the deportation of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population. The budget made free for the Tehcir Law was about 2.250.000 kuruş, which is alot if you imagine that the Ottoman Empire was almost bankrupt.
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| Deportations map |
Like you can see, the Armenians were deported to the Syrian province which still was part of the Ottoman empire at that time. This is the definition of genocide as adopted by the UN General Assembly:
"Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group"
There was no intent to destroy a group labeled as the Armenians by any such group in the Ottoman Empire. There were Kurds who wanted Armenians out of their land. There were Kurds who wanted to work with the Armenians. There were Kurds who wanted tribute from local Armenians. Either way, there were Armenians that were killed by Kurds. There were Ottoman Turks who wanted Armenians as part of their army, their government. In fact, Armenians were inhigh ranking positions within the Ottoman government (such a thing would never have happened with the Jews in Nazi Germany). There were Ottoman Turks who felt, as a Muslim, you must protect other 'people of the book', and respected Armenians as fellow countrymen. There were Turks who felt that they were betrayed by the Armenian rebellions and so did want to kill the Armenians.
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There were Armenians who wanted to remove Turks from their ancient homelands to create a Greater Armenia--these were the people who joined in masses with the Russian army and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. And yes, there was violence. Sometimes to the point of exterminating whole villages to get Muslims off Christian land.
If genocide can be committed by a single person or small groups, then by the definition of the UN, the Turks, Kurds, and Armenians all committed genocide. However, if we were to take it that a large collective can perform genocide. Then it seems to show that neither the Turks, Kurds, or Armenians committed genocide--because each group within them had different goals/priorities. To lump them all into the same boat and blame them for crimes is a pipe dream.
5) How were the conditions of the Armenians who were deported ?
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| Deported Armenians |
Most stories that Armenians will tell you or the films about the Deportations like "Ararat" are mostly black and white stories, where Turks are painted off as brutal and cruell monsters. Does this make sense, well it does and it doesn't. First we must understand that we live in 1915, a time where human rights didn't exist in a place that was an islamic empire, and not in a progressive 21th Western country. So it is logical that some Ottoman troops did abused Armenians in horrofic ways but they were punished for it, the reason why they were punished for it was because you need discipline in an army. Without discipline your army will apart, soldiers won't obey your comands anymore and start looting and raping whole villages which is not really good when you need to fight several enemies in a world war.Most Armenians that were deported by the Ottoman Empire were also excluded from taxes, actually they received money from the Ottoman government when they arrived in Aleppo.
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| Provisional Laws |
Most scholars acknowledge that the Ottoman government did publish decrees and regulations to protect the "lives and properties of Armenians to be transferred." No one denies the 15 regulations (for the well being of Armenians) published following the Tehcir Law on May 30, 1915. Article 4 of the regulations states that "attention will be paid to establishing the villages in places which suit public health conditions, agriculture and construction." Other articles focus on the careful attention that governors must follow to ensure the survival of all Armenians, such as ensuring resettlement villages are no more than 25 kilometers from railroads, board and lodging that need to be provided to Armenians, allocation of land and providing tools and equipment for Armenian farmers who are relocated.6) Orthodox Brothers
This will be a small part, the thing I find the most hilarious is the fact that Greeks and Armenians see themselves as brothers. What I find really funny about that is, that in the Byzantine Empire the emperor was head of the state and head of the Patriarch at the same time, this would enlargen his power. Now to be more specific he was head of the Greek Orthodoc church which was obvious different than the Armenian Orthodox church. This posed a threat to the emperor, therefore Armenians were considered as heathens, only when the Seljuks/Ottomans came in the Armenians got freedom of religion on a respectable level for that time.7) The Hitler Qoute
The quote, though has many similar translations is as follows:Quote:
Our strength is our quickness and our brutality. Genghis Khan had millions of women and children hunted down and killed, deliberately and with a gay heart. History sees in him only the great founder of States. What the weak Western European civilization alleges about me, does not matter. I have given the order—and will have everyone shot who utters but one word of criticism—that the aim of this war does not consist in reaching certain geographical lines, but in the enemies' physical elimination. Thus, for the time being only in the east, I put ready my Death's Head units, with the order to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of the Polish race or language. Only thus will we gain the living space that we need. Who still talks nowadays of the extermination of the Armenians?
The important part is the last sentence that Armenian activists seem to point as evidence for the genocide. This is clearly debunked and I'll explain how.The Argument behind the quote: The goal here is to convince you that Hitler justified the Holocaust and extermination of Jews because no one cared about the genocide of the Armenians. The argument they use with this quote, is a logical fallacy. If you don't punish the Turks for the Armenian Genocide, some crazy dictator like Hitler will see them get away with it, and thus will commit genocide himself. It's an appeal to emotion. It assumes that crazy people need rational justification or only do something evil because they saw someone else get away with it (like a child may steal a cookie from the jar because he saw dad do it).Dr. Heath Lowry wrote after looking through the Nuremberg trials for proof of this quote:Dr. Heath Lowry wrote:
The address was never accepted as evidence in this or any other session of the Nuremberg Tribunal.
There was an attempt to have the quote inserted into the Nuremberg Trials, but the tribunal rejected it because it was a incoherent merger of two Hitler speeches acquired from questionable sources.
Nuremberg trial officials located the true speeches of Hitler during this time and admitted it into evidence. None of them mention Armenians.So how is the word of one crazy dictator somehow evidence? This is like saying "this book says 2+4 = 263 is true, therefore, it must be true." If Hitler had a friend who kept telling him stories about the extermination of Armenians, does that mean Armenians actually faced extermination? Was Hitler a historian? The premise of the argument is that it is assumed the genocide is true when that has never been proven.Everyday however, Armenians mention this quote as if it is absolute proof that the genocide was real and that others are using it to justify more genocide.People are reluctant to question every detail, so fabricating new evidence may be discredited by historians but it if it is repeated enough times, even educated people will believe it to be true. Conspiracy theorists use this technique to flood the victim with false facts and false evidence in an effort to wear you down and make you believe.
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